In The Beginning:
Sometimes it's hard to know what it would look like to be “doing better.” Often times it's because when your relationship isn't doing well, you have what John Gottman calls "negative sentiment override.” That means instead of rose colored glasses, your glasses are covered in mud. Everything that you see is darker, your spouse may be more difficult to see, and the future may be harder predict. I've seen many couples use therapy to change their relationships. This article is about what it looks like when your relationship starts improving.
The First Question: Would You Fix It If You Could?
When you first come in, you may be in real distress. You may not know if you have it in you to fix your relationship. That’s ok. Getting clarity on your path forward is really important. If you know you want to work on your relationship, then go to step 2 (Counseling) below. If you’re unsure, I help couples with a process called discernment. Discernment helps you answer the question: would you fix it if you could?
The 3 Paths In Discernment:
When couples are “on the brink,” often times getting clarity about how you want to proceed reduces distress. Discernment helps you gain clarity on which of 3 paths are right for both of you.
Keep Everything The Same
Amicably Split
Dedicate the Next 6 months To Working On The Relationship In Therapy
Step 2: If You Do Want To Fix It (Counseling)
The first thing that happens with counseling is symptom reduction. What does that mean? There’s a daily distress that couples experience whe there’s emotional distress. There can be constant fights, or quiet disconnection, or both.
I really help couples uncover the emotional processes that drive disconnection or raised voices. Often times, these events are caused by a trigger that “takes you back” to something you experienced in your past (either with your current partner or before you met them) and compels you to react in a big way.
Fight, Flight, or Freeze: For Survival
That “big way” can be either a fight, an avoidance, or a shut down. All of those reactions are fight, flight, or freeze reactions that are designed to help survival. The problem is, the trigger isn’t helping in modern life. You’re not running away from a lion. You’re running away from a partner or spouse that is getting injured by the way you react. If you’re freezing or avoiding your spouse or partner, it can be as bad or worse than yelling at them, by the way. I have an article on how avoiding = fighting.
Helping fight, flight, or freeze
When we start work in counseling, the first step is really getting both of you to reduce the energy that you’re both dumping into your system. It’s like a runaway hurricane and destroying your relationship “house.” I help both of you to s-l-o-w things down so you say fewer things you regret and are able to hear your partner more. Remember, if your spouse or partner was just some stranger and they started avoiding you or yelling at you, you’d give them wide berth. You’d eventually not be in contact with them anymore.
Because you LOVE them, you’re fighting for the relationship, even if it’s avoiding a hard conversation. I have an article that might help you understand your spouse or partner better. This article is if you want to understand a partner who avoids or shuts down. This article is if you want to understand someone that “gets big” or yells.
Go Slow To Go Fast
When most couples are in the middle of their fight, they go fast to go slow. They are mashing on the gas pedal and instead of going places, are getting stuck in the mud. The reasons tend to be because of triggers, which I explained above. When you first start work with me, I’ll be helping you moderate your reactions so that you’re not breathing fire on your partner. I’ll also help you listen to your partner better so that your partner feels heard. Both things are helpful in reducing the fighting. Here’s an article I wrote on what “going slow to go fast” means.
How To Reduce Your Fighting
When you first reduce your fighting, it will be because you are feeling heard by someone. That someone will be me, the therapist in the room. At first that will help calm you in the room during sessions. Then I’ll translate what you’re saying so that it will land as intended to your partner. How does that look? Let’s pick an extreme example. Marty and Joey, a fictitious gay couple, have been at the same fight for years. It’s always ended with both people unhappy. right now, they’re fighting about how to raise their 2 year old, Mavis. They’ve been reading self-help books, so they both know to use “I feel” language. Here’s how a snippet of their conversation goes from being unhelpful to helpful.
Unhelpful: And you think this is okay? I feel like you don’t even give a sh&t about me. I’m schlepping the kids all over the place and can’t be back in time for the social time with the neighbors. It’s so selfish.
Helpful: I feel really hurt. I really needed you to consider my work schedule when arranging social hour with the neighbors. I really wanted some adult social time too.
Making Your Statements More Helpful
Saying “I really need you to just listen to me.” is infinitely more helpful than, ”All you do is tell me what I’m doing wrong!” But why is it more helpful?
Talking about how someone else does something wrong tends to land as criticism. Don’t just use “I statements.” Talk about what you’re needing. Talk about what you’re feeling. There’s a big difference between “You’re always coming home late from work,” and “I really want to spend evenings with you, but I can’t when you are coming home late. That makes me feel sad and lonely.”
The first one, about how you “always come home late. . . “ tends to land as criticism and the second one is vulnerable. Why? The first one talks about what the other person does wrong. “But Mike, can’t we say what we do’t like?” Yes, but don’t lead with that. If you do a good enough job with your opening statement, your partner or spouse will be curious about how they can change.
The second statement is better because it’s speaking from a primary emotion of loneliness and sadness. Being critical is one of those ways we fight. talking about emotions like loneliness and sadness is vulnerable because you’re admitting a way you’re feeling down.
Apologies
Here’s one skill that can’t be emphasized enough: apologies.
“But Mike,” you say,”I just work on not screwing up!”
“Good luck,” I say.
It’s inevitable that people injure their spouses or partners. Think of it - both of you grew up in different families with different cultures and rituals. It’s inevitable that there will be a time where something is misinterpreted or at least lands not in the way you intended. There has to be capacity to heal. Let’s think of it a different way. Let’s say this isn’t an emotional lesson between you and your partner. Let’s say I’m teaching you to heal a cut or scrape or bone break. Would you take me up on it, or would you just say “I just won’t get injured.”?
Leprosy: A Lesson In Healing
This isn’t as far-fetched as. you might think. Leprosy is an infection that can cause increased infections in the skin and loss of sensation in nerves. These things combine to increase small injuries like cuts and bruises and decrease the chance you will notice them and treat them. You don’t notice these small injuries, so your wounds get bigger, re-infected, and you can have limb-threatening infections.
But treatment of Leprosy will restore sensation and allow you to tend to your wounds. You will be able to heal again because you can sense and attend to them. In this way, I help couples tend to the injuries in their relationship. I tell this to clients because I want to them to know how important it is to heal relationships, not just avoid injury. Because you can never be perfect at avoiding injury.
That being said, I wrote an article on what things to focus on in your apologies and what things to avoid in your apologies.
Talking About What’s Underneath
All couples have an underlying emotional pattern that either reinforces their bond or dectracts from it. In couples that have a negative pattern, something can land poorly for one person, and because they react, the other person can see that negative reaction (either “getting big”, “going away” or “shutting down”) and react negatively with their own behavior. Both people in the couple hurt each other because they’re fighting and reacting to the other person’s negative behavior.
To Infinity!
Here is another way to think about it in illustrated form:
This picture is a representation of what happens in an argument with couples. The left and right sides of the loop represent the contribution each of you has to the argument. The part above the horizontal black line represents the behaviors you both exhibit. The part below the line represents feelings or thoughts occurring underneath.
This picture represents a specific example fight in numerical order. We’ll walk through it so you understand how I help couples break down their fights.
Your partner neglects to squeeze out a sponge.
This makes you feel a certain way. Deflated. Discouraged. Lonely. Why? This isn’t the first time, and it isn’t the only thing they don’t listen to you about. They don’t pickup their socks from the living room floor. They don’t put the toilet seat down. You just get the feeling that they don’t care.
You do something when you get frustrated and lolonely. Maybe you shut down? Maybe you yell? This is the first visible sign of the fight. But whether you shut down or yell, it’s the beginning of a fight.
This triggers a feeling in your partner. What did I do that was so bad? They feel attacked. They feel disprespected. They feel hurt.
Then they do something back! (yell back? shut down too?)
This breakdown of the fight is important because often times people go faster and faster in their arguments and then they spin their wheels. You end up getting more stuck even though you’re trying to get some important things out there to your partner.
Breaking this down may be the first time that you get to talk to your partner about hurt, about disappointment, or loneliness, instead of distractors like sponges. It creates a new way of seeing your partner’s intent and you get to tell them what is going on that’s so important in you.
The Window of Possibility
I tell couples that as they start doing couples therapy, they’ll start seeing a different intent in the sessions. As your partner sees a different intent to your behaviors, they’ll start reacting differently, and that cycle that I describe above will start changing. As the cycle starts changing, a window to a different future will start opening wider and wider. As you continue your work and understand that they have different intent, you’ll realize that the window is actually a door. Eventually, you’ll both be able to walk out that door and each be the healing that the other person needs so badly.
If you’re interested in more of my thoughts on couples counseling, check out my marriage and couples counseling page. I’ve worked couples for the last 11 years, and if you’re in Minnesota, I can help you and your partner too. Contact me, let’s talk, and let’s get you both on the same page again. You can call at 612.230.7171, email me through my contact page, or click on the orange button to self-schedule a free, 15-minute phone call.