Couple Counselling - The Fairy Tale Version - by Kathy Saville
Couple counselling is often a last resort, the Cinderella service of counselling – when you both realise there is no glass slipper and that you need a Buttons to help you sweep out the hearth…
I think it’s a shame - Cinderella could be driving her own glass stage coach , handing over to the handsome prince only when she’s had enough, wants to kick off the dancing shoes, spread out the beautiful silk frock and curl up on the back seat, under her ermine cloak. The problem is it’s after midnight and the prince has morphed into a mouse and the mice that were dashing coachmen have given up, cos the prince got in first and so it goes on, the whole thing ends up a muddled mess of wheels off carts, squealing mice, muddied frocks erstwhile princes and worse and you don’t even remember why you went to the ball in the first place, never mind travelled in the same coach for so long!
Couple counselling is a chance to stop the coach, take off the fragile glass slippers, put the ball gown on a hot wash and decide whether you are a coachwoman/man, a prince/princess, a mouse, a same sex or non-sexual couple, or something else entirely.
If we climb out of the extended metaphor for a moment - as a couple it’s a huge decision to lay yourselves and your marriage or relationship bare to someone else’s scrutiny, but don’t let embarrassment or shame stop you from approaching a professional who may be able to help you relate to each other more easily, empathise with the others way of being and either help you be a couple again, or gracefully and with dignity uncouple, if that’s what’s needed.
Fairy tale endings aren’t the only conclusions to a relationship, sometimes it’s a lot more prosaic than that and a lot more fulfilling… and sometimes a Buttons and a hearth brush is all we need.