And just like that, it’s been over a month since my last post. The time really does fly when you are planning a wedding. I’m not sure what I’ve done with all of it, but I’m definitely glad to be closer to the big day. We are exactly 6 weeks away from saying I do, and my feet are toasty warm. I hope Milton’s are too.
Actually, my feet are always cold, as Milton can attest. Cold feet are my weapon of choice. When we are snuggled on the couch, I like to wait until Milton is nice and comfy and then attack him with my icy feet. Ambush tactics aside, in the emotional sense, my feet are burning up.
Milton and I just completed our pre-marital counseling. I can’t recommend it enough for couples planning to tie the knot. We went through an actual therapist rather than just our minister because (A) we’re actually older than our minister and (B) our minister just got married a month ago himself.
Little known fact – counseling is a crazy expensive racket. Okay, maybe calling it a racket is unfair – it is a valuable service, but it can really add up. The first counselor I called wanted over $800 for 6 sessions and he indicated that it would likely take 12+ sessions to get through all our issues. As I was choking on that number, trying to imagine what issues Milton and I could possibly have that would take 12 sessions of therapy to cure, I remembered that my health benefits provider would cover 6 sessions of counseling services each year.
I promptly dialed the 800 number for my benefits provider and was greeted by a soft spoken older woman who repeatedly asked me if there was anything I needed to talk about besides finding a pre-marital counselor. She might as well have said, “You’re not fooling anyone. Now put down the gun and tell me why you’re sad.” Kudos to the call center operators - they do not give up easy. I almost made up an issue just to satisfy her quest for a sufficiently depressing condition. Luckily, I was able to convince her my sarcastic sense of humor was not a thinly veiled cry for help. She was able recommend a counselor in our area that could handle our pre-marital counseling from a Christian perspective.
When the big day arrived, I think Milton and I were both a little apprehensive about our first session. Neither of us had been to therapy before, so it seemed like a strange concept to introduce yourself to a stranger and then talk about really private aspects of your relationship and family histories. Somehow the knowledge that it would all be confidential didn’t seem to put us at ease. Maybe that’s because Milton knew I’d be blogging about it….hmm.
I guess I had been expecting more of a Hollywood version of a therapists office. I thought there would be a wavy couch thing built for two and the therapist would be a crunchy woman who constantly asked us how things made us feel and why we hated our mothers so much. I think Milton was just hoping there wasn’t going to be any role-play exercises. Secretly, I was counting on those. I had been practicing my Milton voice all week. I didn’t get to use it. Not once.
The office was actually more reminiscent of a spa than a doctor’s office. There was a small sofa – not big enough to nap on, and the room was softly lit with candles. There was a box of tissues terrifyingly perched on the large trunk that served as the coffee table. I prayed the only sniffles we’d suffer were allergy related.
Prior to our first session, we each had to fill out a 300+ question assessment that asked everything from our health histories to our favorite breakfast cereals. We were supposed to fill out the assessments individually so our results could be compared and the potential strengths and weaknesses in our relationship could be identified. After introductions, the therapist told us that our assessments had been very interesting. As is my curse gift in awkward social situations, I attempted to break the tension with a joke about how we had painstakingly gone through each question together, so our answers should have matched up exactly. The therapist didn’t have much of a sense of humor. She was immediately confused and started in about how we were supposed to take them on our own, now the results wouldn’t be accurate, blah, blah, blah. Calm down, therapist lady, I was kidding.
All joking aside, our results were really positive. We had only strengths, no weaknesses. Just as I was planning how to spend my suddenly free Thursdays for the next 6 weeks, the therapist informed us that we’d still need to complete the sessions. Apparently even perfect couples have problems. None of ours were apparent yet, but she assured us that someday we would encounter an issue and lean on the tools we learned over the next 6 weeks to tackle it. That is if we could still find all the worksheets.
The topics we covered in our sessions weren’t earth shattering, but they were definitely important. It’s necessary to talk about things like future family planning and finances before you say I do. You don’t want to be on your honeymoon and suddenly figure out your husband wants 19 children, their own TLC show, and for you to not have an opinion.* But you don’t just cover the big stuff either. You talk about fighting styles, what kind of home environment you anticipate and how you like to be approached with difficult situations.
Without divulging any of our big secrets (now you really want to know, don’t you), it was clear, as Milton and I worked through the sessions, we’d already had all the necessary conversations. There were no surprises or areas of concern for either of us. That’s not to say we handle things identically. There are plenty of differences in the way we process emotions and view relationship dynamics. I’m sure some of these differences will lead to some impassioned arguments in the future, but for the most part, our differences are different in the right way. We complement each other. Where Milton is weak, I am strong. Where I am weak, Milton pretends to not notice so as to not hurt my ego.
We are a perfect pair. Even the therapist said so. At the end of our first session, she gave us her assessment of our overall chances as a future married couple. “I think you’ll be great! You’re both practical people, with reasonable expectations about what you want out of your marriage.”
I couldn’t agree more.
While we didn’t need therapy to confirm what we already knew about our compatibility, we definitely got something out of the experience. I don’t want to put words in Milton’s mouth, so I’ll just talk about my observations from here on out. Here are a few of the things therapy taught me:
- Therapy isn’t scary.
- I had never been to a therapist before, so I didn’t know how quickly I would feel at ease. Even though the first session was a little awkward, I warmed up really quickly. I know I don’t have trouble communicating with strangers, but it’s different when you’re talking about your feelings and life experiences (good and bad). It was definitely something I could see myself utilizing again should the need arise. I often thought I should have seen a counselor after my brother died, but I battled through on my own. I don’t think I’ll choose that path again for the next crisis. Hopefully there won’t be one. Now that Milton and I have attended couples counseling, I think we’d be more inclined to go again in the future if we had problems in our marriage. That’s definitely going to be worth the time and effort we spent the past 6 weeks should the need arise.
- Milton’s stress level is annoyingly low.
- In one of the sessions, our stress levels were evaluated based on our answers to the assessment questions. My stress level was at 80%, from factors like my job, my weight, my family, to wedding planning, and finances for wedding planning. That number sounded pretty accurate to me. Milton’s stress level was 10%. Yup, 10%. I’m over here worrying about EVERYTHING there is to possibly worry about. What’s Milton’s big stressor? I’m so glad you asked. The cause of Milton’s stress, as assessed by a computer program is that “his fiancé is stressed out.” Just let that sink in for a minute. My stress is causing Milton's stress. All 10% of it. Good to know.
- Everyone is entitled to feel or think however they feel or think about a certain issue.
- So often when I ask someone their opinion about something, I don’t really care what they think. I just want them to agree with me. I already know I’m right, and I just want that confirmed. Therapy involved a lot of one of us sharing our thoughts or feelings about a topic and the other one then responding to that revelation. It was a space where you were encouraged to think or feel exactly how you think or feel without any judgment. In marriage, I think it will be important to make sure I’m listening as much as I’m talking. This is especially true in marrying a guy like Milton who is much more likely to go with the flow than to rock the boat. I need to remember to ask his opinions and feelings about things whether it’s an important issue or a mundane one. And then I have to listen to what he says. I always want him to feel heard.
- I definitely picked the right guy.
- I already knew this, but therapy just confirmed it. We are such a good match and definitely have all the right qualities to be a killer team in marriage. I’m really excited to spend my life with Milton. I told him the other night that I couldn’t have done any better if I’d picked him out of a catalogue. He feels the same way about me. We both have our insecurities about the way we look and whether we’re enough for the other one, but I think we’ve fallen into one of those really rare and awesome relationships where we both feel like we’re marrying up.
Getting our pre-marital counseling done was just one of the things on our pre-wedding to-do list. Coming up soon, I’ve got bridal showers, a girls’ trip, bachelorette party, and then, of course, the big day! Stay tuned!
* Who am I kidding, if TLC wants to pay me money to film me living my life, I’m all for it. They could call it Humdrum Boo-Boo: The uninspiring story of a couple who only gets off the couch to pee.
No comments:
Post a Comment