How to Get the Best Counseling

So my FW and I are firm believers in the value of counseling (of all varieties). We had our first appointment with one of our two pre-marital counselors last week (yes you heard that right - we have two). We have already been meeting with the other one since before we were engaged.

You may be wondering why we might want to have two counselors. That is a good question, but rather than answer it directly I would like to go off on a tangent. Our counselors are an interesting mix. The one we met with this last week is a licensed Christian counselor. She is somewhat by the book but not so much that it bothers us. She is very big on books, research, and handouts. Our other counselor is very much out of the box. He is big on emotions and spirituality. We think it is awesome that they reverse the stereotype. It is actually really helpful for us. I told my FW if the female counselor was more about emotions and the male was more by the book, I would probably react more skeptically to both of them (yes I am aware of how sexist that sounds).

Anyway, I have a sort of amusing story from our session last week. Our counselor was explaining how men are "simple" and women are "complex" when it comes to relationships. Both my FW and I bristled at this statement. She went on to further clarify that men more often compartmentalize their emotions and relationships while women are usually more holistic in their approach to these things. I suppose that is a mostly fair assessment (is that qualified enough for you?). It somewhat applies to my B2B and I. My FW says she can be stuffing envelopes at work and be thinking about how it applies to our relationship. I can't say that my mind works exactly that way although I think about her incessantly. It is different. I think about her but not in connection to the trivial activities of my day unless there is an obvious connection.

All this is to say that it should be interesting for us to explore the differences between the sexes. We often see male and female as opposites, but the reality is that while there are some differences, men and women have much more in common (more than they do with anything else in the universe). We hold firmly to this while we explore what makes us different. Contrary to popular belief, men are NOT from Mars, and women are NOT from Venus and such thinking is ludicrous and often hurtful.