An actual case in Marriage counseling

With this general background the question “What is marriage counseling?” might best be answered by giving a brief and rather summarized account of an actual case of a type sufficiently common to represent many cases which come to marriage counselors. Actually this case is built up from more than one, and is sufficiently disguised as to be unrecognizable.

The case is that of “John and Mary Smith,” aged 28 and 32, married six years, with two children, four and two years old. Mary has come for help, and after settling in her chair she begins her story. M. I’m worried and depressed about our marriage, I’ve tried everything I can think of to make things work out between us, and I’ve just about reached the end of my rope.

c. You’re feeling pretty low. Would you like to talk about it?

M. Things were good for a time-until our first child was born. We both wanted children and looked forward to having them, but from the time Jimmy came, four years ago, John has been different. I managed to cope with the situation until Betty came two years ago, but from then on, when I needed his help and support more than ever, he’s been unbearable. He’s practically always moody and touchy, and he has begun to get into awful tempers over the slightest thing. I know I’m no angel, and I can take a fair amount of it, but now he has started to storm and rage at the children, even for absurdly trivial things, and they’re getting terrified of him. Jimmy, the older one, is reacting with nightmares, which he didn’t have before, and he gets asthma when the tensions are particularly bad.

c. It’s the effect on the children that upsets you most?

M. Yes, that’s the last straw, and it has made me feel that I must have some help. But even apart from that I’ve been concerned and even frightened about John. He has had some terrible rages recently and in one of them the other day he got an absolutely horrible look in his eyes, as if he might be going insane. He beat me about a month ago in one of his rages, and seemed sorry afterwards, but the old moodiness was back again within a few days. Something seems to be eating him, but I can’t get any idea of what it can be. He won’t talk things over, he either gets into a towering rage or just buries himself in his paper if I try.

c. You feel there must be something wrong with him and you’re worried about what he’ll do next?

M. I don’t know about anything wrong with him, but something must be getting into him and making him like that. The house and garden are getting badly neglected now; he used to be very keen on the garden at least, but lately he doesn’t seem to care. I’m wondering whether things are happening at his work too, he has generally been reasonably popular at the office, but Tom Clarke, one of his best friends, was asking me the other day whether his health has been all right apparently they had noticed him pretty moody and depressed there too. There must be something festering inside him, and he’s too good a chap at heart to get like this. I still love him, but he seems to be doing all he can to kill my feelings for him. I can’t understand what can be doing it, but I just wonder how much more I can stand.

c. You feel that basically he’s good, but that something has got hold of him, and it’s getting a bit close to the breaking point? Does he know you’ve come for help?

M. Oh yes, he knows about it. He thinks I need help more than he does, and he doesn’t seem to think his conduct is bad enough to need help. He was happy for me to come, but I don’t think he will be at all willing to come.

c. Would you mind if I wrote and invited him to come for a talk?

M. I’d be most grateful if you would, and I hope he will come. This is a brief summary of the main parts of the first interview with Mary. Notice first how the counselor picked out the feelings that Mary was expressing, and responded to them rather than to the facts of her narrative, and with complete acceptance of them. Mary felt encouraged in this way to go on unburdening her feelings in a manner which she had not previously been able to do with anyone. Notice how, as she did so, she came to the expression of some more positive feelings, “He’s too good a chap at heart to get like this. I still love him.” No attempt was made in this first interview to turn Mary’s thoughts to any possible way in which she might have been provoking John, and no attempt was made to find out any details of Mary’s or John’s background. Any such attempts might well have blocked the flow of feeling at this point, so they are kept for possible later attention.

Tags: Counseling