I counsel couples experiencing these (and other) scenarios:
- Considering marriage
- Facing up to infidelity
- General dissatisfaction
- Seeking more consistent, honest, open communication
- Considering children/another child
- Difficulties with in-laws
- Divorce, custody cases
- Blended families
- Co-parenting challenges
- Career/family/relationship (im)balance
- Different approaches to and/or goals for parenting
- Crisis counseling
- Considering divorce/separation
“Things is the mirror are closer than they appear.”
So speaks the wisdom etched into my side-view mirror on my car. If we were to consider our lives on earth as a school for learning and growing, for developing our capacity for giving and receiving love, then relationship is an accelerated program. There isn't a more learning-rich environment than relationship. Why? Because in relationship we spend so much time in the close company of someone who often mirrors back to us the parts of ourselves we might not yet see. This includes both the beauty and possibility we may not be ready to accept for ourselves as well as aspects of ourselves, our personalities, that we would rather not see.
Add to that the likelihood that our primary relationship will unconsciously plug us into unfinished business from our own families of origin and we have a potentially incendiary mixture. Completing this unfinished business, learning the tools for honest, caring, clear communication, including setting and maintaining boundaries, and relating to ourselves and our partners with compassion, patience, and loving are the foundations of successful relationship.
In my counseling with couples, I draw upon the work of Harville Hendrix, Terrence Real, Gay and Kathlyn Hendricks, Gary Chapman, and John Gottman, among others.
“The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse”
John Gottman, Ph.D., is unique in his depthful, long-term, quantifiable research on the art and science relationship.
Drawing on more than three decades of research and counseling couples, Gottman highlights four behaviors that undermine a relationship faster than any other. These are:
- Criticism
This focuses on attacking your partner's character rather than focusing on the particular behavior that troubles you. It's fine to disagree about things, what's important is how you communicate in these times of difference.
- Contempt
Contempt is an open display of disrespect, an amplification of criticism. Examples are eye-rolling, sneering, or back-handed humor.
- Defensiveness
It can be a natural, automatic response in times of conflict to become defensive—but it is not help to relationship. Rationalizing (making excuses), blaming (denying responsibility), and counter attacking (meeting one complaint with another) are examples of this.
- Stonewalling
Simply refusing to respond, especially during conflict, can be very destructive. When a person stonewalls, they are effectively withdrawing themselves from the relationship rather than seeking to resolve the issue at hand. Men tend to do this more often than women.
These behaviors can occur at some point in most relationships. When they are frequent, a relationship has a high likelihood of failing. Address them together, get the support of therapy, and the inevitable is avoidable!
Where and how do we learn to love?
“The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find
in them.”
Thomas Merton
Each of us develops any number of interests, skills, abilities, and areas of expertise as we grow and age. Whether at work or at play, we discover areas of interest that we wish to expand.
We may go to workshops, seek the counsel of experts or mentors, read books, talk with friends, and more. We are willing to learn. We don't expect ourselves to innately know to create an Excel spreadsheet, train for a marathon, play the guitar, or speak confidently in public.
Yet in the arena of relationship, of love, we have high expectations of ourselves. We expect that we should know how to make our relationships work, and that if we can't, we are failures.
Yet, where did we learn to love? Who modeled successful relationship for us? Before we had the ability, the organic brain capacity, for critical thought and discernement, we downloaded the template of our parents' relationship (or primary caregivers') as the way it should be done.
Learning how to love only by watching others is like learning a language by only listening to the radio. Even if it's possible, it's a long, painstaking journey, fraught with misinterpretations. It's far more effective to learn by doing, and to do so with caring support.
Couples can develop a high tolerance for pain, enduring unhappy relationships for an average of six years before seeking help. It can become too late but it's never too early to get support and create the relationship you want.