TESTIMONIALS

Our marriage was on the brink of dissolvement. When I say, I had one foot out the door, I mean I was ready to pack up and leave. 23 years of marriage and 2 children later, I was ready to call it quits. My husband chose Mary Dobson out of many therapists and desperately wanted me to go but I refused. I was ready to visit the lawyer instead. Eventually, I decided to to visit Mary because of my children, who made the plea. This wasn’t our first rodeo.  My husband and I had been to the therapists before with things getting better for a bit and then me getting sucked back into the centrifuge of misery. This time was different.  Mary was unlike any therapists we had visited before.  She saw my husband and I individually and together in therapy.  She saw the hope in our marriage and knew that it was salvageable.  She saw something in us that we didn’t see.  The most impressive thing about Mary was her ability to empathize with each one of us, but also, to give us her wisdom and a perspective on relationships that we had missed all these years. She has helped send us on our individual journeys as well as a new journey together as a couple. To say that I never thought this would be possible would be an understatement.  I fully credit Mary for saving our marriage and giving us tools to not only understand each other but understand ourselves…which is truly where all the healing begins.

– S, CT

About a year ago, my husband and I decided to enter into couple’s therapy. Upon making this decision, we were in a very dark place as a couple. We were both filled with such anger towards one another that it seemed as if there was no coming back. Our couple’s therapy journey has not only reconnected us as husband and wife, but it has also led us to self-discovery. Before we went to therapy, our marriage was very rocky. As your average middle class working couple, my husband and I spent our days working endless hours to support our family. When our exhausting day of work was done, we came home to care for our daughter. As the years passed by we became a couple who focused entirely on our daughter and our jobs. Before we knew it, we had disconnected from each other and practically became roommates. We rarely went on dates, slept in different rooms, and turned into strangers. We didn’t laugh together nor have fun with one another. We had lost each other. Of course we didn’t realize this until things had gotten really bad. My husband started isolating himself from my daughter and me. He would come home from work, eat dinner, and then go into our spare bedroom to watch television or play video games. We wouldn’t spend any quality time together. I, in turn, became resentful and bitter and lashed out my frustrations on him. We argued constantly and then the next day, we would “make up” and promise to try harder. This vicious cycle of arguing and making up continued for about two years. Then, last July, our marriage had hit rock bottom. Ironically we were about to celebrate our 10 year wedding anniversary, yet we were far from marital bliss. The fighting continued and we grew further and further apart. The despair and loneliness I felt consumed me until one day I decided to take my daughter and leave. My husband and I chose to do a trial separation for two weeks. It was the hardest two weeks of my life.  However, the time away from each other gave us a chance to think about what we really wanted, to fight for our marriage or throw in the towel. Luckily we both weren’t ready give up, but we knew we couldn’t repair our broken relationship alone, so we turned to couple’s therapy. Couple’s therapy was our last hope, our last attempt to find each other again. We both entered into this journey apprehensive, fearful and angry. I felt angrier after making the decision to go to therapy because I honestly didn’t think it would help.  I felt ashamed to go to therapy. I felt like a failure, like I needed to pay someone to tell me how to fix my problems. I couldn’t help but think, “What can talking to a stranger do to help my marriage?”  I look back at my broken, ignorant self and am relieved that I pushed that negativity aside and I embarked on this journey. The first few therapy sessions confirmed my fears…it wasn’t helping (or so I thought). My husband and I fought during our sessions and spewed anger. I left every session crying and not wanting to talk to my husband. I thought there was no saving our marriage. We were so angry with each other that I worried we would never find love again. What I didn’t realize was that those first few sessions were important to our healing. We needed to bring to the forefront what was bothering one another so we could find a way to heal. It was definitely challenging to sit and listen to my husband discuss what bothered him and to accept my role in our troubled marriage. In the beginning, I was on my high horse. After all, “It wasn’t me with the problem, it was him.” Therapy humbled me. It forced me to take a long hard look in the mirror at the woman I had become, and let me tell you, I didn’t like what I saw. Over the years, I had become a negative person who held near impossible expectations for my husband. I criticized him when he didn’t live up to them. Over time, I wore him down to a nub…he didn’t feel valued or loved. Eventually, through therapy my husband was diagnosed with clinical depression. His sessions with our therapist revealed a man who felt worthless and was sad all of the time. He felt like he couldn’t give me the love I so desperately needed because he struggled to love himself. His depression caused him to isolate himself from our family and created a bigger rift in our relationship. During therapy we both discovered that we had become people we didn’t like. We both realized we had to work on ourselves as well as working on our relationship. So we set out to better ourselves and our marriage. For the next year, my husband and I attended weekly therapy sessions. Most importantly, when we weren’t in a session, we continued to apply what therapy taught us at home. Slowly, we were able to pick up the pieces and put our marriage back together. We learned how to laugh again, how to fight in a healthy way, and how support and love each other unconditionally. To look back almost a year later and think that we almost became another statistic breaks my heart. As my husband and I approach our 11 year wedding anniversary this year, I feel truly grateful for him. He worked so hard to better himself, to become a person he was proud of. The love I feel for him now is deeper than any love I had in the past. We could have given up on ourselves, on our marriage, but we fought to save it. I think back to how I almost took the easy way out and chose to leave him, when now I can’t imagine another day without him. We owe everything to couple’s therapy. It has given us a chance to start over in our marriage. When I think about couple’s therapy it is not “talking to a stranger about my problems”. It’s a pathway to self-discovery, a chance to start anew, and the best decision I have ever made.

– J, CT

My struggle with my binge eating disorder started at the age of six years old.  I vividly remember hiding in the closet eating as much apple pie as I could as fast as I could to the point of severe stomach cramping.  I was attempting to numb myself from the pain of my father leaving my mother and I in what felt like a life threatening situation.  That was my first binge. Unfortunately, I grew up with the attitude that "normal" people don't do their dirty laundry in public.  It is that false belief that prevented me from taking an honest inventory of my emotional health.  I devoted all of my energy resources trying to run away from my eating disorder but it wasn't working.  If I kept doing this I would have just died tired.  At the age of 39 I reached my bottom.  At this point in my life, the pain of isolation over-powered the shame of admitting that I needed help and that I could not overcome my eating disorder alone.  I truly believe that when the student is ready the teacher appears,  That is when I met my therapist.  I walked into the therapy room feeling like the biggest loser and walked out with a sense of courage to reach out for help and do whatever it takes to get better.  I'm still a work in progress today but the feeling of shame disappeared and I'm slowly but surely becoming the person I was meant to be.  The best part of therapy is that you are no longer alone.  I built my support group one person at a time and it all started with my therapist.

– C, CT