What I Learned in Couples Therapy

When you really stop and think about it, the concept of marriage makes almost no sense. Two people — raised in entirely different family systems and carrying their own personal baggage — voluntarily agree to spend the rest of their lives together until one or both of them die. Cue the Cha Cha Slide!

I wish someone told me that taking marriage vows is a lot like writing a bad check. You hope the funds arrive before your spouse makes the deposit. Vows are promises only future you has to worry about, but eventually the future arrives, and you both realize you’re stuck holding a check that might bounce.

All this is on my mind because (1) I’ve been watching Couples Therapy. And (2) Patrick and I will celebrate our fourteenth wedding anniversary this summer— milestone that feels both reasonable (Yes, a third horizontal wrinkle now occupies my formerly smooth forehead) and shocking. How are we this old? How have we made it this far? Because there have been dark times in our relationship, moments so completely hopeless I wasn’t sure we would survive.

In the spring of 2016, Patrick and I were deep in the forest, lost from ourselves, lost from each other. Three years earlier, we’d been handed a diagnosis of “unexplained infertility.” Doctors couldn’t figure out what was “wrong” with us, why we couldn’t seem to get or stay pregnant. I had a part-time job in New York City that I loved. But whenever I came home to Nashville, reality set back in and so did the sadness. Meanwhile, Patrick threw himself into his work, anything to avoid the palpable sorrow at home and the growing chasm between us. One night at the dining room table I told him I wasn’t sure I could go on this way. I didn't want to get divorced, but I didn’t want to stay married, either. He stood up and threw a full wine glass across the room. A perfect circle indented into the drywall, surrounded in red wine like blood splatter.

“Good,” I said, grateful for this rare show of emotion. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

For exactly twenty-four hours, that gash remained.

We weren’t sure couples therapy could help us, but I knew one thing: if we got divorced, I would be bringing me with me. All the infertility. All the fears. All the insecurities. There was no escaping the conversations ahead; the only question was whether Patrick was willing to join me on that couch. And thank God — truly, I thank God — he was.

So we found a counselor in Nashville. Later, we traveled across the country to attend a three-day conference at the Allender Center in Seattle. At home, we walked to breakfast on Saturday mornings, enjoyed coffee and French toast at Marche Artisan Foods and tried to get to know one another again. Slowly, step by step, we admitted the fears and longings beneath the scar tissue of our grief. We unraveled patterns of sexual intimacy predicated on obligation, guilt, or conception/performance. We began to believe that we could be better. We stopped being polite and started getting very, very honest.

Life can be incredibly painful. The pain comes in seasons, I’ve found, but even the pastures between the valleys can feel terrifying. Wide-open spaces aren’t comfortable for people who’ve been to the depths. No matter where you are — whether single, married, separated or divorced — there are resources available to help make the heaviness not so heavy. Counseling is just one of those resources.

Looking back, it’s something of a mystery to me, how Patrick and I were able to find our way back to one another. But I’m grateful for the work we did. I’m grateful for the work we still do. Once you drift close to the edge of marital calamity, you realize just how fragile it all is. Marriage is a dance that takes place on a cliff. And for that reason, I’m never judgmental when a couple decides to divorce. The circumstances of every marriage are private, particular, and often very, very painful. If a marriage survives — if a couple stays alive and growing and still has humor and love —  it’s nothing short of a miracle.

A few years after that wine-throwing incident, one of my closest childhood friends asked if I would officiate her wedding. I was honored, and took the responsibility seriously. The night of her rehearsal dinner, I sat next to her father, a Very Important High Ranking Officer in the U.S. Army. He had a chiseled jaw, gray hair, and an eagle’s sharp eyes. Not long into dinner, he cleared his throat, turned to me and said, “So, I hear you’re officiating this thing.”

I quickly took a gulp of wine.

I knew my friend’s father would have preferred for her to get married inside a Catholic Church. But the wedding had already been postponed once due to COVID shutdowns, and due to that delay, my friends had already secured a marriage certificate at City Hall. The outdoor ceremony I would be “leading” was simply a celebration for family and friends. I assumed she’d explained all this to him. I assumed he already knew.

“Yes sir.”

“Are you an ordained minister?”

“No, sir,” I said, and wiped my mouth with my napkin. “No I’m not.”

After that, I blacked out.

Later, I cornered my friend and asked why she’d left me hanging like that. She just smiled and broke into a fit of girlish giggles. I guess I should have known. My friend abides by the “ask forgiveness not permission” ethos and it’s one of the thousand million things I love about her. She is strong and smart and has the most unflappable sense of humor.

Still, her father wasn’t entirely wrong to question my credentials. Not only am I definitely not ordained, but also, Patrick and I don’t have a #couplegoals type of relationship. We have more of a #couplefails kind of relationship. And I’m not ashamed of that one bit. We’ve screamed and thrown glasses at walls. We’ve been exceptionally polite and entirely distant. When Patrick and I recently learned about the Gottman Four Horsemen (Criticism, Contempt, Defensiveness, Stonewalling), he laughed and said, “You’re the first two, and I’m the last two.”

But at least we’re laughing.

We’ve cried and failed. We have asked for forgiveness and have given it freely.

“I’m sorry to tell you this, sir,” I should have said to my friend’s disappointed father, “But I am way under-qualified for this job.”

But when it comes to marriage, aren’t we all?

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Recent Favorites

WATCH: Couples Therapy (Paramount +) — as mentioned above, this is a show about real couples in real therapy sessions. Watch the first episode for free on YouTube.

READ: Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese. I will likely be reading this book for several more weeks, but I am already loving it and would love to hear from anyone else who has read it in the past!

My “favorites” are short this week because I’m on a tear to try and finish a draft of the novel-in-progress. Stay tuned!!