What you Need to Understand about the Distress in Your Marriage
When I work with clients we work through relational tasks that will change the way you talk about your relationship and the way you talk to each other about your relationship. In each task, you will identify some things about yourself or the marriage and learn to share them with your spouse. Then you will work on responding and caring for each other in a way that promotes security and bonding. The first relational task to begin the process is called, relationship research.
During this task, you are going to break down interactions in your relationship and get an understanding of what is happening and why it is happening from moment to moment. I like to say, you are looking for what happens in the space between you. Breaking down an interaction involves being very aware of your own body and what actions and behaviors of your spouse got a response from you and why. When working through this task I think of 2 Corinthians 10:5 “…and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” Neuroscience informs us that before a thought we have a feeling. So if you are trying to take captive a thought you have to understand the feeling that happened first and what triggered it.
Is it a look on their face? A tone in their voice? A topic of conversation? And what did it feel like? Fear? sadness? Anger?
If conflict and disconnection have become a norm for your marriage, you likely are stuck in a cycle. A cycle of feelings, thoughts, and reactions. The trouble with cycles is they are a feedback loop that won’t end until you both do something different. For now, you can think about it as a circle but as we work through the tasks you will see it is really more of a loop.
To the advantage of your marriage, the cycles or loops that couples fall into are predictable in that research has shown that there are three types that most couples fall into.
Attack/Attack or Accuse/Blame
Criticise. Control. Blame/Avoid. Defend. Stonewall
Withdraw/Withdraw or Helpless/Hopeless
I think the important thing to recognize about a cycle is that both people in the relationship are fighting for the relationship. It isn’t working, in fact, it’s making things worse, but a cycle usually means that we have two people who care very much for each other and the relationship. The problem is that walls of relational insecurity have been erected and are blocking connection.
Part of understanding relational insecurity in a marriage requires a little more research and curiosity. Asking questions like:
What is the relationship history?
When did things shift?
Was there a big painful moment you never recovered from or was it small painful interactions that happened over time?
Relationship research can be hard work, a lot of times one person’s understanding of an event in the marriage can be different than the other person's. Due to the lack of safe communication, this leads to misunderstanding and beliefs about the marriage that may be untrue! In some marriages it is helpful to do this work with a therapist, who can help you understand an see things about your relationship that you may not understand because of the hurt and prolonged disconnection.
