How to (literally!) break down the Berlin Wall in YOUR marriage
. . . with one of Britain’s top counsellors – whose mini-break with a difference rekindled the spark in LINDA KELSEY’S romance
Happy anniversary , darling,’ I say as we make our way, with the help of Google Maps, through the streets of Berlin in 34-degree heat.
Our destination? Neither a restaurant for a slap -up lunch nor a cocktail bar at which we will toast the ten years of our relationship, but the consulting room of the renowned marital therapist andrew G. Marshall.
It may not be everyone’s idea of the perfect mini-break — and I admit I was tempted to call the whole thing off as we questioned earlier, over breakfast, what on earth we’d let ourselves in for.
By signing up for a relationship MOT in lieu of a romantic holiday , was there a danger of raking up problems that didn’t actually exist?
Could playing the truth game, laying bare our deepest feelings on the shared couch, result in us saying things better left unsaid?
Might we benefit more from instead going round the museums and picnicking on currywurst in the Tiergarten?
Well, it was too late to back out now — and I reminded myself why we were doing this. The idea of couples therapy had intrigued both of us. after a decade of being together, I had started to notice that I’d become a lot snappier with my partner, Ronny. More easily irritated, listening less, resenting our differences.
and it had got me thinking about past relationships — my short-lived marriage when I was 19 and the 23-year relationship with the father of my son.
Might counselling have saved us? Wasn’t it better to reflect on things before the rot had set in, rather than waiting for a major crisis when long -held resent - ments are too embedded to be resolved?
Now in my mid-60s, I want this bond to be for life, for us to grow old together —
Understand that the tragedies of your life one day have the potential to be comic stories the next NORA EPHRON, WRITER
and Ronny wants the same. We’ve survived health scares and the challenge of his adult daughter moving back in for a year.
Doubtless, there will be more bumps in the road. If counselling can keep us on track, it has to be worth a try.
So, here we are for the first of five hour-long sessions with Andrew, who welcomes us into his airy consulting room and gestures towards a black leather sofa. We each nestle into a corner and I note a box of tissues. Won’t be needing those, I think, we’re too happy for tears . . .
Andrew — who moved to Berlin 12 months ago after 30 years as a therapist in the UK and having written 16 books on relationships and infidelity — explains the principles behind the programme he’s designed as a ‘therapy holiday’.
‘When people lead busy lives — especially with young children — it can be hard to fit in therapy on a weekly basis,’ he tells us. ‘It can actually be easier to clear your diary for a whole week.
‘It also feels safer than to leave the session in the air with a week’s gap between. If things go pear- shaped in the meantime, you can come back the next day to discuss it, rather than having it hang over you.’
Most people, Andrew knows from experience, crush marriage against the wall because they’re too involved in daily life. The advantage of this intensive week is that you get to work on your marriage 24/7, away from the distractions of work and picking up the kids and other responsibilities. The focus becomes entirely on the two of you.
Andrew had been visiting one of the few remaining sections of the Berlin Wall and discovering the poignant stories of divided families at the adjacent commemorative museum when it occurred to him that, as with the divisions between East and West Berlin, in a long relationship you might ‘start with a bit of barbed wire between you, then build up to full search lights and shoot-to-kill’.
What might we learn from using the Cold War as a metaphor for relationships and the walls couples build between one another?
DAY ONE
AFTER taking basic details, Andrew asks what brought us here. I say that I think in some ways, we’re very different people — that we’re East and West, to use his own metaphor — and that we got heavily involved and moved in together within a year of meeting.
That we came to the relationship as fullyformed adults in our 50s and didn’t focus on our differences, which had now come more to the fore. That I was the one who got most easily irritated by these differences and I didn’t like this aspect of myself.
Asked to elaborate, I find myself reeling off a list, including the fact that I’m organised, while Ronny is disorganised; I like change, Ronny is resistant; I’m focused, Ronny is easily distracted; that I want to act when I’m anxious, while Ronny procrastinates; that he comes out with stuff in a torrent, whereas I first need to sit on it and think things through.
It sounds like a litany of complaints, so I try to get Andrew to understand that they’re all petty things. He notes my anxiety to emphasise how good our relationship is.
Ronny explains that the house we live in belongs to me (his flat is rented out) and that I have a lot of rules, such as not being able to leave one plate unwashed or surface unwiped after we’ve eaten. And that if he makes for the TV or phone before the kitchen is spotless, I give him a look of incomprehension. These spoilers, he says, get in the way of our love for one another.
We talk, too, about how Ronny, who wears his heart on his sleeve, encourages me to express my feelings and how sometimes I find it overwhelming. Andrew notes I appear to swallow my feelings with thoughts and Ronny explains how he feels closer to me when I let myself soften.
Andrew reassures us that however petty we believe some of our dissatisfaction to be, we need never feel embarrassed about airing ‘small’ topics because we might learn from them.
He also notes moments of sadness — in me — and tenderness between us. Our homework is a reflective listening exercise, to talk about our
feelings of being in the therapy room. We take it in turns.
as ‘the speaker’ talks (briefly!), the other has to summarise what they’ve said and, when finished summarising, asks: ‘Is that right?’
If the answer is ‘yes’, the listener asks: ‘Is there more?’ and allows the speaker to add detail if the listener has missed it out.
But if the answer to ‘Is that right?’ is ‘no’, then the original speaker reports what was said or what was missed out and the receiver has another go.
Three things, andrew says, get in the way of good communication — interrupting, being busy preparing your defence (which means you stop listening), or what he calls ‘chunking’, spewing out so much information that your partner doesn’t know what to react to.
That evening, over pasta, we practise our listening skills. It’s harder than it sounds. We keep getting it wrong and it feels stilted, but we get there eventually and giggle while we’re doing it.
We feel at ease in Berlin. something about being on holiday, without the pressures of daily life, makes this forensic examination of how we communicate feel less loaded, less self-defensive, than it would at home.
DAY TWO
WE BEGIN to talk about some of the things that impact our relationship. One eye-opener (with andrew’s help) is that when we examine my list of differences, it becomes clear I’m classing myself as ‘good’ and Ronny as ‘ bad’. Ironically, Ronny, who is his own harshest critic, feels that I rightly emerge as the goodie and him as the baddie. andrew gives us a wry smile. ‘a good match, but is it helpful?’ he asks. He encourages us away from comparative thinking — good vs bad, brilliant vs rubbish, right vs wrong — and asks us to be more contemplative when differences arise between us. For example, we might be loving and judgmental, nice and not nice.
I bring in the fact that Ronny rarely complains about me, puts me on a pedestal and goes around telling people how wonderful I am, which I find burdensome.
The previous night, I finally got him to admit what drives him mad about me. When he said it frustrates him that I’m so rational, so cool in my analysis, whereas he’s passionate, it was a relief. I was able to acknowledge he is a passionate person and I love that about him — maybe I’m envious.
Our next homework is to go to the Berlin Wall Memorial park and museum and think about walls in a contemplative way, but also about ‘boundaries’ and how they might differ from walls.
Despite the heat, we have a spring in our step. Difficult things are being said, but it’s bringing us closer, not pushing us away.
DAY THREE
IT’s now that I find myself grabbing at the tissue box. Ronny says something that sets me off, something that shows he understands my anxieties and the difficulties I have in talking about them.
It’s the first time I’ve been in a relationship with a man who is better at expressing his feelings than I am and, sometimes, I’m overwhelmed by his need to dig deep. ‘It’s a good feeling,’ I stutter, as I dab at my tears. ‘It makes me feel lucky to have him because he has such compassion for me. The things that irritate are so petty compared to this.’
On the business of walls and boundaries, we find it easier to see the positives in boundaries.
Walls, we agree, divide and imprison, create animosity and block the view. We build them as a conscious or unconscious protection against misunderstandings and misconceptions and reduced respect and neglect.
But boundaries are necessary. They provide privacy, create clarity, allow individuality, rather than enmeshment, and can be flexible and negotiated. I’m soon to learn something about boundaries that will surprise me.
Our homework is to choose a specific issue over which we have real differences and discuss using the reflective listening techniques we’ve learned.
The topic we pick is Ronny’s retirement from being a selfemployed osteopath. ‘This is such an important and live issue, it’s going to be not one negotiation, but a series,’ says andrew.
Ronny is conflicted. On the one hand, he says he’s overworked and wants to throw it all in. He’s often on his feet for 12 hours a day.
On the other, he thinks he’ll never be able to afford to retire. He’s worried about work drying up now he’s 64, yet he’s busier than ever. I jump in with ideas for succession planning so he can work less without stopping a job he loves.
My tendency is to rush in as rescuer — it sounds kind, but causes me to leap over Ronny’s boundaries and make him a victim.
He doesn’t follow up on anything I suggest, so I become resentful and start to persecute him. after a bit, he objects to being a victim and gets angry with me for trying to sort his problems. so he becomes the persecutor and I am the victim.
DAY FOUR
DISCUSSING the previous night’s homework, it becomes apparent that we are in what andrew calls the drama triangle.
andrew tries to help us see that I can be a better listener; I can offer advice, but I can’t resolve Ronny’s problems. Ultimately, he needs to sort it out for himself. Phew! I resist the urge to say: ‘But what if he still doesn’t do anything?’
DAY FIVE
FOR our final homework, we are each asked to write a list of what we’ve learned about each other and what we hope to do differently.
We are amazed by how much has emerged in a few sessions. Ronny resolves to look less to me for solutions, to remind us both of boundaries and to discuss his concerns, while burdening me less.
I resolve to back off on the rescue plans, to not offer criticisms that belittle, to prioritise loving feelings, rather than frustrations and irritations. and to avoid suggestions that sound like orders.
Having therapy on holiday? It worked for us, but if we’d gone in a state of should-I-stay-or-should-Igo crisis, I’m not sure it would have been as successful. It would have been so much harder to bear the painful conversations in an isolated holiday setting — though it would certainly bring things to a head.
What I’ve come home feeling is that every ‘ happy’ relationship could do with a refresher course.
Five days in Berlin examining the nooks and crannies of ours has made us realise how much work there is for me and Ronny to do — and it’s brought us closer than I could ever have imagined possible.