Couples - First Session

While my wife and I have crashed each other's individual sessions in the past, this would mark our first true, "couples session" in the history of our relationship. I was able to set it up that it would be the same therapist who was also soloing her bipolar sessions. Additionally, often frustrated with the pace of once-a-month counseling, I've set these up weekly - both the bipolar and couples - in hopes to progress things as efficiently as possible. I will admit to being downright terrified of this first session; terrified of losing my wife, terrified of losing her BFF, or perhaps most terrifying of all, losing myself. I also have rather mixed results with therapists - not due to any training issues or disposition, rather their sometimes insistence of coloring their advice through the lens of their own opinions. What I wasn't expecting, was to have as much fun as I did.

The therapist, having seen my wife earlier this week, asked me a few questions about myself, then jumped into how we met, and what brought us together. I brought with me a printed version of Tuesday's blog and read her the first paragraph. Sure enough, the second question was surrounding our expectations from these sessions, where I then read the rest. From there she looked at my wife and asked, "Is this true?" and she confirmed, giving her side, then asking me, "Is this true?" where I would confirm. It was a lot like watching a tennis match, only instead of deflecting everything, we were confirming everything the other was feeling, and acknowledging the responsibility of our own words and actions.

From there she handed us a "report card" where we each graded aspects of our relationship on the stereotypical academic grading scale. My wife obviously wasn't surprised when I asked our therapist to define terms used in the first question. And the second question. And the third question. And the fourth question. I think after that I pretty much filled in my view of the relationship while my wife assigned grade letters to the same questions from her perspective. Honestly it was one of the best, "here, fill this out" assignments I've been given in these settings. Most are incomprehensibly asinine with zero understanding of how our participation is supposed to reveal anything.

When we completed our scoring we handed each other our papers and were asked to identity areas of contention. Mine faulted our intimacy, while hers faulted our communication. As an aside I couldn't believe it when the therapist asked me, "What does intimacy mean to you?" I got downright giddy. My eyes darted toward my wife. "Go ahead." she says, almost resignedly. " I leaned forward and enumerated the tightly bound foundations for intimacy. She just stared at me. Not at all what she was looking for lol.

The last thing I brought up was how my wife and I - albeit in vastly different ways - manifest our destinies. As I was explaining my process (thoughts --> words --> actions --> habits --> character) I explained my assumption that's how self-fulfilling prophecies manage to come to fruition, and my worries surrounding wife's. If I recall correctly she simply nodded.

She did mention that my intelligence is absolutely going to require seeking connection (or something to that effect) basically mirroring what my last therapist said - which of course is one of wifey's sticking points so it'll be interesting to see where that goes. But I guess the biggest news was: Wifey may actually NOT be bipolar??? In the therapists experience, having her brand of IUD during perimenopause can have the same effects. This was huge. So she'll be having that evaluated ASAP and if needed, removed and put on a hormone patch.

Anyway, a LOT in an initial one-hour session to be sure. I can't wait for second session to see what else we learn!