Marriage Confessions Goes to Marriage Counseling: How We Got Here
Hi friends,
It’s been a bit since I’ve blogged, I guess. I’m just going to jump right in and tell you a little bit about what’s been going on these past few months because I don’t know how to small talk my way into it. You all know that life has been full of changes for our family in the past few months. Between leaving my teaching job to running a startup to the loss of my Grandmother to Chris’s dad’s illness… it’s been tough on me. Actually, it’s been tough on Chris and me. So tough, in fact, that for a few months now, we have been seeing a marriage counselor.
Since my blog covers just about all parts of our family life, it is weird to not share things with you all. But over the past ten years I have been blogging, Chris and I have followed two basic principles of blogging about our relationship. First, I never post anything on here about the two of us that he doesn’t read and approve first. Second, I typically don’t share about fights or issues until after they have been resolved. This is for a few reasons, actually. For one thing, it can be really awkward in our real lives to run into friends who read my blog and know that we are in the middle of something. It makes it really uncomfortable for both Chris and I. We aren’t really sure who or our real life friends read my blog and it can be weird for them and for us. Another reason we don’t share until it has been resolved is to keep our problem solving in a quiet vacuum. As much as I love my imaginary friends, when you are in the middle of something hard, it can be really overwhelming and distracting to have hundreds of different opinions coming at you on how to solve a problem. I love advice, but marriage is very personal and I like to keep that part between Chris and me.
However, while we were going through counseling, I continued to write about it. I just didn’t publish anything. Until now. Over the next few days, I’m going to share our journey into marriage counseling. I’ll share about why we went, what it was like, and how it changed us. As with any type of therapy, change and progress are ongoing and continue to be in our marriage, too, but Chris and I are finally on a path to a much better place and have learned some new communication strategies to help us avoid the silence we have had for the past few months. More than that, though, I’ve learned a lot about myself and about my own harmful coping mechanisms for stress. It has been an eye opening experience for both of us.
I guess I should start with how we ended up in marriage counseling to begin with. Honestly, I don’t really know how it happened or what was really wrong. It was Chris that suggested it and in the beginning I was adamantly against it. I didn’t think there was anything wrong. I thought we were just struggling through a rough time for our family in general, not necessarily for Chris and I. I knew that we weren’t really connecting anymore and hadn’t for a while, but I just kind of assumed that was pretty normal. And maybe it is. But thank God I am married to a man who understands that our relationship has never been normal. We have always been above and beyond happy in our marriage and so when we settled down to the status quo level, he spoke up and said that he was unhappy.
You should know that there had been a fair amount of anger in our marriage for the past six months. We were angry at the world, we were angry at God, we were angry at each other. We were struggling and for the first time in our 18-year relationship, we turned ON each other instead of TO each other. There was anger and frustration about running our company. There was a lot of anger and frustration around how Chris’s dad’s illness effected our family life. There was anger and frustration around our work schedules and shifting priorities. And while not all of that was because of each other, we took it out on each other.
Although, after a few months of marriage counseling, I can tell you that most of that anger was coming from me.
I have not been happy working with ClassMax. That’s not to say that I won’t GET happy about it, but it hasn’t been an easy transition for me. It has been a shift in my career path, shift in my routine, shift in time management, shift in work/life balance and for someone who doesn’t handle change well, it has been overwhelming to the point that I have been really unhappy. But, as my family will tell you, my unhappiness often comes out as just straight anger. My fuse shortens, my temper heightens, and my patience weakens. And I turned all of that anger towards Chris. To the point that even when he suggested marriage counseling, I got angry. When I slowed down and examined where that particular piece of anger was coming from, I realized it came from fear. How bad was my marriage that Chris wanted to see a counselor?! Was he about to leave me?! How could I not have known?!
The answer to this question is that, no. Chris was never about to leave. Marriage counseling for us was not about divorce – ever. It was about acknowledging that we were not making each other happy and that our stress levels were so high that we had sort of lost the ability and the time required to make healthy changes in our relationship. We needed a mediator. Someone to talk us through this new phase in our marriage when we had suddenly become coworkers, as well as spouses. We needed someone to teach us how to separate our professional lives from our home lives, when our professional lives were built inside our home life. We just needed some help. And, for us, we found that help in the form of a marriage counselor.
Tomorrow, I will share my first of four blog posts I wrote as we went through counseling. Looking back and reading it now, I can so clearly see all the anger I was dealing with, but at the time I was completely oblivious to it. Isn’t that funny when that happens? Like, you think you are doing one thing and then you look back and realize you were doing something completely different? One time when I was pregnant with Bean, I remember saying to my mom, “I really am carrying the weight all in my stomach!” And I look back at pictures and WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING?! I was huge from ANY angle! And so clearly! But sometimes we choose to see what we want to see instead of what is truly there. Like thinking I’m doing a pretty decent job of transitioning into this new phase of my life, only to look around and realize that I have already dropped all the balls and now I’m just standing there moving my empty hands in the air.
Be kind as you read these posts this week. If I have learned anything through counseling its that there is no blame. Or, actually, maybe I’ve learned there’s just enough blame to go around and so it all cancels each other out in the end anyway. Lastly, I hope these posts speak to you, if you are in the same place Chris and I found ourselves. I hope they give you the courage to say to your spouse or partner, “I’m not happy, but I think we can change that…” And, more than all of that, I hope they show that marriage is messy and takes a lot of work AND THAT’S OKAY. Because whether you are in the trenches or the weeds or whatever dark place you want to call it, at least you are there together.
24 Comments
Steph
Very powerful and thank you for sharing! Marriage can be difficult and I can’t wait to hear what you learned and apply it in my own marriage. I do the same things when I am unhappy. You are inspiring!
Elena
I’m so glad you’re talking about your experience with therapy because I fee like everyone could benefit from it at some point or another and it sometimes carries such a bad reputation. I went to a few sessions after undergoing huge life changes and it was so incredibly helpful. Looking forward to reading the rest of this series!
Kristin
Katie, I have followed your blog for years and my hubby and I have been a couple for 22 years, and married for 12. Thank you for your honesty. Prayers to you and Chris as you are in this transition.
Jen
I definitely think everyone would be benefit from some counseling!! Thank you for your openness and honesty!
Ashley
I am reading this with tears in my eyes right now because my husband and I are going through something very similar. I realized today after some soul searching I am carrying a lot of anger about things. Nothing really related to our marriage but it is affecting it. I have been thinking we need to go to counseling too. I appreciate you sharing this part of y’alll’s life. I don’t think it is a coincidence that you posted this today 😀 God is pretty amazing.
Alicia
Katie, thank you for sharing this. And thank you, Chris, for agreeing. I have been married for 16 years and absolutely love my hubby, but I am still looking forward to reading your posts on this topic.
Amy
You are strong. You are brave. You are a breath of fresh air.
I appreciate your honesty and your wisdom and hope with all my heart that you are now in a place of happiness. Which is right you both deserve to be. Sorry you are going through this hard time. <3
Amanda
Your husband suggesting marriage counseling is SCARY! I’m glad that you are sharing, when my husband suggested counseling at an angst filled time in our lives I also initially reacted in anger but it ended up being one of the best things we have done. Through the experience we learned communication strategies and coping strategies that we still fall back on years later when we start seeing those red flags flying.
Erin
Thank you for sharing! Xoxo
Mel
I’m so thankful you are sharing such an open and raw experience. I’m looking forward to reading these next few blog posts and see the changes and shifts in attitude. Marriage is definitely tough.
Rachel
Thank you for sharing this- I look forward to reading your posts on it. I have been following you since my husband and I were dating and have always loved your content and honest writing.
Anna
So brutally honest!! Thank you Katie for being someone that is willing to share the bad along with the good. I personally have been struggling and this really spoke to me. Thank you!!
Jenny
My boyfriend and I are both on our second time around, and neither of us sought help until it was too late. So, we had only been together for about a year when we decided to start couples counseling to make sure we weren’t bringing in our failures from our previous relationships into this new one that was bringing us so much joy.
It has been a game changer, and we communicate loads better, and we are better at seeing the warning signs before either of us explode, for a lack of a better word. We also have been 1000% more open to speak about the obstacles that our own mental illness bring to our relationship so that we recognize those as our brains playing tricks on ourselves and each other and don’t take it out on our relationship.
Kudos to you and Chris for seeking help as you transition into this new phase in your life.
With love, from Michigan ❤️
Lindsay
I would 100% NOT still be married without marriage counseling (and individual counseling too!). Best thing we ever did – and, if we hadn’t moved out of state, we’d still be going. I was genuinely sad to leave counseling. I’m so glad you’re talking about this because no one does and it’s so important to know that it is normal and needed in ALL marriages. It should be mandated by law. 🙂
KP
I keep typing and deleting responses. Just a shout of “you guys are so brave!” Staying tuned for the rest of it.
Vera
Virtually hug you!
Hilda
I admire both of you. I used to work in counseling and know how hard it is for people to finally admit that they need help. I admire Chris for taking the first step and I admire you for admitting to all the anger. Having a person from the outside looking at it and guiding you through can be such a relieve. My wish to you: May you always find a way back to each other and may you always realize when you need help. True love is working through those times together and coming out of them stronger together.
Meggie
Thanks for sharing Katie! It’s very brave and I know it’s a testimony God will use for your good and His glory.
Catherine
I think it’s so wonderful that you’re posting this. My husband and I started seeing a marriage counselor about two years ago and went for about a year. For us it also started do to a major professional change that we didn’t know how to handle well. I was resentful because I was put in a place where I had to handle (what felt like) ALL the home things, when I had always been adamant about not doing that. He was resentful because he essentially thought he was shouldering the weight of the world.
Anyway, my point is that the only reason I felt emboldened to go was because I had so many friends who had been open about their own marriage counseling experiences. Even that, though, was largely only discussed in person and in a private Facebook group. I wish we as a culture were more open to the benefits of counseling (marriage and otherwise), so I think it’s wonderful that you’re willing to put yourself out there in this way.
Erin
A long, long time ago, you started a blog called “Confessions of a Young Married Couple,” your husband had designed a darling graphic for the header, and your tagline was “Laugh. Fight. Stay Married.” I’m proud of you for staying true to that original tagline and being brave enough to share not just the fun, happy parts of your marriage, but also the difficult ones here for others to read about, learn from, and even scrutinize. Fist bumps coming at you from Tallahassee, where your humble little blog got its start and a good many “imaginary friends,” too. 🙂
Becky
So very glad to know that you two are working together again <3 And thank you, for the many-eth time, for your bravery and honesty.
Gretchen
Good for you! Counseling is so often seen as a “bad” thing or that something is really wrong to need counseling, but I think realizing things could be better or having an outside perspective on something or just going in for a little “tune up” are all really good things.
You may be writing about it, but I’m interested in HOW you found a counselor to work with.
ShellB.
My husband suggested to me this weekend that we see a marriage counselor. Do I think we need it? ABSOLUTELY. I think we’ve needed if for awhile. I’m not happy, mostly i’m just angry. However, it was super scary hearing it from him. Thank you for sharing your story and letting others know they aren’t the only ones; that the trenches of marriage can be really hard. Looking forward to reading more, as I start my own marriage counseling journey.
Amy
Thank you so much for sharing and always being so honest. Prayers and hugs to you!!