“Troubled marriages are small countries of love and hate, of confusion and icy clarity, of guilt and recrimination, of running to and from. Picking across the rugged terrain takes time.”
So writes journalist Laurie Abraham, who sat in with five couples for more than a year as they underwent group marriage therapy – gruelling, six-hour-long monthly sessions that cost each couple $6,000 annually.
Ms. Abraham documents the experience in her new book, The Husbands and Wives Club: A Year in the Life of a Couples Therapy Group, published this week.
There are Marie and Clem, who struggle with a sexless marriage: He wants sex and she wants “emotional intimacy.” Mark and Sue Ellen arrive after Mark puts their son, who struggles with drug addiction, into a stranglehold. Joe and Bella are at an impasse because Bella thinks Joe could do more with his career. Newlyweds Rachael and Michael are coping with his contempt for any display of negative emotion. Leigh and Aaron have been in the group for 10 years, three years longer than they’ve been married, but plan to “graduate” now that Aaron is overcoming his anxiety-related impotence.
Leading them is Philadelphia psychologist Judith Coché. She likens group therapy to a “Greek chorus,” in which members can affirm each other’s struggles or point out “corrosive” habits. Dr. Coché’s rules are firm: The couples must commit to a year; they can’t hang out with each other outside of the sessions; and cheaters aren’t allowed.
The couples, who range in age from their 30s to their 60s, “seemed to represent a distinctive shade on the wide spectrum of discontent that periodically darkens marriage,” writes Ms. Abraham, a senior editor at Elle magazine. She spoke with The Globe and Mail from Brooklyn.
You write that group marriage therapy is relatively new.
Group couples therapy isn’t that common. Couples therapy is relatively new in history. Freud never had a couple on his couch, and it wasn’t until the 1950s that the very beginnings of it started to happen. It was considered sort of odd and weird because everything focused on what goes on inside people, rather than what goes on between people.
Why do couples opt for group therapy?
It’s really easy to get demoralized in couples therapy because it’s not so easy and the broader culture disdains it. Sometimes it can seem easier to get a divorce or accept your dour lot. But if you have other people there who are making it important to have a halfway-decent marriage, it can prod you to improve a little, or at least try. The group was good at the history, at saying to each other, “Do you remember when you said XYZ?” Not surprisingly, some of the more psychologically astute observations came from the therapist.
What are the limitations with this kind of therapy?
In the first sessions, people minimized their issues or didn’t give enough details, so you couldn’t tell what the hell was going on. Two of the couples, I did wonder at the beginning if they had much wrong with them. And the therapist said, “Just wait.” She knew.
Do people get bored listening to other people’s stories?
I don’t know if I ever wanted to go, but once I was there I found it really gripping. I’d literally be sweating. I think that might be how therapy is for people who are actually doing it.
Are wives typically the instigators?
You hear stories about women having to drag their husbands by their lapels to therapy. I don’t think these guys fought hard against going.
You write that the average “stay” is two or three years – three couples re-enroll for another year. Leigh and Aaron were in their 10th year of therapy, allowing “outsiders to pierce the marital unit year after year.” Do some people use this is as a crutch?
Of course, that was my first thought – shouldn’t they just end it already? The idea of being in therapy for 10 years can sound unappealing to a lot of people. But they wanted to be together and I don’t think they thought there was another way. I couldn’t imagine it. I debated whether this was just an example of bad therapy, and maybe it could have been better. Maybe they could have been out sooner. But they were pretty dependent on the therapist. They had some serious problems that weren’t just situational.
What are some common misconceptions about this method?
I think a lot of people assume that anyone who would enroll in group therapy is one of these highly emotional, gushy types. This group really wasn’t like that – they were rather reserved. ... The therapy wasn’t about constantly getting them to cathartic moments. It was about getting them to see what it was they wanted out of a marriage, try to state it, and see if there’s a chance in hell the other person was able to give them some piece of that.
What was the most important message that emerged after a year with these couples?
I do hear again and again from therapists that people wait too long. I saw it in the group, how much harder it was to deal with the 20-year marriage of sexlessness and resentment than it was with the one-year-marriage. When they realized what the problem was, it was so much easier to break out of the pattern because they had not practised it for 20 years.
