Q: Does marriage counseling help for a successful relationship?
While I was on my way to office, there was an interview going on about marriage counseling. Apparently, there's going to be a workshop titled - 10 Great Dates for a Successful Relationship.
Isn't it interesting to see that there are thousands of marriage counselors in countries like the US and yet the country sees high rates of divorce? They come up with all kinds of workshops, exercises, training and what not but still the condition has not improved. There are counseling organizations, churches etc. who teach the couple how to take care of finances, how to live together, when to go for children etc.
Looking at the statistics (which you can find in millions of pages in google), there seems to be something missing.
Nithyananda quotes from Shiva Sutra, an ancient Vedic text, 'in a relationship, if you think there are only two people you are wrong. There are actually four people, the man and his fantasy of his wife; the woman and her fantasy of her husband.'
Fantasy - that is the key word. When we constantly keep fantasizing how the partner should be, how the partner should behave, how the partner should talk, we are never living with the real person. We have mold made from our fantasies and we try to fit the partner in that mold. If he/she does not fit in, we start chiseling. Now this chiseling can become painful or pressurizing to the other person leading to divorce.
What is the point of counseling 6 or 10 weeks to a couple when they still have their own fantasies of their partner. No external counselor can help one remove his/her fantasies. The deeper problem needs to be addressed by the individual himself or herself. Each partner has to come out of his/her fantasies on their own.
Nithyananda says, 'only when you stop fantasizing, your relationship is real; only then you can enjoy your relationship. Otherwise, you are living with a ghost.' The countries in the east see lesser number of divorce cases because the individuals understand this truth. They work on themselves.
Meditation is another key to unlock oneself out of these fantasies. In the first level Life Bliss Program, this topic is discussed in detail and also on how meditation helps one to get over their fantasies. See what Nithyananda says about marriage ...
Monday, November 5, 2007
Marriage Counseling - What's missing?
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5 comments:
Nice post, and also the video. Yeah, my husband keeps chiseling me. I should ask him to read this post! :)
Hello Manjula.
Nice to know that you enjoyed the post. We also would love to have your husband read our posts.
Sometimes, we ourselves might be doing things which we point out others for. You might also want to analyze your actions on him. May be he feels chiseled by you and hence wants to return the action in kind. Of course, we aren't saying that, but you may want to analyze yourself.
On this note, here's a joke:
A lady told her husband that since he was always complaining about her big mouth, she found a plastic surgeon who agreed to make a couple of stitches in her mouth to make it half its size. Her husband said, “Well, I complain only because your mouth is always open. Anyway, how much will he charge for it?” “Hundred rupees.” Said the lady. “Alright,” said he, “Here’s two hundred rupees.” :)
Dear Master,
I am clinging to my pain shaft namely anger ever since I got pregnant from the man I was supposed to get married to. I obviously didn´t fit into his fantasy pattern and to be honsest, I very well have realized back then (almost 5 yrs ago) that he didn´t fit into mine, but I felt very committed to him and was "thinking" that I´d love him. etc.
However, we split up. I don´t want to tell this whole story as it still makes me tremendously sad .... and angry.
I couldn´t find a "technique" to get over it. As you are uttering: the psychiological shift, the revolution, didn´t quite happen within me. Every single day I am clinging to this visions of the past and hypothetical present (of him having fun while my son and I are having hard times)...this whole mental "blah blah"ing doesn´t seem to find it´s ending.
Can you give me any advice ?
Maybe this can help the tremendous number of single mothers to get over relationship stories like mine .....
With deep gratitude
I am a marriage and family counselor... and I have seen that for some couples counseling has merit and is effective especially if there is a committment to the marriage on the part of both parties in the relationship. It is very difficult for a therapist to work with a couple when one or both parties have already decided that they will split... They then say that the conseling did not work but it is the couple who forbade the counselor to do his or her job because they were lacking in committment so, I am glad that he mentioned the importance of committment.
I though must admit that when I heard initially about the pathways of men and women I thought and still think that there is some problem with the comment that a woman must become mother and man must become a child in order to attain the perfect state.
In truth, men and women are two spirited... meaning that there is a feminine aspect in the man and a male aspect in the female. There is a need for both to recognize this... as when old age comes there will be an acting out of the opposite role as the male will become softer and more compassionate and more likely to want to stay home and the woman will start expressing her truth more and will want to go more outside of the home. This is a natural process. Many couples do not know this and so when they get to middle age they have problems as a result.
There is too a need to understand that the role of a man is never to become a child to his wife as this causes a lacking in intimacy and ultimately dissatisfaction. He is to be as she is to him a helpmate... Sharing is, as he said, very important... it is inter-dependency, caring for each other, loving each other without boundaries to that love. To state that man must become a child and to state that woman must become a mother is an incomplete thing and could lead to the woman having to caretake the man as if he were a child and not a responsible adult which is an unfortunate thing for the whole family. And to think that a woman is only a mother and not a person that also must regain innocence is a denial of the fact that many women seek to regain innocence in this day and age when tamistic actions occur and there is a need and a desire to recapture that purity. Guilt remains a common theme with men and women in this day and age and sabatoges so much that is good for both men and women alike.
The flowing nature of the love that he mentioned is the truth.
There is the need to remember that in marriages there can be no he winning at the expense of her or she winning at the expense of him. It is an "us". The couple wins or loses together. Another thing that is important is praising what you want to encourage and refraining from criticizing too much what you dislike, refraining from using the word "don't" or "no" which causes more of the behavior you dislike, and refraining from using the word "but" which negates everything that was said before it... If men and women knew these things, and what he mentioned too about loving and sharing, they might be able to avoid going to marriage counselors when their marriages are too badly damaged to repair and can instead visit them when they want to just have tune ups which can actually help them rekindle the fire of love from the past, and help them deal with communication issues and family issues that come up. It is not a bad thing to utilize counseling services for these things.
Dear Anonymous
Regarding your doubt/comment "... still think that there is some problem with the comment that a woman must become mother and man must become a child in order to attain the perfect state", I would like to add something.
When we say the woman should become the mother and man should become child, there is much deeper meaning to it than just words. Its not like the woman starts to dominate the man or anything like that.
What it means is the the relationship that they share towards each other becomes that of a mother and child, i.e. instead of basing the relationship on lust, which is a part of most marriages, the relationship starts to flower in love. One of the purest forms of love is that of a mother and child and that is where the relationship matures to. Rather than sharing the relationship on physical intimacy, the vow says, create an alchemy that changes the physical intimacy to pure love.
That is what the vow means. The words are mere metaphors used to convey the quality of the relationship. Hope this clears the understanding.
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