{"id":21499,"date":"2025-02-04T09:01:07","date_gmt":"2025-02-04T10:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=21499"},"modified":"2025-02-04T10:32:20","modified_gmt":"2025-02-04T10:32:20","slug":"what-could-a-masculinity-expert-teach-me-about-my-marriage-everything","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=21499","title":{"rendered":"What Could a Masculinity Expert Teach Me About My Marriage? Everything."},"content":{"rendered":"
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One thing I\u2019ve learned from being married to my wife, Jess, who is a couples therapist, is how vast the distance is between the masks people show to the world and the messy realities that live behind them. Every couple knows its own drama, but we still fall prey to the illusion that all other couples have seamlessly satisfying relationships. The truth about marriage \u2014 including my own \u2014 is that even the most functional couples are merely doing the best they can with the lives that have been bestowed on them. <\/p>\n

This past spring, Jess and I had the first of eight sessions of couples therapy with Terry Real, a best-selling author and by far the most famous of the therapists we\u2019ve seen during our marriage. In November, I watched the recording of that session for the first time since treatment. In the footage, I see Jess and me as Real might see us. I look worn down, a little pained. Jess looks to me like the same beachy blonde who divebombed into my life 20 years ago, crashing at a few thousand miles per hour into the defenses against intimacy and vulnerability that I had dedicated so much energy to erecting. She is lithe and elfin where I am dense and rough-planed. She looks tired, too, though.<\/p>\n

Real glows in the aura of his webcam light, at 74 still elfin in his own right. He\u2019s pushing me harder than I\u2019m used to being pushed by a therapist, expressing skepticism of what strikes him as an overly sanitized version of my internal monologue when I feel criticized by Jess.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf your hurt feelings could speak, what would they be saying?\u201d he asks.<\/p>\n

\u201cI tell myself: \u2018I try really hard. I try to be a good person. I try to be thoughtful about Jess and what she needs. Maybe I don\u2019t get to everything, but it\u2019s not because I\u2019m not a good person.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cReally?\u201d Real asks. \u201cThat\u2019s what it sounds like?\u201d<\/p>\n

I laugh self-consciously.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan I tell you what I<\/em> think it sounds like?\u201d he asks.<\/p>\n

Real pauses, intensifies his tone and confronts me with the kind of coarse language <\/span>he is known to use with his male clients \u2014 the language he believes they understand and respond to. \u201c \u2018No matter what I do,\u2019 \u201d he says, \u201c \u2018No matter what I fucking do <\/em>\u2014 no matter how hard I try \u2014 you\u2019re going to find the one damned thing I didn\u2019t do. I can\u2019t believe I have to put up with this bullshit again.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

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One thing I\u2019ve learned from being married to my wife, Jess, who is a couples therapist, is how vast the distance is between the masks people show to the world and the messy realities that live behind them. Every couple knows its own drama, but we still fall prey to the illusion that all other couples have seamlessly satisfying relationships. The truth about marriage \u2014 including my own \u2014 is that even the most functional couples are merely doing the best they can with the lives that have been bestowed on them. This past spring, Jess and I had the first of eight sessions of couples therapy with Terry Real, a best-selling author and by far the most famous of the therapists we\u2019ve seen during our marriage. In November, I watched the recording of that session for the first time since treatment. In the footage, I see Jess and me as Real might see us. I look worn down, a little pained. Jess looks to me like the same beachy blonde who divebombed into my life 20 years ago, crashing at a few thousand miles per hour into the defenses against intimacy and vulnerability that I had dedicated so much energy to erecting. She is lithe and elfin where I am dense and rough-planed. She looks tired, too, though.Real glows in the aura of his webcam light, at 74 still elfin in his own right. He\u2019s pushing me harder than I\u2019m used to being pushed by a therapist, expressing skepticism of what strikes him as an overly sanitized version of my internal monologue when I feel criticized by Jess.\u201cIf your hurt feelings could speak, what would they be saying?\u201d he asks.\u201cI tell myself: \u2018I try really hard. I try to be a good person. I try to be thoughtful about Jess and what she needs. Maybe I don\u2019t get to everything, but it\u2019s not because I\u2019m not a good person.\u2019\u201d\u201cReally?\u201d Real asks. \u201cThat\u2019s what it sounds like?\u201dI laugh self-consciously.\u201cCan I tell you what I think it sounds like?\u201d he asks.Real pauses, intensifies his tone and confronts me with the kind of coarse language he is known to use with his male clients \u2014 the language he believes they understand and respond to. \u201c \u2018No matter what I do,\u2019 \u201d he says, \u201c \u2018No matter what I fucking do \u2014 no matter how hard I try \u2014 you\u2019re going to find the one damned thing I didn\u2019t do. I can\u2019t believe I have to put up with this bullshit again.\u2019 \u201dWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21501,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21499"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21499\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21502,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21499\/revisions\/21502"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}