I witnessed the power of a marital relationship, even though it was a marriage that has been struggling. I was sitting with a husband who had an abusive past. He is not able to cry about it even though he has so much sadness caught up inside. Instead the sadness comes out in anger and hurts those around him. I worked with him for a good 20 minutes to try to get him to feel the hurt. I couldn’t.
As he was sitting and recounting some of his childhood history his wife began to weep. He turned and asked her what she was crying about, and she said she was crying for him, for his pain. As she wept, he began to weep too.
Finally we were able to access his sadness, and he was then able to share it with her and let some of it go.
I love it when loved ones join us in therapy, it is so much more powerful.