Seeking and keeping good, healthy, supportive relationships is a natural, central, and primary need for human beings. The need for caring relationships starts in infancy and continues throughout our lives. Somehow in our culture we’ve gotten the idea that we’re always supposed to be independent and self sufficient. But turning to and relying on others is healthy thing and one of our most basic essential needs. In this blog I talk about what goes wrong, what can help, and preventative maintenance for a healthy relationship,
Having secure relationships actually increases our autonomy and self-confidence. The lack of secure relationships causes stress, anxiety, depression and a lack of self-confidence. Strong relationships can be a safe place to go to when things get tough, and a secure base from which to take risks and try new things.
We all need our partners to be accessible and responsive to us. And we need to be able to be accessible and responsive to our partner. Unfortunately, sometimes the ways we’ve learned to protect and defend ourselves against hurt and disappointment can make it difficult to respond to our partners or mates in a way that gives them clear signals of what we’re needing.
What Goes Wrong?
When a couple is in distress, they can feel trapped in an escalating cycle of painful emotional reactions that take on a life of their own. The way in which each partner expresses their pain and tries to protect themselves from further wounding intensifies a negative cycle and increases their distance and loneliness.
A frequent pattern seen in distressed couples is one of blaming and withdrawal. One partner gets mad at the other because they seem to be making themselves more and more unavailable. The other partner feels misunderstood and attacked and defends themselves by shutting down and withdrawing. The more one pulls away, the angrier the other gets. The angrier one partner gets, the more the other withdraws. Each person gets stuck. The are not getting what they need, and are not providing their partner with what they need either: an accessible and responsive partner.
What Can Help?
Finding ways to stop negative cycles is a first step. The next step is getting to understand the underlying drama of the heart that is being played out, the hurts, fears and hopes. Learning to experience and express underling needs directly helps get relationships back on track.
Couples can have arguments about incredibly stupid and mundane things. Who took the garbage out? Who didn’t want to go to the party? But when you scratch under the surface, you generally find an underlying drama of the heart. “Are you really there for me?” ” I’m so angry at you when I reach out and I don’t feel you there.” ” I’m so afraid that I’m not good enough to meet your needs.”
Couples therapy can help distressed couples understand the ways they are getting stuck and move into a more healthy and fulfilling way of being with each other. It can help them to get out of stuck interactions and to get in touch with what’s going on under the surface.
To learn more about interrupting negative cycles and increasing the positive cycles, two books by Sue Johnson, “Hold Me Tight” and “Love Sense,” are good places to start.
Five Things To Help Your Relationship Stay On Course
Even good relationships need ongoing preventative maintenance. A car that never gets an oil change or a tuneup is headed for trouble. In couples counseling, the couples that make the most gains learn to change the ways they interact with each other on a day to day basis. John Gottman recommends five things that all couples could benefit by including in their week on an ongoing basis to improve their relationship.
1. Partings. Don’t part in the morning without knowing something interesting that will happen in your partner’s day
2. Reunions. When getting back together in the evening, each partner takes 10 minutes to talk about their day. The one listening gives support, but understanding should take precedence over giving advice. Let your partner know you’re on their side.
3. Appreciation. Find some way to honestly communicate appreciation. Let your partner know what you like about them.
4. Affection. Express your affection for your partner. Hold, hug, kiss, touch, connect physically.
5. Stay interested and involved. Keep yourself updated about your partner’s inner world. Be curious. Ask questions about what’s going on in their lives and what it means to them. Structure a regular time every week to connect and to talk about things.