What I Have Learnt from 35 Years as a Couples Therapist Ideal Ordeal Real Deal
When couples come to see me, most of them are not in crisis yet, they’re in what I call the ordeal phase. Something feels off, they’re still in love but maybe the connection’s gone a bit numb, the spark has faded, or one partner feels invisible.
They sit in front of me and they say, can you help us get back to how it was at the beginning? And I always say, well the truth is we’re not trying to go backwards. The honeymoon phase is over, what I’ll help you do is get to the real deal, which if you manage it is the richest and most marvellous phase.
Every long-term relationship passes through three distinct phases, the ideal, the ordeal and the real deal. The ideal is the honeymoon phase, intoxicating, effortless. The ordeal is where the masks start to fall away and the power struggles happen, we begin to see each other’s shadows. And the real deal, that’s when we’ve faced ourselves and our partner long enough to love from truth, not from hope or fantasy.
Couples who reach the real deal are not the lucky ones, they’re the brave ones. They’re the ones who stayed in the room when it was uncomfortable, who’ve learnt to tell the truth, not the polished truth, but the messy truth, and they’ve grown because of it.
I learned that lesson the hard way. I’ve lived with three men and I’ve married twice. I lived with someone for eight years, then twelve years and now it’s been thirty years – and each relationship has shaped me. But it was my first divorce that taught me something I hadn’t expected, the importance of being honest with myself. Looking back, I wasn’t happy, but I didn’t allow myself to know that. I put my commitment above my truth, I was busy keeping the relationship going, trying to be a good partner.
It wasn’t until my husband finally said that he wasn’t happy that I could explore making changes myself, and when I did I discovered that I’d been unhappy for a very long time but I’d never admitted it, not even to myself.
That experience changed the way I work with couples. It taught me that one of the most loving things we can do for ourselves, and our partner is to be honest about what’s real – because when love is built on illusion it will eventually collapse under its own weight. So, when as a therapist I sit with couples now – my job is not to fix them or take sides. My job is to help them name what’s been unnameable, to bring truth back into the room.
To remind them that love is not just a feeling, it’s a decision to grow. And that’s what I’ve learnt in 35 years as a couple therapist. Love is not about avoiding the ordeal, it’s about walking through it together so that you can find the real deal, which will be waiting on the other side.
By Juliet Grayson
www.therapyandcounselling.co.uk
If you’re a therapist and watching this you might be interested in my six modular workshops on how to work with couples. Go to www.therapyandcounselling.co.uk and look either at the calendar or look at the course for therapists: Certificate in Working with Couples.
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