For Better or Worse

by Andy Steiner

Here in Minnesota, the land of 10,000 therapies, trying to find the right relationship therapist can be a daunting task. According to Herb Laube, president of the Minnesota Association of Marriage and Family Therapy, there are over 1,000 active members of MAMFT trained in marriage and family therapy alone - and this doesn't count therapists unaffiliated with the organization. "We are one of the stronger states when it comes to taking marriage - and marriage therapy - seriously," Laube says. "It's part of our commitment to overall health."

Considering counseling? Most couples base their therapist choice on insurance coverage and location, but Laube advises that couples should also interview a therapist as carefully as they would a potential baby sitter or a future employee. More subtle issues may also be key to a successful relationship with a therapist, he says. Cultural background, philosophy of treatment, religious affiliation, and experience with non-traditional partnerships can all play a part. To demonstrate the wide range of approaches, skill sets, and specialty areas of work among metro area therapists, and to offer some help as you interview potential candidates for the two of you, we interviewed four relationship therapists that take very different approaches to helping couples come closer together.

This marriage can be saved

If you're in the marriage therapy business, it helps to be optimistic. It's equally important to be realistic. If there's one thing Karen Belling, L.I.C.S.W., L.M.F.T., a part-time faculty member at the University of Minnesota's School of Social Work and co-founder of the St. Paul psychological practice Marital Associates, has learned during her lengthy career, it's that couples in crisis can solve many of the problems that threaten their partnerships. What they need to realize, however, is that making things work isn't always easy.

"I categorically believe that if two people come in and want to make their marriage work and are truly willing to put in the effort, then they will be successful," Belling says. "I believe that if they have a real commitment in their own hearts, they will be able to make their marriage work."

A healthy life is largely about building healthy relationships with others, says Belling. In her therapy practice, she works to help couples bring vitality back into their romantic relationships.

Walking into Belling's cozy office, a client immediately feels at ease. She's worked hard to create a space where individuals and couples may feel free to unburden their hearts and get down to the serious business of reconciliation.  

"I'm always casual," says Belling. "My office is set up like a living room. I try as much as possible to make it like you're at home. For many people, there are huge issues around feeling safe to talk with each other and with a stranger. I try to clear that up as much as possible."

Belling describes her therapy style as "very traditional but also very non-traditional." While her practice is called Marital Associates, her client base is not limited to married couples. She also provides premarital counseling, therapy for couples and individuals dealing with separation and divorce, and remarriage and blended-family counseling for clients in heterosexual and same-sex relationships.

"I see clients for a wide range of relationships issues," Belling says. "Still, most of my appointments start with the same question: 'What specific incident led you to pick up the phone and call me?' I try to keep our initial conversations very present-oriented. I want to understand the level of commitment in this couple, how committed both parties are to making it work."

Sometimes, during the course of therapy, one member of a couple may request a private appointment with Belling, an opportunity to talk about the progress of the sessions away from the watchful eye of their partner. Belling says she usually refuses.

"If you see one person alone, then what do you do with the information?" Belling asks. "For the most part, couples counseling needs to be done as a couple. If I do see one partner alone, they have to understand that anything we talk about may ultimately end up being brought back into the couples' therapy."

Most often, what's needed in couples' therapy is an objective ear, a third party who will hear both members' interpretations of the issues, and then help them work to a mutually advantageous solution. Sounds simple enough, but Belling says it can take serious translating skills to decode a couple's language and then learn to speak it back to them.

"What I try to do is just listen with a third ear, to see if I can cut through the emotion to understand what both parties are really saying," Belling says. "When people come in with a problem, at first they are focused on wanting their problems solved right away. What I need to do - and this can take patience - is to find the specific language that helps each couple understand what is going on between them, to put it into words that make sense to both of them. If I can do this, we're heading in the right direction."

Counseling by the (good) book

"I definitely like to think of my approach to therapy as biblically focused, God-centered," says Scott Boeser, L.G.S.W., a Christian marriage and family therapist at the Greater Minnesota Association of Evangelicals. "I believe the Bible has a specific outline of how God designed marriage to be, and that's my blueprint."

While Boeser acknowledges that many people may find his ideas regressive, to say the least, he points out that there are a growing number of couples looking for religion-based therapy. He's out to fill that niche. In 1997, he founded Project Restore, a "Bible-based" social service program established to help men face violence and anger-management issues. Boeser's current focus -Christian couples counseling- has turned out to be professionally satisfying and personally fulfilling.

Creating a God-centered marriage often means rearranging your priorities. Boeser says that these days he sees far too many couples coming to him wondering why their partnership lacks true meaning. He tells them that they're searching fruitlessly for solutions when the answer to their prayers is often right in front of their eyes.

"In romantic relationships, people often put each other as a priority instead of God. In the Bible, God makes it clear that he needs to be first. Too many people don't listen to this and instead become dependent on each other. I tell them, 'When God regains his place at the head of your family, then all the other problems will begin to fall in line.'"

This isn't to say that it's easy to make a marriage work. A lasting relationship needs to be built from the ground up. Boeser paraphrases Scripture when he says, "Marriage is like a house. You need to build your house on rock, not on sand."

Relationships built on emotional sand can be strengthened, but even Boeser says some relationships do not have the structural integrity required to withstand the storms of life. In his career, there have been rare occasions where Boeser has agreed that the dissolution of a marriage may be biblically sanctioned.

"I think there's clear definitions in the Bible for what constitutes grounds for the divorce of a marriage," Boeser says. "It can be summed up in the word infidelity-not just sexual infidelity, but also breaking the trust of a marriage in terms of physical or emotional abuse. If these things can't be resolved and healed in a non-threatening way, then I think there are grounds for divorce there."

In Boeser's estimation, far too many secular therapists counsel divorce before exploring other options. He says that at least half of his clients say a previous marriage therapist has suggested that they split. "I'm not like that," he says. "I love families. I think the backbone of our country is all about family."

Wanted: relationship role models

For the past 20 years, Peg Thompson, Ph.D., a psychologist who counsels gay and lesbian individuals and couples, has been making it clear that committed, long-term relationships are possible-for both heterosexual and homosexual couples.

"Young lesbians who I see individually for counseling often say they want to be in a long-term relationship, but they are not seeing those sorts of relationships happen," Thompson says. "They literally don't think it is possible. Part of why they don't believe in such relationships is because they are not connected to a community, so they don't see what's [really happening] out there."

And when her clients can't be convinced that long-term love can happen, Thompson pulls out her trump card: "I tell them that I've been with my partner for almost 27 years. So it is possible."

Thompson and her partner's quarter-century-plus commitment serves as a good example not just to her gay and lesbian clients, but also to the heterosexual couples she counsels. When a couple meets with Thompson in her airy St. Paul office, she spends the first session simply trying to hear both members' interpretation of the troubles in their relationship. "I try to hear from both of them by asking, 'What is it that brings you here now?' I'm getting the lay of the land," she says. "The work starts before they get here, though, because someone has called me in the first place."

Thompson's approach is unstructured, with a focus on addressing the issues that may be moving a couple apart. Sometimes a couple spends too much time together, not giving each member an opportunity to grow and breathe. This can especially be the case in couples with children. Other times, couples can become too distant from one another, and their quest for independence may be driving a wedge into the relationship.

All couples face a host of concerns, like division of labor, equality, and emotional availability, that can rock even the most solid emotional foundation, says Thompson. Gay and lesbian couples face all of those issues, plus one other, one that is often the cause of breakups and serious disharmony.

"I think heterosexism is always going on for gay couples," Thompson says. "People are always dealing with heterosexism externally, in the outside world, and some of that gets turned inward and internalized. I try to bring it up when I see it happening. If a relationship is to thrive, this has to be dealt with."

Because they have so many years in the bank, Thompson and her partner make a point of being a visible example of a partnership with a history of love and commitment.

"It's one of our missions in life to celebrate our relationship publicly, to show others that long-term, same-sex relationships are possible," Thompson says. "We also try to support other people in long-term relationships."

And maybe the efforts of therapists like Thompson are paying off. While larger societal issues still exist, increasing numbers of same-sex couples are making relationship commitments that are both public and long-term.

"Back when my partner and I had a five-year anniversary celebration, that was a radical event," she smiles. "Now it seems like there's a commitment ceremony somewhere every weekend."

Close encounters of the married kind

The Marriage Encounter Retreat Center on Rogers Lake in Mendota Heights isn't the Ritz-Carleton. At the center, a drafty former dormitory for nearby St. Thomas Academy, the bedroom furnishings are hotel castoffs, the food is stick-to-your-ribs Midwestern, and the art is 1970s-era inspirational posters.

But couples don't come to Marriage Encounter expecting fancy digs. What they expect is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to spend a weekend re-examining and strengthening their marriage vows. And for many, that's just what they get.

"My husband and I made our [Marriage Encounter] weekend in 1976," says program director Mary Jackson. "In so many ways, it was a profound turnaround for our relationship. Where it took place didn't matter. We could have been anywhere. What mattered were the changes that took place in our marriage as a direct result of the time we spent at the center."

Established in 1952 by a Spanish priest, Marriage Encounter is a program designed to help couples that are in conflict to learn from the experiences of successfully married couples.

During a typical weekend, enrolled couples (they're called encountering couples) listen to a series of panel discussions led by Marriage Encounter graduates (known as encountered couples), breaking between each session to spend time writing letters to one another and then talking about what they have written.

While Marriage Encounter has its roots in the Catholic Church, Jackson stresses that the program serves couples of all faiths. "We see plenty of couples from mixed-faith backgrounds, and also couples with no religious orientation," she says. "Our program is open and accepting."

Whether by design or by chance, the Marriage Encounter experience breeds nearly slavish devotion in many of its graduates. For couples that wish to continue the experience long after the weekend is over, there is Encountering Couples, an ongoing support group meets monthly to discuss relationship issues. Other graduates volunteer to lead retreat discussions, cook meals, or donate goods and services to the retreat center.

Indeed, a certain level of devotion is central to the program's existence. The only established cost for the weekend is a $75 registration fee (scholarships are available); a free-will donation is taken at the retreat's end.

"We are a really low-cost operation. Much of what we do is thanks to the good work and good will of our graduates," says Jackson.

Perhaps the spartan setting is what's best suited for what lies ahead during a typical Marriage Encounter weekend. Deceptively simple, the program's schedule of writing and discussion somehow manages to unlock doors of communication long unopened. A more glamorous setting may be distracting from the weekend's true purpose.

"We don't have a workout room or anything like that," Jackson says almost proudly during a tour of the center. "We tell our couples, 'There won't be time for that. You are here to build your relationship, not your bodies.' "