My husband and I have our first date since...well, I don't even knew when. Maybe his birthday last September? Unfortunately it isn't the good kind of birthday date, unless you are the type of person who LOVES seeing your shrink, counselor, head guy, whatever. I don't mind it actually, but I am not a morning person, and this is our first session with our couples counselor so I don't want to give her a bad impression of me, right off the bat, as the one who has issues to fix more so than her spouse. I want my husband to be the one that looks like he needs a huge mental makeover. I actually love almost everything about my husband....except for our communication differences, oh, and his inability to actually plan things in advance. Other than that, if he changed any of the other things, that I find mildly to super annoying, there would be nothing left to give him shit about when I am feeling wily.
At least my parents were nice enough to keep our kiddos overnight so we could do this at the crack of dawn. Our therapist may have had a morning divorce already on her hands if we hadn't shucked the kids off to Grandmatown. A) My 4yr old is not a morning person either and isn't shy about letting you know that, B) my kids take FOOOOOOOREVER to do anything that doesn't involve honey on it (or in it), C) They can smell it when we are a crack away from falling completely apart and that is when they like to push us over the edge, like by peeing on the floor or something else time consuming. My poor neighbors probably are going to be really happy to know that we are finally going to see someone. I was sure they were going to give us a gift certificate for a buy 1 get 1 free Couples Therapy coupon card for Christmas this year.
Anyway, my husband and I are staying out of each other's way until we have to get in the car so that our therapist doesn't get the wrong, albeit, correct opinion about how are marriage runs....our marriage is not a morning person either. I already hate to give up the only hour that is not 3am-6am (when I can't sleep) that is all mine, with no kids, researching crap on the Internet and having my cup of delicious coffee - no matter that it is a reheat from yesterday.
My husband actually did the task of finding us a counselor. My husband is a very capable man in so many, many ways but this is not one of them. He has a lot lower standards than I do when it comes to someones competence of being a therapist/psychoanalyst, etc. He interviewed the person we will be seeing today and then she insisted on having a pre-session chat with me. This rang little alarm bells in my head but I did it anyway. She sounded like she was practicing her therapy techniques on me while we were talking, and that annoyed the hell out of me. Both my husband and I were psychology majors, ironically, and there is nothing worse than knowing what kinds of therapy tools they are using on you. I like my therapists to be confident in their practitioner ability to listen and reflect what they heard in a way that you can't tell they are doing it. I also like them to really listen to what we are saying and offer a unbiased viewpoint on what they think we could do instead of what we are doing. I also don't like a lot of constant 'affirmation'. Crap...I am getting myself all crabby and worked up before we go. Well...wish us luck as we may need be needing a different therapist immediately.
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