‘It went wrong when we had a child’

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Sometimes things go wrong with your relationship, you feel really fed up and then one thing is certain: it’s time to save your relationship, with or without the help of a therapist. Sandra, 49, and her husband Bae went to see an EFT therapist.

Sandra and Bae have been married for 11 years and have a son, Josh, who is 6. Sandra also has a daughter (16) from a previous relationship.

“It went wrong when we had a child. That came as a surprise to us – I was already 43. We both work hard, but now that we had a baby, Bae started working even more. He was abroad a lot and when he was at home, he sat behind the laptop. He literally fled.

I was disappointed. And worried, of course, due to the fact that he didn’t like Josh. I felt left to my own devices, he felt guilty. Although we didn’t argue, I was angry. Because he failed. And because I was so terribly tired. Of course I tried to talk about it, but Bae is my Asian Willem the Silent. He can’t talk. I can do that well, but it stops when you constantly come up against a wall of silence.

EFT therapy

We messed around like this for a year or two and then I asked Bae, ‘Do you want to go to couples therapy with me? I love you, and I want it to stay that way.” Fortunately, he also saw that we were losing sight of each other. I went looking for an EFT therapist, a friend recommended it to me, and I had the book Hold me from EFT founder Sue Johnson. EFT stands for emotionally focused therapy† It’s about looking for the emotion behind your doings and don’ts.

On to Bram, the therapist I had chosen. It was somewhere in a Vinex neighborhood. Between us was a box of tissues and we told Bram things we had never said to each other. For example, I kept thinking: oh dear, he doesn’t like our child, but I discovered while talking that I actually didn’t like it very much that I had had another child. Of course I loved Josh and loved him, but it was so different from the first time I became a mother and was on a pink cloud.

My daughter was almost starting high school, and now I could start all over again. Plus, my daughter was with her dad every other week, and before Josh was born, Bae and I could do whatever we wanted. To Paris or a nice meal out. I found it hard that we no longer had that freedom. I acted angry, but actually I was mainly afraid. That Bae would leave me, that I wouldn’t be a good mother to Josh.

Another eye-opener: that I had the feeling that I had to do everything alone, was because I didn’t dare to ask for help. I can go on doing everything on my own furiously, but I could also say: I’m broken, I can’t make it anymore, will you help me please? Asking for help turned out to be surprisingly simple in practice: just ask a clear, focused question and Bae will do it.

Also read: ‘Mothers must learn to ask for help’ >

The man with the drawers

Bae found that he felt insecure about fatherhood because he did not have a very capable father of his own. He also explained how he handles emotions. “I put them in a drawer, and I close that drawer.” To which the therapist said, “Oh, is that what you want? That Sandra sees you as the man with the drawers?’ Since then I jokingly call him ‘the man with the drawers’.

It became clear to Bae that his silence was destroying our relationship. He’s a true Asian – the harder he finds something, the harder he laughs. Now I can see from his face that he doesn’t agree with something, then he pulls his mouth in a certain way. ‘So you don’t want that?’, I ask.

Grow

The therapy helped me understand the difficulty it takes for Bae to talk about feelings. What it also resulted in is that we can joke about it: ‘What did Bram say?’ Although I must say that our tendency to joke about everything did not get away during the therapy itself. ‘Sorry, what’s happening now? I don’t understand,’ said Bram. Now when we try to laugh something off during a serious conversation, we still say to each other, “Sorry, what’s going on?”

I really enjoyed working together on something so important. I always say to friends: for God’s sake go to therapy, preferably while your relationship is still good. We are also getting better at parenting. We have grown into it. The therapy has contributed to that. Especially because we now know how we stand. Clearing the air was enough, although I still miss our weeks in Paris.”

This article was previously published in Kek Mama.

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