Couples About To Divorce: Commit To Couple Therapy Before Talking To A Solicitor

Some couples about to divorce go to the solicitor before they exhaust their options. Once they go to the solicitor they find themselves in different camps, receiving advice to protect their rights according to the law. We know, however, that the Universal Laws have prevalence over Man Made Laws. When we don’t respect the Universal Laws we increase our suffering. One of these laws is that we need to combine the language of the soul, body and mind. Solicitors often speak the language of the mind and logic… It is their training and profession.

Couples About To Divorce Pretending To Engage In Couple Therapy

Often couples about to divorce who are rooted in their way of looking at the problems don’t think couple therapy can help. Sometimes half heartedly they come to couple therapy to satisfy either their partner or another family member. In these situations couple therapy does not make a difference. Like a self fulfilling prophecy they divorce without any significant change in their understanding of their problems.

In fact there is a more fancy name for this nowadays: Nocebo Effect. It is the opposite of Placebo Effect and it is due to a person’s negative belief or expectation that the treatment will fail.

Couples: Seek Sensitive Professionals’ Advice

I know sensitive and responsible solicitors who refer couples to therapy before accepting them as clients. But I also know a mother who prevented her husband and her 6 year old son from seeing each other following a solicitor’s advice. Later she realised she did not have the right to do that. The suffering this has caused both between couple and for the child was enormous. The little boy had problems adjusting to school hitting his friends and his mother, as well as severe temper tantrums.

Committing To Couple Therapy

There is a misunderstanding that couple therapy can only be done when two partners are willing to participate in the sessions. It is not true. When we talk with one person we intervene into the system. A competent systemic couple therapist would be able to do couple therapy with one partner present.

However even when both partners are present in the sessions but the level of commitment to therapy is different the more committed partner can get discouraged and stop using therapy effectively. These are all excuses for avoiding looking honestly at ourselves.

We can fool ourselves by aggravating everything and following insensitive advice from family members or professionals, or by pretending to have been through therapy, but we cannot fool the Universal Law and we will eventually pay its price.

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)image:Ed Yourdon