Couples Therapy (Danish - "Parterapi") - Save Your Marriage Now
Divorce rates in Denmark are among the highest in the world, making the word "parterapi", Danish for couples therapy, of vital importance to a great number of Danish couples
Parterapi is regarded by many I've spoken to as a last ditch effort. After a long period marked by great dissatisfaction, one is almost ready for divorce. Long talks and arguments haven't helped. Neither has speaking with friends and relatives, priests and bartenders. All the good advice one gets seems difficult to apply and one is close to giving up.
Parterapi is the last resort in an attempt to save a relationship on the downslide. Many also perceive having to pay for help, to make a loving relationship work, as a defeat. And it's probably expensive as well. . .
When a couple, after many deliberations, finally decides to visit a couples therapist, their expectations are often quite different. The one may already have given up and hopes for help (or courage?) to end the painful situation. Perhaps the man (or woman) doesn't really want to, but lets him/herself be "dragged" into therapy because there are no good arguments left but he/she doesn't want to be the one seen as responsible for the fiasco.
Many people come with expectations of getting some quick advice on how to shore up their partnership so they can continue happily just as before it all started to change.
- and to their surprise they are told by the therapist that no magic cure is forthcoming. They are told that it they, themselves, who will have to work hard and that the help the therapist can provide consists of support ang guidance, in help to rebuild a stable and trusting realtionship. They are also told that it will take time and that the work will at times be hard, that progress will be made and relapses occur. They will experience laughter and also tears and that , more than anything else, it will require courage.
It takes courage to reveal oneself to another. Courage to share one's thoughts and aspirations, courage to share one's innermost feelings. It takes courage to show one's strengths and weaknesses and courage to stand up - fearful and without protection - and encounter another, open and vulnerable.
It is hardly surprising that so many give up after only a few tries. Or never come to begin with.
For those who make it through, the pain and effort are well worth the reward. An increase in self confidence, self assurance and optimism about the relationship and about life in general are often the result. The couple leaves equipped with strategies for ways of solving problems and disagreements and smoothing out difficulties. They gain insights into their own resources and into new ways of confronting each other, life and the world around them. They learn to treasure their differences.
And often they ponder: "What made us wait so long?", "I wish we had known all this long ago", "Just thionk of how happy we could have been all this time.", "If only we had known"
Having marital problems? Ilan Wolffberg is an American parterapi expert and has been residing in Denmark for over 30 years. Check out his take on couples therapy at "How About Couples Therapy?" and in Danish at "Om parterapi"
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