A divorce lawyer’s tools to make sure you never come to see him

All was well with the Meystelmans. Leora had just given birth to their third child. Yitzchak and Leora were building and running their own law firm. So Yitzchak was surprised when Leora asked him to join her for what she described as an unusual date — a session of couples counseling.

“I was thrown,” Yitzchak admits, shrugging. “I asked Leora if anything was wrong, if there was something I should be aware of.”

No, Leora told him. She just wanted to deepen their relationship.

Some time before this, Leora had gone for lunch with friends. One was going through a divorce, and mentioned she was seeing a therapist. Leora, just after the birth of her third child, felt as if she were in a slump, and she asked her friend for the therapist’s number. In the course of their sessions, her therapist mentioned that she was training in Imago Therapy, and she needed couples to practice on.

Imago Therapy is a form of relationship therapy that explores the root of conflict as an opportunity for relationship growth. It sounded intriguing, and Leora wanted to give it a try.

It wasn’t a hard sell, she says. Yitzchak wasn’t averse to therapy, and he loves connection, and loves to understand himself.

“There’s something valuable and helpful in self-work through therapy,” Yitzchak says. “When Leora asked me to go on a date to an Imago therapist, I was mostly curious, with a slight reservation out of concern that something was wrong with our marriage that I wasn’t aware of.”

It was awkward at first, Leora says. Imago has prescribed terms and specific parameters for conversation, and initially a conversation within those parameters feels stilted and limiting. But, at the same time, what made it limiting also provided a sense of safety for sharing deep and private thoughts.

“It was gentle,” Leora remembers.

The gentleness is a necessary component, because in the sessions, each spouse shares how they experience their partner — a process that’s often vulnerable and uncomfortable.

“I was shocked,” Leora says. “I learned so much about myself, more than in individual therapy.”

By the end of that first session, Yitzchak was experiencing deep emotions that had been lying dormant for a long time, he says.

“Something felt right and authentic about the structure of the interaction,” he remembers. “And I realized that Leora and I didn’t really connect in this authentic way in our day-to-day living. I wanted to explore more. So we did — five years more.”

Not only did Imago lead Yitzchak and Leora to a deeper and more meaningful relationship, it also led Yitzchak to self-discovery. Through his Imago journey, he came face to face with his feelings about being a divorce lawyer, especially the deep pain he felt when sitting with his clients.

“I can’t keep doing this,” he said to himself. “I want to be part of the healing, not the breaking.”