Help Your Marriage with Self-work
Marriage work is self-work, it has to be, there is no way out of it. All relationships require self-work but none so much as marriage. You should be paying attention to what is happening between you and your spouse, but you should also be looking within. Looking within, just like looking “between,” begins with noticing. The best time to do this noticing may be during or after a conflict, usually during a conflict a softer more vulnerable part of self has been poked at and out of protection of this part of you, a “bear” can arise. Noticing involves slowing down the chain of events within us, similar to the way you slow things down in the cycle between you. What are you looking for when you slow things down?? Three very important things, let’s look at them.
The first thing you are looking for is your “view of self” or VOS. VOS is formed through a collection of relational interactions over the life span. Hopefully, you have a positive VOS, even better if it is primary. However, everyone also has some degree of negative VOS. To heal your relationship we want to get to know the negative VOS. In short, Attachment Science informs us that for most people negative VOS can be summed up into some form of one of two beliefs about self, “I am unlovable,” or “I am a failure” and the fear on an even deeper level can be, “I will be abandoned as a result.” Most people don’t live with negative VOS at the forefront all the time and might not even know they are there. These beliefs about self may be triggered by certain interactions. Being curious about your VOS and the significant moments that contributed to its formation can help you understand what triggers you. Click here for a .pdf on steps to processing your feelings that will help you work at understanding your VOS.
Attachment style is the next part of self-work. Attachment style likely determines your response to being triggered. Three main attachment styles include, secure, anxious, and avoidant. A securely attached person has had enough positive interactions, they are able to maintain a healthy perscpective and recover quickly from relational insecurity. They seek support from close others and anticipate positive care in time of need. An anxiously attached person becomes hyper-vigilant when triggered. They may assign negative meaning to harmless interactions, feel overwhelmed when close ones pull away or the relationship becomes disconnected, and are relentless at trying to “fix” things. An avoidant attached person would rather pretend nothing is happening, they are terrified they will fail and make the situation worse, and they usually struggle to understand much less talk about the way they feel. Understanding your own attachment style is huge when you are working as a couple to break down and understand the interactions that cause disconnection. Typically, in an insecure relationship one person will play the roll of avoidant while the other anxious, the two opposing reactions often cause even more insecurity in the relationship.
The last important part of self-work is awareness of what it feels like when your VOS is triggered and your response is the result of an insecure attachment style. The experience of an emotion is a whole body experience it doesn’t just happen in your head. Sometimes the feeling happens for less than a second before your brain activates your protective strategies that protect you from what might be emotionally painful. The goal is to catch what you felt in that less than a second moment and put words to it. It’s hard. Your brain works so hard to keep you safe both physically and emotionally, we can be so thankful for that. However, if you are going to connect with your spouse, you have to take the risk of allowing yourself to feel what might be painful. But worry not, it will be the care your partner will learn to have for this part of you that heals both you and your relationship.
A lot of people find this task challenging. This task brings up the most shame and fear that maybe they will find out that they are the “bad guy” in the relationship. So let’s set the record straight. Relationship disconnection is never any one person’s fault, we aren’t looking for a “bad guy”. It is the interactions between you that are causing pain. However, not jumping in on this step whole-heartedly can keep your relationship from moving from conflict and disconnection to connection. You alone are responsible for the work to manage your reactions in the relationship. The saddest dynamic is one where one person is ready to jump in and do the work and their spouse won’t jump in with them. It takes both people to heal a relationship.
