Saturday, January 12, 2013

Therapy in the home

During the past year, we have had in-home therapy, which mainly started because of issues with Ryan.  Ultimately, though, it helped clarify things in my mind that needed to be done.

Two particular exercises that the therapist had us participate in were very instrumental in my decision to file for divorce.

The first session involved every member of the family pretending to be a sculptor of sorts.  One at a time, each of us had to "place" every other member of the family where they "see" them as their place in the house - and explain why.

Without fail, every single child placed Bill, in his recliner, remote in hand, door closed to block out the noise of a family, in a room away from the family, watching TV.  Not one of them included him in the nucleus of our family.

As for me, every child placed me either at my desk, where I usually sit during school time or in the kitchen/dining room area, where we all hang out.   Ryan was always at the back door, wanting to go fishing and away from us.

The other kids placed themselves in close proximity to where I was.

The second exercise, and perhaps the more telling of the two consisted of the therapist bringing in a stack of about 50 index cards.  On the cards were written things like - Cooks, Cleans, Wraps presents, does grocery shopping, happy all the time, likes to sing, dances in the kitchen, loud, disciplinarian, teacher, gives great hugs, smiles a lot, in charge of everything, grumpy, makes most of the decisions, does the dirty jobs, laundry, unloads the dishwasher, mows the grass and on and on and on. 

Then we all sat around the table with the cards spread out and when she said go, we "assigned" them to someone by putting the card in front of whoever we thought the card fit.  At first, I think everyone was afraid to start, so I finally took the Likes to Sing card and put it in front of Carly. That broke the ice and everyone was in a frenzy assigning cards.

When all was said and done, Bill had 2 cards in front of him.  Does the dirty jobs (because they said he was the one who "snaked" out the drains when they get stopped up with tree roots outside) and grumpy.  Except they had added "all the time."

As I sat and looked at those cards, it was obvious that there were certain ones of us, (what I now think of as The Final Four) who were a family.  We shared the good times, the chores, the responsibilities and everything else that goes along with being a family.

And as I pondered how they were divided between the rest of us, it hit me, "These kids deserve better than living with grumpy all the time.   I can hire the drains cleaned if needed." 

Sometimes, therapy can be life changing indeed.