How to Save Your Relationship

Guidelines for reconnecting and bringing relationships back to life.

By Susan Johnson, Aviva Patz, published on March 01, 2003 - last reviewed on August 13, 2009

It was Mike Martin's affair that finally led him and his wife, Katie, to my office for couples counseling. But the betrayal was a symptom of a deeper problem in their 19-year marriage. "He felt like he wasn't getting his emotional needs met at home," says Katie, 45, a teacher in Richmond, Virginia. "Maybe that's because he was never here! He was a workaholic and didn't come home until midnight every night--for years." When Katie told Mike she wanted to spend more time together, he would pull out his calendar and say, "How's lunch next Thursday?" Katie recalls. "I felt neglected and over time I withdrew emotionally. Between his not being there in person and my not being there in spirit, we just stopped being able to get close."

The Martins were perfect candidates for EFT, an approach to marital counseling that seeks to re-create a sense of connection between partners. Unlike the traditional cognitive-behavioral approach, which focuses on teaching communication skills, EFT hinges on getting partners to recognize that they're both emotionally dependent on the other for love, comfort, support and protection, much like a child depends on a parent. In my sessions with couples, we get to the heart of the matter: the need for emotional security. Because without that security, asking troubled couples to trust and confide in each other is like asking people standing at the edge of a cliff and staring down a 2,000-foot drop to use their skills of listening and empathy--they can't, because they're too busy feeling afraid.

While a doctoral student at York University in Toronto, I began working with British psychologist Les Greenberg, Ph.D., in designing EFT based on attachment theory, which was developed 50 years ago by psychiatrist John Bowlby. Through his observations, Bowlby concluded that everyone has an innate yearning for trust and security, or attachment. Children need to feel attached to a parent; adults need to feel attached to another adult, usually a romantic partner. And when those we're attached to can't respond to our needs--maybe one partner is emotionally unavailable, say--we become anxious and fearful or numb and distant, which sets up dangerous patterns of interaction.

The Martins' situation is a case in point. Their toxic pattern, one of the most common, involves a wife who criticizes and becomes contemptuous toward her husband, while he distances himself. "I would tell Mike, 'I need you to be around more,' and I meant, 'I miss you,'" Katie explains. "But because of the irritation in my voice, he would hear, 'I am disappointed in you.'"

Patterns like this, which may eventually superimpose themselves onto every element of the relationship, often create a slippery slope to divorce. Recent research by relationship guru John Gottman, Ph.D., confirms that it's often emotional distance--not conflict--that determines whether a relationship will flourish or begin to disintegrate. After all, every couple fights, but as long as partners can connect emotionally, their relationship should remain healthy. This same notion was also recently supported by Sandra Murray, Ph.D., at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York. Murray's study, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, found that partners who feel well-regarded by their mates better handle the occasional hurts that occur in their relationships. So rather than pulling away or lashing out in defense, a confident partner instead draws the offending mate closer to protect the relationship's solidity.

The goal of EFT, therefore, is to help partners feel securely connected by fostering feelings of safety, accessibility and responsiveness. Once in this safe haven, partners are more capable of handling difficult feelings. They more easily process information, deal with ambiguity and see the other's perspective. They also send clearer messages and are better at collaborative problem solving. In truth, most distressed couples already have good communication skills--they get along very nicely with other loved ones and co-workers--they just can't apply those skills in their relationship. But if they have a solid emotional connection, if they feel loved, they'll naturally use the skills they already possess.

Although it's easy for some to dismiss the idea of emotional dependence as antiquated--particularly for women in this post-feminist era--there's no arguing with EFT's success rates. Between 70 and 75 percent of couples report being happy with each other again after undergoing EFT, compared with only 35 percent among those who try cognitive-behavioral counseling. The number of people who experience "significant improvement" is above 90 percent. The dropout rate? Negligible.

So how does EFT go about rebuilding intimacy? It's a nine-step treatment that can take anywhere from eight to 20 sessions. The first four steps involve helping partners recognize that the problem is not their individual personalities per se, but the negative cycle of communication in which they're stuck. In the next three steps, the therapist works with couples to promote sharing, soothing and bonding, before helping the couple incorporate those acts into everyday life in the last two steps. This final process of showing couples how to keep their connection alive can help prevent relapse.