You read that title and likely immediately thought to yourself – “Wait, what?
I thought there were only benefits.
Now you are saying there is bad news?”
Yes – but it’s not the kind of ‘bad’ you are thinking.
And that’s alright.
So – The bad news — here goes.
I recently had a last session with one of my couples.
I’d been seeing them for about six/seven months.
Once a week, same time of week – super easy that way for everyone.
They had gotten to what I like to call the graduation session.
And part of what happens during that session is I give them the bad news.
Most of them aren’t surprised by it by then – But I consciously take advantage of hte opportunity and use it as a reminder.
The bad news is – it’s not over.
What you have to do – is not over.
In some sense, we might even think of it as a beginning.
Because you are venturing out to doing all the things we learned and talked about – now, on your own.
Putting all of it to work, making it a daily practice, without the weekly ‘crutch’ of our session available.
What you’ve done so far is great.
What you’ve learned so far is great.
But it will not serve you at all unless you
So – you are not done.
Your work is not over.
You will have to apply yourselves, connect with each other, keep pulling those tools out the toolshed as you need to.
So long as you stay married, you will be doing the work of staying connected.
Sometimes, to make my point, we talk about their marriage as a garden.
So I remind them of that specific analogy. [I do have to specify which one because analogies are some of my favorite things 🙂 and over the course of working together, they heard more than one or two.]
The one about the garden, or your backyard.
The short of it is this.
You get the landscaping company to come out and take care of your yard.
You spend a bunch of money.
They remove all the ugly stuff, they plant all the beautiful things.
They put down new sod.
Flowers to your liking – it all looks like it’s a picture in a magazine.
So much so you think to yourselves – HGTV should come by here – this beyond easy-on-the-eye space.
This is next level beautiful.
Then you get the instructions.
Do this, water this often, take care of new grass this way – along with Don’t do this, don’t walk on here for this long, don’t plant anything here.
Makes sense, right?
Simple. Easy to follow.
Except then – what happens is you don’t do those things.
You get busy, life takes over all your time and energy.
And the yard looks like a major mess in no time.
Depending on what they planted for you – how fancy they made it look – I am giving it two weeks.
A month tops.
If you don’t water the grass, it will die.
If you don’t tend to the flowers, they too, will not make it.
If you don’t pay attention to the new bushes and trees – and leave it up to Mother Nature to deal with – depending on where you are, they might last a week or two, looking all gorgeous – but then…
It won’t rain for weeks.
There will be a storm. Then another.
The sun will do a number on it all.
Soon enough – you won’t be able to recognize your yard from the beauty that it was a month or two ago.
So – keep that in mind.
Even when – or ESPECIALLY when – you graduate from therapy and go on to doing it on your own.
Keep tending to it.
Keep paying attention.
Stay connected and in communication on a regular basis.
Don’t burry the watering can so greatly that you don’t remember where you put it.
And it will keep looking gorgeous.
Your garden.
And your marriage.
