WEDU Interview; Beatty Cohan

A special presentation of we do you Tampa-St. Petersburg Sarasota. Our relationships with others can bring us joy or pain. And usually they're a combination of both. And even if you're in a strong loving relationship you could probably use a little guidance sometimes. Coming up next we'll talk to a nationally recognized psychotherapist and author about a variety of issues that we all face at some point in our lives. We welcome on Cathy Unruh. Do you give your marriage or your long term relationship the thoughtful attention and deliberate investment that you give your physical health or perhaps your financial portfolio. Our guest today has some thoughts on relationships and how to make them strong and healthy. Welcome. Cohen thank you. Now we could spend hours days months our lives talking about the relationships we have spouses siblings family friends.

But for this hour we're going to concentrate on our spouses our significant others. DD is a psychotherapist with a private practice in Sarasota. She has a postgraduate specialization in marital and family therapy and sexual dysfunction. And you have more than 35 years of clinical experience. You're seeing hundreds of couples in therapy. Your Web site reports out of all those hundreds of couples only 15 that you have seen have actually divorce. Well that number now is increased to 25. I've been in Sarasota. But yes I mean and that has to do because of the the methodology that I use when I do marital therapy. Why are you so successful in a nutshell. In a nutshell what I do is I will do an initial evaluation couple's evaluation to see what happened what went wrong. For better for worse forever everybody was supposedly happy when they got married. And although we cannot change history. Cathy it's very important for people to understand what the issues were that really took them off track. And more importantly whether or not there's motivation to acknowledge

address and resolve whatever problems have surfaced. But the difference between me and many other marital therapists is that I'd then do individual assessments with both of the individuals and if one or both people have significant individual psychiatric psychological issues we need to deal with that first because you cannot deal with her depression his alcoholism their communication problem all at the same time so that for me couple counseling is kind of a graduation. Well the numbers particularly amazing to me because you said that most of the people come to you because there's been an affair or somebody has filed for divorce. They don't come. We want to make our marriage better tell us how to make America better. They come because they are at the end. That's right. How do you turn that around. Well if people want to turn it around and if they have a good coach. Anything anything is possible. And that's why I think that the attitude of the therapist the training of the therapist and the motivation of the

couple. We need to become a team. And if I have a team that wants to work things out as their coach I know what to do to help them get to where they need to go. Isn't it also true that a lot of people who come to marital counseling somebody has been drug by the other one is an unwilling partner they have to turn them into a team. Well I think over time and once they begin to look at the ramifications of really not working out their relationship I mean people we all know are poor if they get a divorce. The long term effects on children are are devastating. And I think that if people understand that even though we can't change what happened we can't change the history. We can understand the issues and from this day forth we can actually make things better. If you want to do it. So how do you make want to do it. That's my question. How do you get the unwilling partner to say by gosh I think I will give this a try. Well I think what often happens is that you know once you start to in fact

I like to begin at the beginning Cathy when everything was wonderful and I'll say to a couple of OK so where did you meet and who was attracted to who and who called who. And I take them back to a place in their life when things were really really good. And again as the therapist I need to continually let people understand and know we all have issues. Their kids have issues. We all have issues. But again whether or not it's your sex life or whether or not it's communication or problem solving. I try to get people to understand that relationship's success. It's a skill it's a skill that need to be needs to be learned like tennis or golf if you want to learn the skill. We're going to work our way towards the skills. But let's start first with some of the problems some of the issues that relationships face. You mentioned sex. That's a real biggie. Yes yes it is. It is a real biggie and especially you know when the children arrive I think what typically ends up happening is not only the

sex life but the couple becomes at the bottom of the list of everybody's priorities. And it's really really important. To not let your sex life go. I know and I'll share something personal you know with you my husband and I we've been married for 21 years. This is the second marriage for me. We make dates for sex. I'm a really busy person. He's a really busy person and it is so nice to be able to look forward to the Saturday afternoon or the Sunday afternoon where we can spend time together. You say there's nine reasons generally why things go wrong in the bedroom so I think we've had to have and you don't. A relationship the relationship of the relationship is not in a good place. Certainly most women are not going to want to jump into bed and have sex and I think for a man it is certainly somewhat different but the relationship the emotional quality of the relationship really has to be in place for the majority of women and that's intimacy which is not the same as sex. That's right. Emotional intimacy we're

talking about caring and sharing. Can I help you with the dishes and is there anything that I can do and I really appreciate the fact that you know you've been staying home with the children or that you've made a lovely meal and trust and consideration and respect. I mean this is the aphrodisiac for us for women it's really important that men understand this if they just got it. Honey can I do the dishes. Well I've got a long way no problem with that mid-life crises mid-life crises. Well I think that that's kind of a term that a lot of people use and they don't quite know exactly what it is that they're talking about. I think that we go through life and we're reevaluating or situation we're reevaluating our selves our relationships our goals and our values. And this is where excellent communication needs to take place and since it's a skill and since it's a skill that most people haven't learned it may

be that the majority of people when they're starting to go through whether or not it's midlife for a later life or early life that they seek out good professional help so that they're able to say to their partners you know I'm having a really bad time and I need to talk to you whether or not it's about our relationship whether it's about our sex life whether or not it's about the children or the job to be able to. This is something I say to couples all the time to make dates for conversations naturally illness death and dying whether within the cup or the family or friends around them can have a big impact. Absolutely because you're dealing with change you're dealing with depression and loss. But if you're in a healthy and loving relationship again you ought to be able to come to your partner and be able to talk through and discuss my pain my scare my loneliness and sense as they say Cathy that most people don't know how to do this

if you don't know how to do your makeup or if you don't know how to hit the golf ball straight you'll to take some lessons or you'll find out what you need to do. We're going to get again to the skills about how to make a marriage. Well let's let's go down this problem let's some of the real common ones emptiness and. Empty nest Yes empty nest is it. And I went through the emptiness stage a few years ago and Giardino my daughter who's now 23 when she went away to college. Now the reason why for Elliott My husband and myself why things went really pretty well was that we had not lost sight of each other during our marriage and I think that's what happens with too many couples. Everything else becomes a priority the work the kids the job the lawn and what happens to the couple so the children leave. And you're living with a stranger. A real biggie extramarital affairs. Yes. Yes she always says you can survive

this. Yes. You have to trust she can in fact make a relationship more committed and better. Yes that's that's true. But the statistics are absolutely startling. Between 45 to 55 percent of married men before age 40 have been extramarital involved. I know as a therapist and maybe it's because so many people who are in this kind of a situation come in to see me but I know that the number is higher and the thing that is really surprising is that women we've caught up to men 15 20 years ago I would see maybe five percent or maybe even fewer than five percent of the people that I treated where the women were extramarital involved and now we have caught up to men in some of the most disgusting ways in extramarital affairs is certainly one of them. Money is a big issue in a marriage. Well money is an issue if you're not able to communicate about the money. Sex is a big issue if you're

not able to communicate and if you haven't got excellent problem solving skills. So I try to teach couples here we go back to skills again how to discuss how to negotiate how to make compromises how to make tradeoffs and to come out with a win win resolution we don't want win lose we want win win. What about an increasing problem in our society with obesity and you marry someone you are very sexually attracted then everybody's fitting in shape and the marriage goes on and somebody is not as attractive anymore. What do you do. Well I think that's also a communication subject I really believe that even though we're married that we have a responsibility to ourselves and to our partner to keep ourselves physically emotionally relationally in really good shape. And again how to say it is important. I mean you don't want to say to your partner my goodness you know you look so disgusting. I think you need to say look I've noticed over the last couple of months in the last couple of years you know that

we're letting ourselves go. And it's really important for me. You know I love you very much it's really important for me that we that we both you know keep ourselves looking fit. Now that's a very different way of putting it than saying I can't stand the way you look. Now there are reasons most people say that marriage should end. Among them addictions of abuse. Absolutely. Absolutely. And those are not just problems. Those are. Well you know it's interesting with addictions. I mean I've seen a couple of people a couple of couples in the practice right now where one of the partners had alcohol addictions and actually cocaine addictions. And one man has been sober now for three years. The other woman has not used cocaine in over a year. So they're they're working on it with physical abuse and domestic violence. For me I have zero tolerance for that.

You know somebody will say well he only hits me once a year. Well isn't that great. But somebody who would make that kind of a comment Cathy probably came from an abusive family where maybe she was hit every day but I think whether or not there's verbal abuse emotional abuse physical abuse sexual abuse. You really need to get out quickly. You say that a lot of people do waste money and time on ineffective marital therapy. Yes. Why do you think so much therapy does not work does not help the couple stay together. Well I think that consumers also need to be educated about what kind of therapy works I'll have people who they'll see me on television they'll say we really like to come and see. And also would do you know anything about me. No but what works with with marital therapy. You've got to make sure that one and both parties individual parties are more or less psychologically and emotionally OK because if that is not the case you will not be able to have a successful marital therapy

outcome you know because as I said before you can't be dealing with her depression her early child sexual abuse their parenting issues their communication problems his extramarital affair his working 25 hours a day. You can't do it all at one time. So I have a very strategic approach that that works and I think that people also chemistry is important. You know I saw a 14 year old little girl yesterday who had been sexually abused by her stepfather and kids know we know within a very short period of time whether or not the chemistry is OK whether or not we feel safe whether or not we feel comfortable with this person. I know with me the kind of therapist I am I mean I'm I'm a loving and caring but I'm also I expect people to work so if they only want to come and complain I'm not the person. Now if you happen to be not married yet and you are looking for a mate or you're dating someone you've developed 10 step what you call their proof

formula. Yes. And you've written a book about it here has been called for better for worse for ever. Right. OK. Ten steps out 11 minutes and 43 seconds. Let's move fast. OK. All right. Let me let me just say that people really do need to know what ingredients go into a successful long term relationship so that they'd been able to evaluate success who's right for them and who is wrong for them. OK. Beginning with family background and you're not going to put your partner on the stand. So as the relationship unfolds and when Eliot and I did our research I was really surprised to find out that it took close to a year to go through this formula not six months and not about to find out who your partner was and was and so you're basically saying you shouldn't make a decision about whether you're going to stay with a person to at least a year has passed using the formula. What about the family background the family background is very interesting in that the ACORN does not fall far from the tree and somebody who grew up in a family where there was substance abuse or verbal abuse or domestic

violence the likelihood in the studies show this that the probability of this person behaving in a very similar fashion or not in their own relationship is very high. So you want to know whether or not your partner has acknowledged addressed and resolved the issues from his or her family of origin so that you're going to know and as the relationship unfolds you will know what lessons have been learned. Number two is skeletons lurking in the closet. That would be in the family background too maybe. Well in the family background skeletons meaning depression anxiety early child sexual abuse anorexia I believe I got all that out in the first. Absolutely. Well we use it using the formula and looking and looking at the signs and looking at the symptoms and looking at the clues. I mean we don't know what to look for. But this really outlines the various different behaviors of the various different signs and symptoms that will help you see whether or not this is

just sadness or whether or not it's depression now. Even though people may have all of these skeletons in the closet you don't toss them out what you want to know is is my partner and am I willing to acknowledge address and take whatever action is necessary to resolve the issues. And that leads you to problem solving listening compromise. People ask me all the time what are the two most important ingredients that make or break a relationship. And although it's not romantic Cathy it is communication and problem solving communication is not just talking about where we're going to go for dinner tonight. It's about being able to express the full gamut of emotion the anger the pain the loneliness the frustration and learning how to do it. Well and you believe that anybody can learn how to do it if they want to and if they have a good guide sexual allusions can I use it.

Well how many times in our lives and how many people I know they'll say well you know I'm so attracted and he's so great and the sex was so wonderful and you can have great sex and virtually no emotional intimacy and you can have greater motional intimacy in a relationship and maybe you'd be better off you know just remaining friends. So that because there's great chemistry we have to not confuse lust with love. All baggage and the high price of excess. That's a big thing in our society. It is it is a biggie and this is where problem solving skills are so very important I mean people have to talk about you know what kind of relationship you have with your ex and what is going to be involved in our lives when your children are visiting us two or three times a week or when they're staying with us. I mean this is where the true test and I've been through it myself in my personal life. I mean this is where the communication and problem solving skills will truly make or break your relationship.

And you say that we must realize Nobody's perfect nobody's perfect. That's right. Learn to work with that. Now what if you're already married you already have your mate. You read this book and you say oh my gosh. Well that's actually a good thing to do because then you're able to say you know honey I understand why we're not really getting along as well it's because we haven't really sat down and had a conversation in a while. So why don't we set a time maybe tonight or tomorrow and there's some things that I really need to discuss with you know people have to understand we cannot change history we can't change anything that happened 30 seconds ago but we can talk about it we can learn to talk about it well and we can learn to get on the same page again if we want to and I think that people have to understand that if they need to go and seek out professional help that they're not crazy. That's a good thing to do and you just have to make sure that you're finding are really good and

competent guide to take you through your emotional journey. Let me be personal for a moment. You wrote the book with your husband. Yes. Did you and he just know how to do all this right away or did you learn it as you went along. It's interesting. I mean I've been doing this kind of work for such a long time and I have a very unusual husband. I think if there were more men like Eliot I would probably not have a marital therapy practice. He's learned he's learned along the way. And we have worked out a lot of issues. I had a three and a half year old daughter when Eliot and I married and that was difficult working through her hostility and working through these issues of divorce. But he and I were very cognisant and we're not perfect that it is very important to keep the couple at the top of the list of priorities because in this crazy world of ours you know it's very easy for things to get really off track.

But in this crazy world we've all heard the alarming divorce statistics yes our marriage 50 percent. Second marriage 60 percent yes third marriage higher than 60 percent divorce. Yes. Why. Well because we haven't learned the lessons we tend to marry people who are very similar to let's say the dysfunctional father that we had perhaps as a child and if you don't understand what went wrong. History will repeat itself. You know a quick little story. I had a call in counseling radio talk show in Providence and a man called me up and he said baby I married three women one was a blond. One was a red head and one was a brunette. And they were really all the same. The dynamics of their relationship were the same. So you have to understand. What went wrong. And if you're only blaming your partner for why your relationship did not work out you're not taking a good enough look within yourself to see what part did I play. Well in our society we've become very me centered and I must be happy and I must be fulfilled

for the reasons we're divorcing the same as people divorced 50 years ago or has that evolved along with our culture. I think that's really evolved you know these days everything seems to be disposable. If it doesn't work toss it out. And with marriage and with family life we have to understand that there are going to be difficulties. There are going to be problems. And one of the worst things that I think has happened to families and to children is that we are very busy tossing out family life and tossing out relationships with out putting in the necessary work to make things better. Because I've seen situations Kathy that were absolute disasters and the people they made a commitment to themselves they made a commitment to the therapeutic process that they were going to do everything in their power and they succeeded.

What about if it's a troubled marriage but only one person is willing to do the work. Some people out there are watching on boy I have problems but my wife or my husband won't work with me. Well I do. The person should go to therapy individually and encourage over time their partner to you know to join them and you all say to husbands or wives just to have them come in once. And usually if they come in once it's typically OK and they will stay and if they absolutely refuse and if the situation is one where it's intolerable then you're left with no choice. You don't want to put yourself in a situation where you're living with a toxic person in a toxic situation. And if your partner is absolutely determined to continue using drugs or alcohol or continuing to have extramarital affairs and where there's abuse and there is no willingness or no desire to make any changes then at times you've got to exit and you believe that we should learn all about this starting in junior high high school we

start learning the sooner. The sooner the better. And that's really one of the reasons why Governor Bush appointed me to the Florida State Commission on marriage in 2004. My dream is for every high school student before leaving and we even have legislation that supports this although this is really going on in schools very successfully that children learn about healthy relationships. I mean we may never see these children again they may never go to college. They may never see anything functional other than Britney Spears and Paris Hilton and we're not calling them functional. No we're not. We're. Very clear. I'm just saying that those are all right. You're looking at kids look at them all the time. Right. And I would love to see. I mean they're the four R's it's the reading arithmetic and relationships. I mean it needs to be done.

And at the other end of the spectrum you talk about successful relationships after 50 no matter how old you are no matter what stage of life there's always hope for a good relationship. Yes absolutely. Absolutely. So 50 or 60 or 70 and I see plenty of people those ages in my practice in Sarasota. If the people want to learn if they want to learn how to communicate better if they want to work on their alcohol problem if they want to work on their sex life. I mean I have couples in their 70s and 80s who have an absolutely fantastic sex lives whether or not they're using by anger whether or not they're using the power of whether or not they're using Levitra. And it's because they want to tackle the issues. OK and on that note we are out of time. As we said at the beginning we could talk for hours days weeks after a long life but there's hope for everyone if you're willing to work at it. That's the bottom line. That's the bottom line. All right thanks be to Cohen. The book is for better for worse forever discover the path to lasting love and Beatty's Web site is ask BT dot

com for Debbie to you. I'm Cathy Unruh. Hope you're having a great relationship. Thanks for joining us. What.

Do you give your marriage or your long term relationship the thoughtful attention and the deliberate investment that you give say your physical health or your financial portfolio. Coming up we'll talk to a nationally recognized psychotherapist who happens to make her home in Sarasota about our relationships and how to make them strong and healthy.