As the Houston marriage counselor, I know that experiencing a personal disaster can leave you feeling powerless and overwhelmed. Illnesses, accidents, and deaths are often things over which we feel like we have no control, but that doesn’t mean that our choices are taken away from us completely.
If you are going through an illness, you have the choice to either share what’s going on in your mind with your significant other and let them be a part of it or shut them out and try to deal with it on your own. Likewise, they have the choice to be there for you or back away, and to treat you as they’ve always treated you or act differently. What neither of you have control over is how you feel, and that’s what often leads to actions and choices that cause trouble in marriages when couples are forced to face these overwhelming situations.
Get Relationship Help from the Houston Marriage Counselor
Luckily, you don’t have to go through it alone. If you and your spouse are dealing with something overwhelming in your lives and it feels like a train is barreling towards you, relationship help is out there.
In my years of experience as the Houston marriage counselor, I’ve found that most people tend to hone in on whatever the worst case scenario is for their problem and let themselves be ruled by fear. He’s going to die. She’s going to leave me. And so on. It’s something that I like to call a “fuzzy” focus, because they rarely think about the specifics of whatever that life would be, seeing only an amorphous big bad that they can’t control.
The Houston Marriage Counselor Can Give Control Back to You
One exercise that I like to use involves asking a simple question to each of them: “What if…?” I have them talk about the worst case scenarios that they fear and the best case scenarios that they hope for, and in so doing provide a way for them to cut through the overwhelming fear and think rationally about what’s coming.
In this way, it’s not unlike making a Pros and Cons list, or any other organizational activity that breaks something down into a process for our brains. By turning it into a clear, simple process, it enables us to work through it in smaller, step-by-step ways. This is an exercise that you can do yourselves, but anyone having difficulty should contact the Houston marriage counselor.
