Maybe she sent you this link.
If so, I’ll say the most important thing first.
She isn’t attacking you or saying you’ve failed. She’s reaching for you because she wants more of you.
I’m Mark. I run couples retreats with my partner Tarisha, who’s a couples and sex therapist. I’m not a therapist. I’m a bloke who used to do exactly what you might be doing now.
What I used to think about couples therapy
For most of my life, I thought therapy was for people who’d stuffed it up.
If you needed help with your relationship, it meant you’d failed.
A grown man sorts out his own problems. You don’t go talking to a stranger about your marriage.
I’d guess a lot of blokes think the same.
I’m not going to tell you you’re stupid for thinking it. I’ll tell you why I changed my mind.
Men feel the distance too
Most marriage advice casts the man as the one who shuts down. There’s some truth in it. There’s also a second story.
Men get lonely too, and most of us have nowhere to put it.
A man in his fifties is often carrying more than anyone gives him credit for:
- Money pressure he hasn’t talked about
- A body that’s slowing down
- A father who’s ageing or gone
- Kids leaving home
- Friendships that thinned out years ago
And an old rule he picked up as a boy: be useful, be steady, don’t need anything.
So he stops trying to start the conversation, because the times he tried, it came out wrong.
He keeps turning up for work.
He stops turning up for the marriage.
From the outside it looks like he doesn’t care. From the inside it’s closer to grief.
Sound familiar?
What changed my mind
Someone explained the cycle Tarisha works with.
One partner reaches, the other retreats, and both end up alone.
It was us.
I’d spent years thinking I was the problem, or she was.
It was the pattern.
I’ve written more about that in Why She Keeps Pushing.
Since then, working alongside Tarisha, I’ve watched a lot of couples go through it.
I’ve watched men realise that the thing they were most afraid of, talking about how they feel, was the thing that made them feel strongest.
What couples therapy is, and what it isn’t
- You won’t be ganged up on. A good couples therapist doesn’t take sides. In Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), the one who goes silent isn’t the bad guy.
- You don’t have to talk for an hour about your childhood. One honest sentence goes a long way.
- It’s learning a skill. You’d get a coach to improve your golf. You’d take your ute to a mechanic. This is the same, for the most important thing you’ve got.
If you’re still not sure
You don’t have to decide today. Here are three smaller steps.
- Read about the cycle. Start with Tarisha’s post on the pursuer and the withdrawer and see if you recognise the two of you.
- Come to a workshop. At Reignite Your Love you sit, listen and learn. You can come with her or on your own.
- Have a free call first. You can have a discovery call with Tarisha, together or on your own, and ask whatever you want to ask about couples therapy.
