Sheltering in place at our beach house.

Time to finish the posts about our last couple’s therapy appointment in Los Angeles. It seems so long ago. The coronavirus situation hadn’t even gathered steam at that point. We were still in the throes of mourning my dad’s passing, everyone had plenty of toilet paper. The toilet paper thing is still odd to me. I mean I get that people freaked out and hoarded toilet paper like it was the end of times, but why is it still a problem? Why aren’t the stores properly stocked, now? We actually haven’t purchased a roll of toilet paper since this pandemic started. Not sure if it’s an indicator of how important toilet paper is to us in general, i.e., we always have a back stock, or if we just don’t use as much toilet paper as the average family. We’re not hoarders, but having a stash of paper products IS pretty important. Honestly, since we’ve all been quite healthy, if we do run out of toilet paper and can’t find more in the stores, we have a rather large Kleenex tissue stock we will start using. Not that I intended for this post to venture into bathroom habits, but we are also quite fortunate to have invested in bidet-style toilets in both our houses. It’s one of our favorite aspects of Japan life, and so we splurged. Ours are actually German-made, Duravit brand. Really handy in times like these.

Back to therapy. As previously discussed, we were learning how to talk to and listen to each other in a respectful, loving manner. It seems like a couple with 35+ years behind them should know how to do this, right? Unfortunately, most of us were never taught how to couple. Sometimes we have decent role models, sometimes we don’t. Two distinctly different people coming together, baggage and all. Everyone has baggage. It’s called life. Sometimes we lose respect for each other and communication really breaks down, and sometimes we just stop caring. In our case, we respect and love each other, but are still incredibly fallible when it comes to kind and loving communication. Betrayal throws a wrench in things. It usually means one person in the relationship is really really fucked up. Sometimes both, but in our case, it was Blue Eyes. His upbringing, his childhood wounds, his addiction, his brokenness that caused the pain and suffering we have been going through as a couple for the past six years. That being said, we’re both struggling with how to communicate, post discovery.

The trauma therapist uses, as one of her many tools, the Imago Relationship Method for couple’s dialogue:

There is frequently a connection between frustrations in adult relationships and early childhood experiences. Childhood feelings of abandonment, suppression or neglect will often arise in a marriage or committed relationship. When such “core issues” repeatedly come up with a partner, they can overshadow all that is good in a relationship and leave one to wonder whether he or she has chosen the right mate.

Through Imago Relationship Therapy, couples can understand each other’s feelings and “childhood wounds” more empathically, allowing them to heal themselves and their relationships and move toward a more “Conscious Relationship.”

Imago Relationships

With the little bit of time we had left in our four hour therapy session (previously discussed anger and fear) I will lovingly call this part of therapy, resentment. The therapist started with Blue Eyes. She really wasn’t so much concerned about what we were saying as that we were able to follow the prescribed steps for Imago dialogue.

STEP ONE: MIRROR

In the Mirroring step, when your partner pauses, or perhaps when you have asked them to pause, you will repeat back everything you heard them say.  You may paraphrase, but you will mirror without analyzing, critiquing, modifying or responding.  

How to Mirror:  “If I got it, I think you said…”  or “So you’re saying…”  
Ask if there’s more:  “Is there more?”  or “Tell me more.”

Blue Eyes started. He took this opportunity to talk about things I do that bug him. And once he got going, he really got going. Again, this was a training session, so it was supposed to be about learning the method, but Blue Eyes obviously really wanted it to be a bitch session about me, and about all the things in our life that he hates doing. And because all I could do was listen and repeat back, it was all very one-sided. First he started in with my watching television. Then my horrid habit of eating while watching TV, and he continued on from there. My part in this went a little like this:

“So, if I heard you correctly, you are saying you really dislike my watching television. Is there more?”

“I think you said, you hate it when I eat while watching television because you don’t like eating alone in the kitchen and you don’t want to eat in front of the television. Is there more?”

“If I hear you correctly, you hate doing ALL the laundry, especially all the towels and sheets. Is there more?”

“I think you are saying that you really don’t like going to the grocery store alone. Is there more?”

Well, I think you get the drift. There were more personal things as well and for some reason he didn’t really get the fact that he had gone a bit too far. It was like someone had given him permission to spew out all the resentment he had for me and my habits and also what was obvious is that he HATES doing household tasks ALONE. In other words, I am supposed to give up all of my personal time and hobbies so that I can be his constant task buddy. And, along with everything I do, I am supposed to do all the things he doesn’t like to do. And when I am tired from working until 8pm and all I want to do is sit down and watch a British Crime Drama, I really just shouldn’t do that because he doesn’t like it. The ironic thing here, though, is that there is this new Star Trek show called Picard… Blue Eyes is OBSESSED with it. He purchased CBS just to watch this one show. His whole Thursday is centered around this show and he wants everyone to watch it with him. Remember, he HATES doing things ALONE. I simply do not like the show, but both The Peacemaker and I sit there every week and watch the show with him. Poor Blue Eyes. Life is just so difficult for him.