The simplest way to learn what works best in
counseling straight spouses is to ask them directly. One especially articulate man shared his
experience of the benefit he received from his therapist in just four
visits. Now, eight months after his wife
came out, he has already managed to recover his optimism about his future. Here is his story.
We are all different, but I am a 47 year old Australian male who was
told three weeks before his 20th wedding anniversary that his wife is a lesbian
and leaving. She had been in counseling for about 10 months
and I had no idea. She had never told me any of her feelings and it was a
complete surprise to me. I was
completely devastated and pretty much went into shock. I arranged a
psychologist through work as a colleague pointed out that our organization
provided such things.
Her name is Wendy and she saw me
about a week after I found out. She was very interested in my situation
and her first and immediate concern was whether I was going to self-harm.
We discussed this and I let her know that while I had thought of it, I had
dismissed it as an option. I was very open with her about what had
happened and she wanted to know how I thought and how the kids were and what I
wanted from the sessions with her. She
also talked a little about it being a new situation for her (straight guy
finding out about a lesbian wife) and she suggested that I might do a little
research online on lesbians and my situation. I did, and found Straight
Spouse Connection. It was great
advice from Wendy as it got me a little control. I was doing something positive.
The next meeting was one week
later. She again checked to make sure I was not going to self-harm and
then we talked about the situation. This time she was quite
forthright. My wife was in another city visiting her lover. Wendy
pointed out what I didn't want to hear, that they were probably making love as
we spoke. Very confronting but she was right and I needed to face up to
this. I was then exploring a bit why my wife was doing what she was
doing. I wanted to see it from her side as I genuinely wanted to know and
understand. Wendy pointed out that the sessions were about ME and she was
there to help me, not my wife! So we then talked of the future, how I
would need to adjust to being single. I have the children (which is
unusual, but so is all this, or so I thought).
We talked about what I would need to do to adjust to a different
lifestyle as a single father.
Our next session was again a week
later. I was feeling better and was DETERMINED not to let this wreck my
life. I have a number of techniques to bring my self out of problems, although
this is a very deep place. I drive out bad thoughts by thinking
compassionately, I force myself to smile (you would be surprised how effective
that can be), and I set myself a deadline to be happy. Did it work?
Well, sort of. I gave myself a month to climb out of the absolute despair
I was in. It probably took about five weeks to get some balance
back.
Wendy was amazed at my turnaround at our third session. We talked
about pushing myself too hard and what damage that might do. I did
slip backward pretty far a few times in the following weeks, but she had told
me this would happen. Because I knew this, I was okay with it. In this third session we talked of the future
more, how to cope with the sense of rejection and that at some time in the
future I might look for companionship and love again. She expressed great
confidence in my outlook. This was good, as I was struggling with the
concept of a future at that time.
In our fourth and final visit, we
talked about where I came from to where I was then. We talked of ongoing
coping strategies and that there will be dark days to come but they would
lessen. She said I had made incredible progress. When we met she was thinking I would be
seeing her for a long time and that I was in a bad way. I was. At
our last meeting my body language was confident and I had my cheeky, cheerful
self back. So what did Wendy do for me?
1. She was there for me. She said this a couple of times: Her view was that the sessions were to help
me and not for any other purpose. She was not in any way judgmental and
led me to explore a whole pile of issues with calm and logic.
2. She was confronting. By that I mean she showed me in a caring
way that the circumstances were what they were and I had to face that reality.
3. She explored options with me but gave no particular answer. She
was very co-operative in that we worked the problem together but always with my
absolute interests at heart.
4. She let me run my own pace, but warned me (very gently) not to force
the pace and to care for myself. I had to be selfish in that work. I was still deeply concerned about my wife
and I needed to look after myself so I could look after the children too.
5. She gave me hope that time would take the searing pain away and that I would
find my happy self again.
Could I have managed without
her? Probably, but certainly not as
well. I would have taken longer to get
over it. She took me places I didn't want to go, and then brought me back
out and set me on a good path.
This man's movement through therapy was more rapid than most, and this
example is not meant to be a model for all.
However, he was pleased with his result and he seems realistic in his
assessment of what happened in his sessions and how he was assisted. Others have widely
varied experience and quite different outcomes, but this story assures us that it is possible to recover and to look forward with hope.
I thought the pace was alarmingly fast! However, we do pull ourselves together in a crisis if there are kids involved. I wanted to know how many children and what ages. That would have helped me know more about him. I also wanted to know if the kids were seeing a counselor.
Hi there
happy to help out...for I am he!
Two children 12 and 16. Younger saw a counselor, who specialises in children, for about 6 sessions over about 10 weeks. Elder pretty much refused and still refuses to engage his mother, despite my lead and example. I dont push it but do visit her as the younger goes to her two days a week. Elder is with me full time. I have provided a wider explanation to Carol, but I have spent a long time in the armed forces and know myself well and have an inner discipline that has been developed over a long time. I knew I was in deep trouble emotionally and needed help. I have counselled many of my men and women over a long time and seeing a psychologist is second nature to me. In addition to the psychologistI did two things that helped....I genuinely forgave my wife very early on...I loved her so much that if she wanted to go then she had my blessing, and I surrendered to the care of my work colleagues who were just amazing. They took on my work, cooked for me, listened to my hurt and then laughed with me as I came back out of my depths. Too quick? Not really, in that I am the sort of person who drives himself to happiness by caring of others and knowing that life is a gift to be looked after. I read the Dali Lamas Art of happiness and it was magic, we all deserve happiness and compassion is a way to achieve it. Compassion for my ex wife meant I could understand her anguish too and make sense of it.
Make no mistake, I will never forget what she has done to the kids and myself, but there is no point dwelling on it. In fact that is poison.
Oh, one other thing had a profound impact and that was the story of the wolf, that I found on this site. it was very simple and powerful. My sister is a psychiatrist and has used it since with her patients to good effect.
I hope this helps, happy to add anything you wish to know.
Yes, yes, I also love the story of the wolf found on this site and Dali Lama's Art of Happiness explains a lot. Thanks for longer explanation and good luck to you and your family.
I enjoyed reading about the Australian straight spouse's journey through counseling. As a straight spouse with a counseling background, I am particularly intrigued by your request for feedback. I can certainly see the story from both "sides of the couch," so to speak.
To begin, I would like to join Carol in her assessment that RP's recovery was remarkably rapid. I believe at least part of the brevity of his therapy can be attributed to his own conviction to "climb out of the absolute despair" in a month! He set his own goals and went into the therapy sessions with his own set of techniques designed to reach those goals. In many ways, he was an ideal client in that regard. Once those pieces had been put into place, it would seem that Wendy's role was mainly to offer him support during their sessions together.
As a therapist, it sounded like Wendy often did a nice job finding a balance between support and confrontation. During the third session when RP had made great progress, for example, Wendy pointed out the risks in pushing too hard toward recovery. She reminded him that it was normal to slip back into despair from time to time. RP reported finding comfort in that advice when he struggled later. Wendy also offered hope and plans for the future, which is something that the RP needed as he moved forward.
I was unclear about the necessity of Wendy's confrontation about the gay spouse making love as they spoke during the second session. I assume that she was trying to make sure that the client faced up to his ex-wife's homo-sexuality, but I am not partial to the crassness of the image she was suggesting. She also steered the client away from trying to see things from his gay spouse's point of view during that same session, telling him that she was there to counsel him, not his ex-wife. Part of my recovery has been trying to understand my ex-husband's homosexuality and what he has been through. I cannot separate my recovery from that compassion. Perhaps some of that was Wendy's lack of experience with gay and straight spouses, but I worried that RP would miss out on an opportunity to heal by not exploring his ex-wife's perspective.
Overall, the Australian straight spouse's account of his experience in therapy sounds positive. In the end, he was stronger and more confident, and he could imagine moving forward with his life. Perhaps best of all, his therapist recommended that he research gay and straight spouses online and he found the Straight Spouse Connection... Here he has an ongoing network of support to fall back on whenever he might need it.
Hi Helen,
RP here. Thanks for your comments and thoughts. Your thoughts on Wendy's directness probably need amplifying, not to defend, but rather to perhaps explain a bit more what was going on. I was in fact trying very hard to understand my wife's predicament and see it from her perspective as I was very worried about her. I was in fact using the sessions to understand her not perhaps my self. I fact at our closing session I thanked Wendy for that very approach as it was what I was hiding from to some extent. She wasn't closing down the gay perspective, quite the opposite, she was asking ME to confront that. One thing she certainly wasn't was anti gay but rather...'here is a situation YOU are in, what is to be done?'
You might be interested to know that I subsequently shared most of this, including the confronting approach, with my ex wife and we both discussed what it meant to us both. She also thought it very direct but I found it was cathartic.
You spoke of compassion helping you, it is also what got me through the hard times, knowing that I could give my wife compassion and receive it in return. When her lover came back from a long absence I gave them a bottle of champagne and told them to have a jolly good time. If I hadn't read the Dali Lama I would never have done that. Blew them both away but I really meant it.
I look at this as a series of stages..I was a complete shambles, Wendy gave me the ugly truth, then hope. I gave myself strength through long training in self discipline and emotional determination and the good old Dali and the wolf gave me courage.
Why am I here? So maybe I can add my two bobs worth and quite frankly I find the whole human side of it quite fascinating. If it helps anyone well its time well spent. More than happy to add anything you want.
cheers
RP