Five Counsellors And A Divorce

As if the emotional and legal agonies weren't enough, it's impossible these days to get a divorce without enduring the ghastly ritual of counseling. Try this simple test. Tell your friends you're thinking about divorce. For every one who wants to know why, when or how, 10 will want to recommend a counselor. It's a bit like an alcoholic trying to stop his mate from drying out and depriving him of solidarity at the bar. If you have to go through what I did, maybe I won't feel such a schmuck.

Judy*, the first counselor we saw, had obviously cut her teeth in the corporate world. Instead of a soothing watercolor, a huge whiteboard covered the wall. She barely asked our names before bounding over to it and selecting a range of colored pens. As I outlined our situation, Judy darted around, throwing up headings and quotes (``work/children", ``resentment"), enclosing some names in circles and connecting them with themes via a thick, black line, or emphasizing a word with a green asterisk or, occasionally, a heavy, blue underline. My husband's spiel generated a frenzy of loops, double-sided arrows and boxes. After 10 minutes, the board resembled my memory of the Kreb's nitrogen cycle we had done in first-year science.

After pointing out the various terminal pathways in which we were trapped, Judy asked for our feedback. I tried to suggest a way out of the morass she so clearly envisaged, but the relentless red pen would execute another reverse arrow and cut off any options. After 45 minutes, she pronounced, with seeming satisfaction, that we were finished. The board left no hope.

Our mutual anger at Judy's crass prognosis gave the relationship new impetus. At last we could agree on something. But six months on, the old difficulties had re-emerged and we faced our next troubleshooter a sedate, middle-aged woman from a well-known organization. She listened to our issues with understanding nods and an empathetic smile. Before we got into The Relationship, we described the entanglements of stepchildren, senile parents and family-of-origin traumas, not to mention financial stress and career crises. Her nods became less frequent, her smiles less encouraging. By the time I got around to my son's premature birth, she was on the edge of her chair, poised to bolt.

Maybe we didn't fit with these large organizations, we thought, with their suburban nuclear-family orientation. We needed someone more suited to our dysfunctional, inner-west demographic. Fran saw us in the front room of her run-down terrace and, judging by the contents of her recycling bin, she seemed more our type. She listened as we got things off our chests. We were reassured by how she could identify with us. Sometimes, she related an incident in her own life to illustrate her understanding. By about the fourth session, we realized we weren't making progress. In fact, so intent had Fran become on mirroring our experience, we could hardly get a word in. We might as well have been at the pub. Even on boutique beers, it would have been a lot cheaper.
The next woman was free, at least, courtesy of a scheme at my sister's work in which extended family could be enrolled. She was young, earnest and so anxious to please my husband that she would try to finish his sentences or, if she detected a frown, she would break off her sentence to ask if she was upsetting him.

The session deteriorated into one long apology, until I spoke up. ``Ooh," she said, ``I can hear your anger." I grimaced in acknowledgement. ``That's all right. Anger is a powerful agent for change. Don't try and resist it. Own it. Bathe in it." I was practically incandescent with rage, at her inadequacy, the waste of time, and her blithe belief that she knew her job. As I left, she was stuttering about ``I" statements. ``When you look at me like that, I feel frightened. What I would like is for you . . ."

The last woman we saw was an elegant North Shore type in her 50s, cool and superior-looking in a designer linen suit and understated jewellery. I observed her wearily. How could someone like her possibly understand people like us?

She had us sized up in 15 minutes. I sat there, stunned, as she explained to my husband, with only the slightest hint of acid in her voice, how over-burdened I was with housework, babies and business, and how he could start by taking over some chores. An hour later, we left with instructions that I was to have a weekend with the girls. He meekly agreed it was impossible to resist her air of natural authority.

Sadly, the relationship unraveled before we got to follow her prescription. Maybe that's all it would have taken. Who knows? Maybe we really split up because we hadn't the stamina for another counseling session.

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