by Monea Tamara
There are many opposing thoughts on the value of therapy in the Black community. While some do see the value of it as a means of healing, others have a very negative view of therapy as being for “crazy people,” or people who love to “put their business out there” by talking to a stranger. I’ve always seen the value of it, particularly for the Black community””a people with a history of slavery and Jim Crow. We are so accustomed to working hard and “sucking it up” that ways of healing are often not considered.
Needless to say, I was initially thrilled to see that a Black couple””DMX and his wife, Tashera””would be on VH1’s show “Couple’s Therapy” but after the first episode, I was utterly disappointed. I was already a bit cautious about them being the only Black couple on the show, on a predominately white network but I was still hopeful. I thought that maybe they could be an example of the power of therapy and self-help to heal our marriages and ultimately heal our communities but now I am not so sure. The season for “Couple’s Therapy” is still underway so maybe things will change but for now, I have many grievances. I will save you from the laundry list and just stick to one of my core issues with the show””marriage martyrdom.
The show exposes that DMX clearly has deep emotional issues. I’d even be so bold to say that before he can even consider Couple’s Therapy, he may need rehab and individual therapy. He has to be willing and able to heal himself before he can even fathom the idea of healing his marriage”....or even his relationship with another human being. Call me naïve, but to me, DMX is a very sick man in need of care. He has grave emotional issues that need to be treated. Because the show exposes all of DMX’s rage without mentioning his childhood or the pieces of him that added to his rage, he is portrayed as the victimizer and the abuser. Yes, he is obviously verbally abusive to his wife but I am shocked by how the therapists on the show deal with him””like a bad child rather than the sick man that he is.
Furthermore, the dynamic between X and his wife Tashera, is even more troubling! He is portrayed as the victimizer and the mean one, while she is portrayed as the poor victim, the saint. On one episode, even after several of X’s outbursts, she said that she “loves him more than she loves herself.” My heart melted! X’s wife is as sick as he is but she is portrayed as the healthy, good one. Some think it is noble for a woman (or any person) to love a person more than they love themselves but I find that “feeling” dangerous and deadly, especially in a marriage. I call it marriage martyrdom. It is impossible to fully love another person until we first love ourselves. It is clear to me that DMX and his wife both lack self-love, it just manifests in different ways. Neither is healthy for the longevity of a healthy, happy marriage. His manifests as anger and the desire to escape his feelings through drugs, alcohol, infidelity, etc. and hers manifests as playing the martyr, sacrificing her own well-being to be with him, fear of abandonment, and remaining in unhealthy situations too long. She is not a victim. She is making decisions that put her in a position to be hurt, which is her issue to heal”....not X’s.
So what is my point? We are all responsible for developing and nurturing self-love and healing before we can even entertain the possibility of working on a relationship or a marriage. To me, that is the first step because even when two people are actually healthy, the martial union adds another dynamic to the equation: there is man, there is woman, but the union of the two brings about ways of relating and coexisting that may need some tweaking throughout the marriage”...but such tweaks are very challenging when both people are severely broken to begin with.
My second point is very radical. VH1 has no business trying to analyze or help our marriages because clearly the motivation is economic gain, at our expense. Marriage in itself can be difficult for all races but to me, Black marriages in America have many historical, opposing forces against us…let us not forget how our ancestors used to sneak away and jump the broom to get married because it was illegal for them to do so”...or that our marriages weren’t politically recognized by being counted on the Census until 1940! I’ll stop here and save the history of Black marriages for another article.
Have you seen Couples Therapy? What did you think?
Monea Tamara blogs at The Spiral Notebook.