Russian speaking therapist

I married a smart, sweet, loving, beautiful, intelligent, kind Russian woman 6 months ago and while we are genuinely in love with each other and want to stay together, especially because she’s now 4 months pregnant, we need help!

I am a physician with significant training in psychiatry, because when at Medical School I initially was thinking of going into psychiatry. I also have had several Russian and Eastern European girlfriends, and my best friend is Russian, so I know a lot about that culture

My wife is a lot younger than I am, and also has some borderline personality characteristics, although she doesn’t meet enough to meet DSM criteria for BPD. She also has ADHD. She has no history of substance abuse and reports no abuse in childhood. Her parents are happily married in a village 2 hours from Moscow

6 weeks ago she got arrested for repetitive domestic violence (she called the police, not me, and I told them that I didn’t want to press charges but they said on a 2nd episode neither I nor they had a choice). I asked the ADA to modify the order of protection to limited from total, so she’s moved back into the house

Since then things have gotten better, with decreased severity & duration of arguments, although once she did throw something at me which could have technically gotten her re-arrested

Therapy has been a failure because 2 of 4 of the Russian female therapists we have seen have admitted that they also threw plates at their husbands, which had the bad effect of normalizing low-level domestic violence that is a crime in the USA (but not in Russia). 1 of the other therapists couldn’t stop my wife from interrupting me when I was speaking, so she spoke for 40 minutes, the PhD for 15, and me for 5. Objectively that ratio isn’t going to work for “couples” therapy. The 4th female PhD was good, but unaffordable

We have also had a non-Russian LCSW who was ok, but mostly because that was in person. She didn’t confront my wife enough, who in her mind thinks that my speaking to her in a strong tone of voice is “screaming” and justifies her escalating to low levels of physical violence (eg slapping me in the face)

After being with my wife as boyfriend/girlfriend for 6 months before she moved to the USA, then as Fiance for 6 months, then married for 6 months, and after 12 mostly unproductive sessions with 6 different therapists, I know what will and will not work:

We need a therapist who speaks at least low intermediate Russian (because she’s in high beginner ESL) who can TAKE CHARGE of the sessions and PREVENT MY WIFE FROM MONOPOLIZING the session and STOPPING HER FROM INTERRUPTING ME AFTER EVERY SENTENCE

The constant interruptions are a sign of her ADHD, and her lack of executive function, which is part of BPD. But we must get her to PRACTICE SELF CONTROL IN THE SESSION if we are going to be able to help her master this OUTSIDE of the sessions

You do NOT have to be a LCSW or a PhD. All you have to have is ONE of the following:

1. COMPLETED UNDERGRADUATE DEGREE in psychology, or

2. Work full-time as a counselor, or

3. Work full-time in HR, or

4. Have a LCSW or similar degree

AND SPEAK INTERMEDIATE RUSSIAN

Our sessions MUST go over past fights or they’ll be too theoretical. But we must be PURELY BEHAVIORAL or she will get anxious and walk out of the room again. This means FOCUSING ON ROLE PLAY which HAS WORKED IN THE PAST, like this:

1. We will act out a previous fight, with both of us trying to be as accurate as possible

2. Then we will recreate the same event, but add in what we were thinking and feeling

3. You will suggest better ways of communicating, where we don’t escalate so quickly to allow us the time to express our feelings and thoughts, and focus on ourselves, rather than quickly assuming negative things about the other person. We will agree on a formula

4. Then we’ll do a final role play where the starting situation is identical, but because of proper communication, it gets resolved quickly and relatively amicably without escalation

After about 6 sessions of this I think we will make enough progress to advance to addressing the following topics that I posed in an email to her and a prior therapist that we need to address, but never got to:

1. Our relationship with money, I’m a saver and she’s a spender, what money means to us, how much we need to spend to be happy, this is very important because we have a failed prenuptial agreement and need to AGREE ON AND SIGN A REASONABLE POSTNUPTIAL AGREEMENT for me to remain married

2. Agree on how much privacy the other person deserves within the marriage, like I don’t think it’s normative or ideal for her to demand to read my SMSs & emails, we need to address her jealousy and insecurity which is BPD related and how I can reassure her calmly and in a loving manner, rather than escalating and calling her nuts