Although I’m a counselor by vocation, there are times when my I feel frustration with my peers. At times, they end up creating problems or making them worse than is necessary.
My heart goes out to those of you who struggle with counselors who’ve been manipulated. One reader recently wrote, “We saw counselors for years who were also convinced he wasn’t doing anything wrong”.
On reading statements like this, I feel pained. It’s true that counselors can be victims of manipulation by clients.
When I started out counseling, I found myself manipulated, fooled and hoodwinked at times. With experience, I’ve learned ways of picking up on their games.
Yes, I said ‘games’. For them, it’s a game seeing if they can outwit the counselor. They secretly snicker to themselves at the amount of material they manage hiding.
The counselors may also have been looking at the marriage situation in terms whether or not the spouse meets the definition of any pathology as defined by the latest editions of the DSM. The husband in this case may not have any mental health issue.
Although the husband was ‘not doing anything wrong‘, he wasn’t doing what he could in improving his marriage. So, he wasn’t doing anything wrong, yet he wasn’t doing anything right either.
When your spouse is in that ‘not doing anything wrong‘ mindset, they assume that the lack of wrong means that they are ok. This is misleading.
Avoiding doing the right thing while not doing anything wrong amounts to ‘relationship brinkmanship’. They are testing limits in their relationship in a way that explores how much they can get away with.
When your car is not in reverse, it doesn’t mean that it’s moving. It could be stuck in neutral. These brinkmanship spouses are not in neutral. They are subtly undermining your marriage.
They’ve become experts at avoiding wrongdoing. They’ve also become experts at avoiding responsibility as well. In my mind, brinkmanship is an avoidance of responsibility.
If you feel that your spouse was doing wrong, that’s important enough issue for the counselor to address. What they did may not meet the counselor’s definition of wrong, yet something is not working in your relationship.
You and your spouse are the best authorities for deciding what’s working or not working in your marriage.
If this symptom is showing up in your marriage, it’s not something to avoid. The earlier you intervene in dealing with their brinkmanship, the better. Those brinkmanship behaviors can become a habit when not dealt with.
Once brinkmanship is a habit, they are oblivious to it. They start doing it without thinking about it. At that point, it makes confronting the behaviors more challenging.
This is where being part of the support community at the Restored Lifestyle site can help your marriage adjust the direction it’s headed. If the problem has been going on for years, you’ll need some stronger interventions.
Keeping It Real,
Jeff
