It is faith which moves mountains because it gives the illusion that mountains move… Illusion is perhaps the only reality in life.

The truth deserves a bodyguard of lies.

Those are my principles and if you don’t like them…well, I have others.

Much of what we deal with in counseling has to do with discriminating between reality and illusion, and our wishes about what could be or should be.  This is particularly true when working with couples because the relationship is influenced by what’s in the recesses of each person’s private thoughts, their fantasies, and what their personal history has taught them to believe about themselves.

We (and our relationships) are often limited by who we believe ourselves to be.  Sometimes we simply prefer our own descriptions of personal reality. But those beliefs can be walls barring future growth.

I believe God created us to seek more deeply and to go beyond our walls, self-deceptions and illusions of what seems to be.  The quotes above have a certain cynical wisdom to them in that they suggest we prefer not to know the truth.

That thought is captured best in my fourth quote from Jack Nicholson’s character, Col. Nathan Jessep, in A Few Good Men. In his famous courtroom speech he said “You can’t handle the truth! Son, we live in a world that has walls.”

Of course, Jessep was right.  Those walls may be our own illusions, which protect us as surely as Jessep self-righteously thought he was doing.  These quotes speak a limited truth, though.

Walls, illusions, and self-deceptions confine us as well as protect us.  History seems to show that walls or defenses can go up, sometimes for very, very good reasons. But, in safer times we must tear them down, in order to grow freedom within and between others.  Bringing down walls requires courage and strength of heart.  Realities can and do change.  We can protect ourselves not only with self-perpetuating lies, illusions, and endless adaptations of principle, but also with our truth and with our dreams.

A last quote:

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.

Were you wondering who we were quoting?   The first quote is from Benito Mussolini.  The second, from Winston Churchill.  The third, from that cynical observer of the human condition, Groucho Marx.  And lastly, Eleanor Roosevelt.

We spent the week doing what many people do at this time of year – getting together with family and friends and going to movies. We’re blessed to have our sons and their families here in Chicago and Naperville so we had our Chanukah and two birthdays in the space of a month.

At home I silently also worked on my cartoon collection gleaned from the newspapers.  That collection of cartoons on individual and couples counseling, patients, male-female relationships, men and our foibles, marriage, food and weight, stress, anger and spirituality took hours of my time given that I had 3 years worth of cartoons to catalogue.  It’s my thing, an outgrowth of something I’ve been doing since I was a kid.  I do appreciate the humor of absurdity and caricature which for me has its own spiritual perspective on life. The silence of doing this is good for my heart.

When I wasn’t in silent tenseness about the depressing news or enjoying family and friends over the holidays, I was my “busy beaver” self, paying attention to our year-end finances.  The same attention I pay to cartoons I pay to our finances (although luckily our financial picture is not as absurd as the cartoons that I collect).  This all leads to discussions with Raye about where we’ve been and where we are going in our finances and life goals.  Do you pay attention to where you’ve been and where you are going financially in some regularized manner and, if coupled, with your partner?  If not, perhaps you should consider how to increase financial security and intimacy with your partner.  Yes, “financial intimacy.”  Raye and I find it draws us closer, even when we have some tough discussions about what we want for ourselves in the coming years.

We manage a lot in our lives as you surely do.  We manage our finances, our home, our health, our relationships and psyches, our storage of “stuff “and information, and our time. We strive to simplify our lives and pay attention to what is important.  It pays to take time to find the humor in our private human comedy. God gave us this gift to do so, so open it up regularly in 2013.

In the spirit of lightness in this human world of self-importance and tragedy here are two quotes that stood out for me during my recent time away from practice. One is from that famous philosopher “Anon” which I’m currently keeping on my desk to deflate my ego:

It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others.

The other is from the comedian, Lilly Tomlin, who said:

I try to be cynical, but it’s hard to keep up.

Occasionally, we have someone who accommodates our specific request with “It was my pleasure,” meaning “it gives me pleasure to give good service to you.”  This sense of service is now so uncommon that we take secret delight in hearing the phrase.  Pleasure in giving good service in any relationship is an added value and always welcomed. Don’t you feel better when you receive and give pleasure?

Lately, I’ve been providing some needed services to my wife, Raye, who had hip joint replacement surgery on September 25^th.  I spent a night in her hospital room making sure her needs were attended to, looked into rehab facilities one afternoon, made sure one resident physician did his job after an urgent call from her, and generally made sure I was “available.”  I can’t say it was pleasurable, but I did feel I did what was needed to make her stays more comfortable.  I was there for her and she really appreciated it. That was my pleasure.

When Raye came home from rehab two weeks after surgery, she still needed much attending to and I was able to take time from practicing to provide some needed home services and coordinated a list of people who offered to help.  There were some fun and warm moments between us when I was providing certain services, like gently messaging her thigh when it was in pain or when she needed lotion applied to her legs and cute toes after showering.  When she thanked me I responded with “It was my pleasure.”  She got it.

I also made meals, washed and ironed some of her clothes, kept the house tidy so she wouldn’t trip with her walker or cane over the “stuff” I can leave about, coordinated calls offering to help out and I can’t tell you the number of times I hauled her portable wheel chair out of the trunk to take her where she needed to go.  Going out of your way for someone, is always appreciated.  Going out of your way for someone you love and loves you adds good memories to a life together.

Have you been there, will you be there, for your partner when they actually need you?  Do you want to be there? Will it cause tension or will you feel good about providing needed help, even when it’s an inconvenience.  Will there be pleasure in giving service.

Real problems should bring couples closer together, not further apart.  I hear a lot of concerns about this in my office.  “Not being there” feels like a betrayal whether the “missing” spouse is male or female.  Bitterness about feeling abandoned in their legitimate needs is a leading reason couples seek counseling.  Don’t let each other down –again!

Raye is now rapidly becoming more independent and welcomes her recovery as I do.  More of my time is my own again.  But something obviously special happened during this time together.  The pleasures experienced give us courage to face our aging.   That’s no small accomplishment!

My cowrie shell contains more than the wind on a far away beach.  It is a connection I have to my mother and the ability she had to take little everyday things and imagine their possibilities. Having little money never limited my mother’s imagination, nor mine.  The cowrie shell was an “evocative object.”  Sherry Turkle edited a book called “Evocative Objects: Things we Think With” in which she says evocative objects are those “emotional and intellectual companions that anchor memory, sustain relationships, and provoke new ideas”. Until I read her book I had no idea that my cowrie shell had, in a sense, been written about. I only knew that it was important enough to me to “hold on to.”

We hold on to the things we have some attachment to, some dependency on, or that recall relationships.  We keep them because we simply feel good having them around, even if only in a box where we can discover a part of ourselves again when we least expect it.  As I sit writing this essay today, I see my cowrie shell next to my iphone and smile at the ironic connection between them. Wonder and imagination creates our futures.  Guess I’m keeping my cowrie shell for the rest of my life.

What “things” do you keep somewhere that are treasures to you and no one else? Maybe others would think of it as junk that should be thrown out. I hope you have something that anchors you to someone you loved, to some place or experience you treasured, or perhaps to your history or ancestry as a person.  You may want to write about your special “evocative object” as I’m now doing and re-experience the relationship you have with it and how that becomes you.

A few years ago I realized that marriage, a partnership between men and women as equals, comes out of the very democratic culture we celebrate on Independence Day.  After all, American democracy is about equality.  It’s about relationships and our obligations to others who are equal to us.   In America I have the right to free speech, even with my wife, but I also have the obligation to listen to her, to even actually consider what she is saying.  And she has the same rights and obligations. That’s the American Way.

So many couples I see are failing to speak to each other in ways that the other has the potential to hear.  If only they were willing to open up their ears to listen to their partner as an equal.  As a counselor in the true sense of that word, to give counsel, I’m obligated to seek to understand the stuck structure of a relationship and the repetitive, hurtful ways couples relate to one another.  But from there, we find another more useful structure to help partners feel again like equals pursuing happiness with each other.

With the above in mind, I would like to offer an adaptation of an essential section of the Declaration of Independence for American couples:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator, with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  That to secure these rights amongst couples, marriage was instituted for couples, deriving their just powers from the consent of those who chose one another; that whenever any form of partnership becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of either partner to alter or abolish it and to institute a renewed partnership, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.  Prudence, indeed, will dictate that partnerships long established should not be changed for light and transient causes.

Our American sense of relationships between equals, expressed in the Declaration of Independence, extends into the intimacy of our lives with each other.  When that happens the fireworks are awesome.

Barney Isenberg would not have wanted anyone to make too much of a fuss about him, even in death. He needed no memorials nor did he leave material possessions to remember him by. He often referred to himself as just an “average Joe” who left no big footprints in the sands of time. He required little for himself and lived a simple life. He never even had a credit card. Somehow, though, this simple guy had a huge positive impact on our lives. He asked little for himself and rarely complained. Others enjoyed his simplicity, loving kindness, humility, lack of a deceiving nature, and quiet sense of humor and smile. His core was a goodness that never asked of people what they wouldn’t give willingly themselves.

Shortly before my Dad died, Raye and I took a workshop called “Everyday Holiness” dealing with those character traits that make for simple holiness. I realized that much of what I was seeking in soul growth had already been in my life, in this “average Joe” who liked a cigar and worked in a factory. My father couldn’t have guessed that he was holy. He had no way of teaching me with words because words eluded him. He just lived his life as best he could, was a kind, gentle man and I, late in life, found holiness in him just as there was in my grandpa before him. If my father could read these words he would say I was talking crazy again, but I know he would love me for my love of him. He had a lot of gratitude for what people gave him. That, my friends, is holiness.

And, have you noticed that some words have meanings that are personal to you? With words we label people and things, for better and for worse. Perhaps you have said “And what do you mean by THAT” or I didn’t mean THAT.” A therapist spends much of the day moving beyond hurtful blaming labels to discover a client’s true meaning. Words have such power.

During my counseling career meanings of words have changed. There was a time when we hardly ever helped couples with their sexual life. That was back when a man could blame his wife for not being aroused by his manly charms. Women were labeled “frigid” and sought counseling for their “frigidity.” Men might be cold, but would never seek counseling for their failures in the romance department. Men rarely “need” help with anything because “needing” is a humiliating concept for a man. Women “need,” but men “want.” The fact of the matter is, both men and women feel deeply but don’t understand each other’s language.

Another psychological term now out of favor is “neurotic”, which got misused in arguments by saying to a spouse: “You’re completely neurotic.” Later “neurotic” became “dysfunctional.” At least it was an improvement on being “neurotic.” Whereas dysfunctional people can be counseled to be functional through short-term “skill development,” neurotics needed longer-term “treatment.”

Now I’ve noticed the term “dysfunctional” has lost its appeal in the eternal blame game. Dysfunctional behavior and communication has given way to “controlling behavior” and being “emotionally abusive.” Being told you’re controlling is common place, but calling someone “emotionally abusive” hits between the eyes and is equivalent to an act of war. I’m sure “controlling” and “emotionally abusive” will give way to other terms which will speak to the same struggles we have with each other.

When people just complained about their spouse “nagging” home life was simpler. George Carlin, that great comedian of the English language, would have had a field day with the names we call each other.

Our words form our personal realities. Certainly our partners will argue about the reality of the labels we put on them. That’s what gets discussed in counseling sessions. Our goal in counseling is to minimize the blame game to get at heart of what people really need and want from within themselves and each other. We simply seek for our clients to have a “gay life” again.

Many couples in troubled marriages wait too long to get help. By the time both spouses agree to counseling, the relationship has often been strained to the breaking point. A common scenario is one partner wants to go and the other does not. As a result, some couples therapists are adapting traditional couples-counseling techniques for use with one spouse only.

Colleen Orme, 48, a marketing consultant living in Great Falls, Va., did this several years ago, after her marriage hit a rough patch. She and her husband sought counseling, but after Mr. Orme decided to discontinue couples therapy, she completed the sessions without him. “We spend a lot of time in marriages trying to fix the other person,” she says. “I changed my approach and decided to focus on how I can become happy.”

At the University of Denver, unpublished results from a five-year longitudinal study of 300 long-term couples suggest that a month or so after receiving relationship-skills training, those who got it as individuals saw as much improvement in their relationships as those who got the training as a couple. A year and a half after the training, the Denver researchers found that couples where the women attended sessions alone reported being happier than couples where the men attended alone.

Howard Markman, a psychologist and the study’s lead researcher, says the women learned relationship skills more easily and were better at teaching them to their partners. Women also are more comfortable talking about feelings and the strong emotions that arise in couples therapy.

The process works best if both partners participate, experts say. But if just one partner is willing, a couples-based approach can be substantially more effective for the marriage than traditional individual psychotherapy, Dr. Markman says. This is because couples therapy teaches practical skills for improving the relationship; individual therapy often focuses on uncovering patterns from childhood and other experiences.

For a more in depth look at Elizabeth Bernstein’s article, including a specific “how to” toolbox, click here

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