243: Commitment in Couples Therapy with Shane Birkel

Welcome back to The Couples Therapist Couch! This podcast is about the practice of Couples Therapy. Each week, Shane Birkel interviews an expert in the field of Couples Therapy to explore all about the world of relationships and how to be an amazing therapist.

In this solo episode, Shane explores commitment in couples therapy. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and your other favorite podcast spots, and watch it on YouTube – follow and leave a 5-star review.

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• Show Notes
• The Couples Therapist Couch Summary
• Transcript

The Couples Therapist Couch 243: Commitment in Couples Therapy with Shane Birkel

This episode is brought to you by Alma. Visit HelloAlma.com/ATPP to learn more

Get the Couples Therapy 101 course: https://www.couplestherapistcouch.com/

Join the Couples Therapist Inner Circle: https://www.couplestherapistcouch.com/inner-circle-new 

Join The Couples Therapist Couch Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/295562197518469/

In this solo episode, Shane explores commitment in couples therapy. Hear how to help couples on the brink of divorce, the challenges of discernment counseling, what to do when one partner is leaning out, why you should talk goals & expectations from the beginning, and how to get some level of commitment from a client. Here’s a small sample of what you will hear in this episode:

• What to do when it feels like you're working harder than the couple
• When somebody says they're willing to work on the marriage, ask why
• Once people can commit to doing the work, you have leverage to work with
• The first priority in early meetings is to get the next meeting
• Have the courage to ask compassionately if they still want to work on the relationship

Check out the episode, show notes, and transcript below:

Show Notes

• 243: Commitment in Couples Therapy with Shane Birkel
• This episode is brought to you by Alma. Visit HelloAlma.com/ATPP to learn more
•  [0:18] Welcome to The Couples Therapist Couch
• [1:42] Join the Couples Therapist Inner Circle: https://www.couplestherapistcouch.com/inner-circle-new 
• [4:38] How to work with couples on the brink of divorce
• [6:24] The first priority in early meetings is to get the next meeting
• [7:09] What to do when it feels like you're working harder than the couple
• [9:49] Have the courage to ask compassionately if they still want to work on the relationship
• [12:03] This episode is brought to you by Alma. Visit HelloAlma.com/ATPP to learn more
• [12:57] When somebody says they're willing to work on the marriage, ask why
• [13:52] Using the discernment counseling model
• [16:10] You can validate they don't have to do things they're not ready to do
• [17:57] Once people can commit to doing the work, you have leverage to work with
• [20:42] This is a great time to join the Couples Therapy Inner Circle!
• [22:07] This episode is brought to you by Alma. Visit HelloAlma.com/ATPP to learn more

What is The Couples Therapist Couch?

This podcast is about the practice of Couples Therapy. Many of the episodes are interviews with leaders in the field of Relationships. The show is meant to help Therapists and Coaches learn how to help people to deepen their connection, but in the process it explores what is most needed for each of us to love, heal, and grow. Each week, Shane Birkel interviews an expert in the field of Couples Therapy to explore all about the world of relationships and how to be an amazing therapist.

Learn more about the Couples Therapy 101 course: https://www.couplestherapistcouch.com/

Find out more about the Couples Therapist Inner Circle: https://www.couplestherapistcouch.com/inner-circle-new

Transcript

00:00
It's good to take your time to establish this at the beginning and make sure people are on the same page about what we're doing here.

00:14
The Couples Therapist Couch, the podcast for couples therapists, marriage counselors, and relationship coaches to explore the practice of couples therapy. And now, your host, Shane Birkel.

00:30
Hey everybody. Welcome back to The Couples Therapist Couch. This is Shane Birkel, and this is the podcast that's all about the practice of couples therapy. Thank you so much for tuning in. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist, and the goal of this podcast is to help you learn how to more effectively work with couples and possibly even learn how to have a better relationship. The episode this week is brought to you by Alma. They make it easy to get credentialed with major insurance plans at enhanced reimbursement rates.

00:59
Alma handles all of the paperwork and guarantees payment within two weeks. Visit HelloAlma.com/ATPP or click on the link in the show notes to learn more. All right, this week we're going to be talking about couples on the brink of divorce. And some of you may have heard of discernment counseling. I'll explain that a little bit, but these can be really challenging cases to work with. And there's some really specific things that I want to talk about that I hope will be really helpful for you.

01:28
If you ever have couples who are thinking about getting a divorce, who aren't sure if they can stay together, you know, and are working through that. So before I get into all that, I did want to take a moment to talk about the couples therapist inner circle. I try not to talk too much about that, but many of you, if you listen to the podcast, you may know that I have a membership called the couple's therapist inner circle.

01:54
where we continue the conversations from the podcast. You get a lot more personal connection with me and there's a bunch of other therapists in the group to connect with. But basically there's a group chat section where, you know, there's a feed. People can ask questions or start conversations and people can comment on each other's questions. And I'm always checking that and trying to give people feedback about the cases they're working with. So it's nice because

02:22
you can get sort of live feedback. You know, if you're working with a case that week, you know, you can get pretty quick responses to things that you post there. And then one time a month, we have a live call with the group where, you know, it's a zoom call, everybody's faces are on the screen. And it's basically like a consultation group where we talk about cases, we talk about topics, we talk about, you know, the couples that people are working with. And then

02:50
one time a month, there's a live webinar teaching where it'll be more of a classroom format where I'll get up and teach about a topic or I'll have guests who are experts in other areas come on and teach about a topic. basically you're getting a live call every two weeks, if that makes sense, because one of them is the consultation call and then one of them is the live webinar. And at this point there are hundreds of

03:18
the video recordings and those video recordings are always available right after. So if you can't make it live, you can watch the video recording later that day or the next day or later that week or something like that. All the, all the old recordings are available now as soon as you sign up. And so, you know, there's a course on EFT, a course on narcissism, a course on high conflict couples, a course on affairs, all kinds of

03:43
educational material to take advantage of. And right now, if you know, I'm opening up this promotion right now, if you join, you get seven days for free. So you can get in there, take some courses, see if you like it, and you can cancel if you want to without having to pay anything if you cancel within seven days. So I mean, my hope is that you'll enjoy it so much and you'll want to stay and you'll you can stay on. But

04:10
You can find out more information about that. I'll post a link in the show notes here. And I really encourage you, you know, this is a good week to sign up. You know, I sometimes I closed after this week, I'll probably close down the ability to sign up for a while while I'm taking in new members, but it's open right now and I'd love to have you join and come check it out. So that's the couple's therapist inner circle and I hope you see hope to see you in there.

04:38
For today, I want to talk about couples on the brink of divorce. And, you know, it can be a really big challenge sometimes as a couples therapist when you have either one or both partners who are sort of leaning out of their relationship. And I talked about leverage a few weeks ago. You can check out that episode. I might go over some of that stuff again. This isn't exactly the same topic, but it includes some ideas from that.

05:07
as well. Because one of the things that you have to understand, if you have one partner who's leaning out, who's not sure if they want to work on their relationship, and you have one partner who's leaning in and they're fully committed, that's a dynamic that's important to recognize right from the beginning. Because if, you know, I had a situation recently where there was a couple

05:36
came in for therapy and the partner who was leaning in, you know, who was more invested in their relationship, who wanted to make it work, started complaining about all of the things that the other partner was doing wrong. And I could just see the body language of the other partner and the things they were saying. That partner was not in a place where they could hear that kind of feedback and they were just distancing themselves more and more. And the partner was saying that

06:05
that they felt the distance more more emotionally overall in the relationship. My concern in those situations, and I've seen it happen before, is that the partner who's leaning out will just choose not to continue going to couples therapy. One of the first priorities in all of couples therapy is to get the people to come back to the next session. One of the...

06:30
biggest goals of the first session in couples therapy is to make sure that there's a second session. And this is one of the scenarios that could definitely lead to there not being a second session. If you don't understand where the leverage is and you don't understand, if you don't identify when one person is sort of leaning out, it could be very concerning. The other problem, even if people do come back week after week after week,

07:00
The other problem I've seen is that you'll have one partner who's leaning out, you know, not sure if they want to get a divorce or not. And it'll feel very difficult for the therapist. Sometimes it feels like the therapist is working harder than each person in the couple. And this is because you oftentimes you aren't identifying

07:26
the motivation for that person and why they're even there and what they're hoping for. So if you don't have a clear sense of what that is or some sort of commitment to do the work, it's going to be very difficult. for example, I was talking in the inner circle recently to somebody who's working with a couple and they were saying, they work with this couple week after week after week and it feels very hard to make any progress because what happens is

07:56
One partner says, I want more connection. And so they set up a plan to try to do things to create more connection in their relationship. Sounds good so far, right? But the other partner sort of hesitantly says, yeah, sure. I want more connection. I'm willing to do some of those things. But from the way it sounded, they aren't really sure if they want more connection. And what's happening is the

08:26
you know, the therapist continues to speak to the couple as though more connection is healthy for the each person. And I don't think that, you know, what I told them in the inner circle meeting is that I don't think that leaning out partner fully believes that they want more connection. I'm not sure if they're convinced yet. And so they're sort of half-heartedly trying to go along with what's happening in the couple's therapy, but

08:55
I don't think they're really connected to what they truly authentically want. And I don't think what their issues are with their relationship are really being addressed in the therapy. So what happens is, you know, there ends up being this dynamic where, you know, it's sort of like everyone assumes couples therapy is supposed to lead to more connection between each partner. But for the leaning out partner, that could be sort of not honoring

09:25
their authentic self and not honoring what they really want and not honoring how they feel in the situation. And so they might be polite and they may be going along with it. But you know, I think as therapists, we can always try to do a better job of making sure we're connecting with the things that they really want. Sometimes I think it's really important to make sure and

09:53
take it on directly. Okay, so I think as therapists we have to have the courage to really ask something like, do you even want to work on this relationship? You know, not in a rude way, but just sort of in compassionate way. And sometimes I'll even say something like, if you decided to move on and not be in this relationship anymore, you wouldn't be doing anything wrong. You can still be a good person. I mean, hopefully you would do that.

10:23
with consideration for each other. Hopefully you would do that with, you know, keeping the kids in mind. If there are kids, hopefully you would be really respectful about how you did that. But it would be really important that you were authentic to yourself. You can't, you know, continue to be in a relationship just because you feel bad, you know, about hurting the other person's feelings. From that place, with the knowledge that it's okay to leave,

10:52
would you still choose to work on things? I think that kind of those kinds of questions are important, right? That, and setting it up from the beginning that this couples therapy is so that each one of you can be a happy, healthy human being as an individual. You know, maybe part of that is that their relationship can work. I hope so. But really the goal is for each of you to be happy and healthy in your life.

11:22
Sometimes that means that the relationship is going to end. You know, I think that's a very small percentage of the time, but just sort of giving people that permission because a lot of times I think, you know, you could go through 10 sessions and people feel the pressure of, know, not wanting to say that they want the relationship to be over, feel the pressure of, you know, this is couples therapy. We're supposed to be working on things. We're supposed to be trying to make it better.

11:53
and you don't really have the full truth of what's going on inside someone's head. Building a private practice can be challenging. Filing all of the right paperwork is time consuming and tedious. And even after you're done, it can take months to get credentialed and start seeing clients. That's why Alma makes it easy and financially rewarding to accept insurance. When you join Alma, you can get credentialed within 45 days and access enhanced reimbursement rates with major payers.

12:22
They also handle all of the paperwork from eligibility checks to claim submissions and guarantee payment within two weeks of each appointment. Plus, when you join Alma, you'll get access to time-saving tools for intakes, scheduling, treatment plans, progress notes, and more in their included platform. Alma helps you spend less time on administrative work and more time offering great care to your clients. Visit helloalma.com backslash A-T-P-P.

12:51
or click the link in the show notes to learn more. So the other thing, you know, if you get that buy-in that both people do want their relationship to work, a great question to ask, by the way, this can be just a small thing that you, you know, that you try, you know, if you, if you say like, are you committed to working on this? And someone says, yes, the next question should be why, right? And you want your,

13:19
you're moving someone into their vulnerability. You're trying to help them connect with the idea that they love and care for this other person. But sometimes it's really important when you have one or both people sort of leaning out and not sure if they want to work on it, you have to get some level of commitment. So this is what, you know, discernment counseling talks a lot about. And that was started by Bill Doherty.

13:49
and they have a whole training. I mean, I've done podcast episodes on discernment counseling. I've done, you know, we've done inner circle webinars on discernment counseling. That information is out there if you want to learn more. And then Bill Doherty's whole program is amazing. They do a great job of teaching. I haven't taken it myself, but basically discernment counseling is

14:16
There are three options here. One is that the two of you continue to be miserable in the way that you are. You continue to stay stuck and things don't get any better. And let's be honest, that's not really an option. Nobody wants to stay stuck. The second option is that you get a divorce and move on. The third option is you figure out how to

14:46
have a relationship, figure out how to communicate in an entirely different way and try to make this work. If the people can agree to do the work, the next step is saying, listen, if you want this to work, you have to do things in a totally different way. The way you've been doing things aren't working. And so would you be willing to commit to three months or four months? I mean, you can kind of read the situation. Sometimes I say three months, sometimes I say four months. It depends.

15:15
But would you be willing to commit to four months of working on this and being committed to the relationship and really seeing if you can make it work? Now at the end of four months, you can still get a divorce. You can still say, all right, we tried it out and it didn't work and we're still getting a divorce. But just for the next four months, you're staying committed to

15:45
working on the relationship. And so this moves people into a certain type of mindset. Also, it's good to give them permission. At the end of four months, you can still split up because then people feel that it's not so overwhelming or feel like so much pressure. Now, you can also validate that as we're setting this up, it's important to realize you don't have to do anything you don't want to do.

16:11
Right? You don't, we, don't have to rush in. Let's say that someone's been sleeping in separate bedrooms, uh, you know, for the last year. Um, there's not a lot of trust in our relationship. They're feeling insecure about diving in and working on things. There can be fear for people that, you know, if I dive in, you know, my partner's really going to expect that we're going to go back to, you know, being like, um,

16:38
you know, the expectations are going to be too high. Like we're supposed to be, you know, hugging each other, joking around all the time, feeling loving with each other. And that can feel like a lot of pressure. So it's sort of like, you can take this as slow as you possibly want. So you're committed to the work for four months, but the two of you get to decide what your boundaries are, how slow you want to take it.

17:04
And we have to respect each person's authentic reality. We have to respect each person's boundaries. We have to respect what you're ready for and what you're not ready for. You know, if you want to continue sleeping in separate bedrooms, or if you want to continue having certain boundaries for yourself, then we'll, that's fine. That's okay. We'll ease into it and we'll make sure that both people feel

17:30
comfortable as we take, you know, step one, step two, step three, step four, and it'll be a gradual process. So committing to the work for four months is more of just a mindset, but there's no specific timeline that that has to take, or there's no expectations of once you make that commitment, you have to do certain things. And that can be really important for people to hear. So a lot of times what happens is

17:59
you start feeling like, you know, once people commit to doing this work, you start feeling as a therapist, like, oh my gosh, all of sudden it feels like we have something we can sink our teeth into or all of a sudden we, you know, we, we can get some traction. We can make some progress in the situation and it feels much better. Now what, what the work looks like at that point speaks to a lot of the things we talk about in other episodes, but it's more about

18:29
determining what each person wants and what they're motivated by. So if I start off in the first session, one person really wants their relationship to work and they're fully committed and the other partner says, I'm not sure. I'm not being respectful or honoring the message if I'm just bulldozing forward with working on more connection.

18:59
Right? So I have to respect and honor if that person is saying, I'm not sure, right? This is a way of moving them into some sort of declaration of what they want in a way that we all agree on. Right? So it's good to take your time to establish this at the beginning and make sure people are on the same page about what we're doing here. And if you feel like you're losing,

19:27
someone or you feel like they aren't committed to doing the work, you you can come back to these conversations. Those are just opportunities to keep checking in, keep making sure you're doing the things as a therapist that the couple really needs. And don't be too connected to building connection in their relationship. Obviously that can be a wonderful thing if that's what both people want and if that's what you're working on. But

19:57
Like I said before, make sure you have that agreement with people from the beginning, that that's part of the plan and that's what both people know is happening in the situation. You know, really find out at the beginning when you have couples on the brink of divorce, is it one person who's initiating that? Is it both people? Cause that's possible.

20:22
Or, you know, even, even if both people are fully committed to staying in the relationship, that's important to establish as well and figuring out what they really want. Um, thanks everybody. Just to mention one more time, this is a really good time to join the couples therapist inner circle. Like I said before, there's a lot of conversations going on within the group. There's a thread of, you know, questions and topics and people at, you know,

20:51
answering each other's questions. You can post in there anytime you want. And then we have the live video calls once a week, the consultation calls. We have the live webinar trainings, sorry, once a month. So each of those is once a month. So we'll usually do them two weeks apart, you know, so we'll do the webinar training and then two weeks later we'll do the live consultation call and then two weeks later we'll do the webinar training and so on. All the recordings are available.

21:19
Right away when you join, you can go back to the video library and see everything going on there. So I'd love to connect with you more. You know, a lot of those people in that group, I end up getting to know pretty well, developing a relationship with talking about couples therapy. So it's a lot of fun. And if that sounds like a good fit for you, then definitely click on the link, check it out. You can get a lot more information. And as I said, right now it'll be open for the next few days or so.

21:48
You can get seven days for free and then you're not committed to pay anything if you cancel before that. So thank you so much everybody. Have a great week and let me know if you have any questions at all. The episode this week is brought to you by Alma. They make it easy to get credentialed with major insurance plans at enhanced reimbursement rates. Alma handles all of the paperwork and guarantees payment within two weeks. Visit HelloAlma.com/ATPP

22:18
or click on the link in the show notes to learn more. And thank you again, everybody. This is Shane Bikel and this is The Couples Therapist Couch podcast. It's all about the practice of couples therapy. I hope you have a great week and we'll see you next time. Bye everybody.