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What if you and your loved one are living the opposite of happily ever after? Do your marital issues create tensions and distance between you instead of leading to mutually satisfying solutions?
If your partnership is yielding too much negative energy, maybe it's time to reverse the trend. How can couples counseling help? And can do-it-yourself resources also help you to get your relationship onto a more comfortable track?
While couples counseling encompasses a wide range of philosophies and techniques, three levels of interventions stand out for me as critical for successful outcomes.
1) Skills coaching
An effective marriage therapist will coach the two of you in the skills that enable couples to succeed as partners in life. The therapist also hopefully will guide you in using collaborative dialogue and win-win conflict resolution skills to guide you to new solutions on the issues about which you have been spinning your wheels or fighting.
2) Look backwards to discover where you learned the counter-productive habits that lock the two of you into cycles of problematic reactions
A good marriage counselor can help you to glance backwards to understand how your problems developed. Was there a period of time when your lives became too stressful and you began to turn against each other instead of staying united against the problem?
Also, where did you learn to argue? from how your parents interacted?
3) Emotionally hyper-sensitive issues.
A potent therapist can help you to identify and release the subconscious trapped emotions that make strong emotions like anger and anxiety seem to erupt out of nowhere.
The terminology I like best for these three aspects of couple treatment come from my therapy colleague Matthew LeBauer. Matt coined the terms How-to, How-come, and Landmines. Thanks Matt!
To illustrate these three levels of intervention, here's a case from my practice. Jerry and Nora--names changed, of course--sought therapy to end their chronic bickering.
Level I: How-To
Marriage is a high-skilled activity. Technique for communication in relationships matters. Jerry and Nora needed coaching to upgrade their skills in four arenas. They learned how to:
1) Talk and listen cooperatively instead of becoming adversarial—and take a breather to reset and switch back to cooperative if they began slipping again into argument mode.
2) Keep their interactions in the calm zone, with zero emotional escalations.
3) Resolve their differences with what I call the win-win waltz. When couples make all decisions, large and small, in a way that takes into account the concerns of both spouses, everyone stays happier.
4) Sustain a steady flow of loving appreciation, affection, and pleasure.
Over a series of sessions plus home practice in my Power of Two Workbook, Jerry and Nora found that as they knew better, they began to do better.
Level II: How-Come
Nora's job had become stressful. Jerry had to cover more than ever at home with the children, a job which exhausted him. With two tired partners, the odds of entering the world of bickering zoomed up.
In addition, both Jerry and Nora had learned to bicker growing up in families where daily fights—between their parents and among the siblings—were the norm. In a household where parents speak English, the kids learn English. If they speak fighting, the kids learn the language of arguing.
Jerry had learned growing up to be insistent—in his family, whoever hung in there the longest got his way.
By contrast, because Nora's parents were too swamped to listen to the specific preferences of any of their seven children ,Nora had learned to give up before even saying what she wanted, and then to issue criticisms to vent her disappointment.
As a married couple, Jerry and Nora then triggered each others' skill glitches. Jerry insisted on his way. Nora criticized. Jerry felt judged and snapped back, inviting further criticism from Nora. Round and round they went, again and again re-triggering each other. Psychologist Paul Wachtel refers to these negative cycles as cyclic psychodynamics.
In sum, Nora and Jerry's conflict patterns stemmed both from the habits they'd learned from their families of origin, and from interaction cycles they'd developed in response to each other.
Level III: Landmines
Identifying and clearing landmines--deeper emotional well-springs of negative feelings--completes the therapy process. Deeper, as described by psychologist John Norcross, refers to subconscious feelings that occurred historically earlier in life, and/or that are less accessible to conscious awareness.
To access clients' landmine issues, which, based on the work of psychologist Lester Luborsky, I refer to as "core concerns," I listen closely for the following clues:
- Clients' repeated or metaphorical words of distress: "I felt hijacked."
- Repetitive or strongly expressed thoughts that trigger intense negative feelings: "She doesn't treat me like number one!"
- Specific triggers that disturb them with particular potency, for instance, "I hate being interrupted!"
Jerry's wife's critical tone of voice could trigger in him a geyser of resentment. While no one likes to receive criticism, Jerry's hyper-intense response to feeling unjustly accused stemmed from having been the recipient of unjust accusations from his parents. Similarly, Nora's anger surged when she experienced Jerry as not listening to her, again, a sensitivity stemming from family of origin experiences.
Jerry and Nora completed all three levels of treatment: How-to, How-come, and Landmines. While they still experience occasional bumps, overall they now enjoy a vastly more collaborative, affectionate and bicker-free relationship. Mission accomplished!
More good news
While a good couples counseling experience can help, most of these changes are ones that couples can accomplish on their own with the help of marriage education. That's why I write my books. Why keep tensions simmering when you and your loved ones could be enjoying smooth sailing?
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Susan Heitler, PhD, a clinical psychologist, is author of multiple publications.
From Conflict to Resolution explains how therapy works.
The Power of Two book and workbook teach the collaborative dialogue, shared decision-making, and anger management skills that enable marriage success.
Prescriptions Without Pills: For Relief from Depression, Anger, Anxiety and More offers self-help strategies for lifting negative emotional states.
To explore more of Dr. Heitler's ideas, see her website at TherapyHelp.com.
Mental health professionals: Learn the essential concepts and techniques of couples therapy at Dr. Heitler's APA-accredited online course, EffectiveCouplesTherapy.com.
