When my husband and I had to deal with a serious crisis in our marriage about 15 years ago, we began marital therapy with Mim Collins and continued seeing her for five years. Though Mim always insisted on giving us credit for being committed to our marriage and working hard to save it—which we did—I truly believe we wouldnt have made it without Mims help. I highly recommend Mim Collins as a therapist.
There were many times, especially in the beginning, that we would go to Mim feeling full of despair and sure there was no hope for us. But, somehow, Mim always managed to work her magic on us. By the end of the session, something would shift in each of us, and wed leave her office in a much different mood, suddenly able to feel hope again—and love. Sometimes we were right at the edge, ready to call it quits, but she was always able to get us to hang on until the next session and not do anything rash that we might later regret.
I dont know how Mim did it. All I know is that she believed in us. She listened deeply and compassionately and never made either one of us feel that she was taking sides or judging us. I had a lot of pain, disappointment, and anger in me, and Mim helped me work through these issues. She helped my husband work through his issues. When we were too angry at each other to really listen to each other, Mim was like a translator, explaining me to my husband and my husband to me. She taught us how to listen, how to step back and consider things from a different perspective.
Mim was always fully involved—not just a silent, listening observer—and sometimes shared stories from her own life when she knew it would help us understand certain things. She also has a great sense of humor. We respected and admired her, not just as a therapist, but as a person. I think it was more than respect. We both loved her.
After five years of therapy with Mim, my husband and I had gained a deeper understanding of ourselves and each other. We had gone through a lot of suffering, but despite that, or because of that, we now felt we had a deeper, richer relationship. We could still get triggered when the other one said or did certain things, but we now understood the triggers and how to defuse them and resolve our issues. Of course, we were very sorry to leave Mim and knew we would miss her, but we felt confident, finally, that we could manage on our own. We had Mims words of wisdom engraved in our minds.
Even now, ten years later, we still quote Mim to each other. “Remember what Mim said?” we remind each other when we need to get ourselves back on track.
We are grandparents now, and, of course, like everyone else, we continue to encounter challenges in our lives. But we will always remember and value our years with Mim and will always be grateful to her for her part in saving our marriage and our commitment to each other. Occasionally, we find ourselves sharing some of the lessons we learned from Mim with our children.