Are you there for me? Will you respond to me? Will you engage with me emotionally?
When the answer is uncertain, couple trouble is on the horizon. It comes with a realisation that you're not on secure ground with your partner. It may take months even years to wake up to the truth of our situation, and that we are also its co-creators. Then relationship change can begin.
Trouble builds up everyday in many little disconnections, like an absence of eye contact; turning away from each other rather than toward; forgetting chores or bills to pay. And in hurtful times, like rolling the eyes, painful withdrawal, in harsh criticism or rejection.
From these moments relationships may grow or wither, and always one conversation at a time. Big, generous spaces can form that make a safe harbour for attachment and connection. Or they can grow to be spaces filled with the unspoken and with unfinished business.
We need a secure attachment in our primary relationships, one we can depend on when it really matters. That is a necessary condition for living a recognisably human life.
Disconnection, disruption or insecure bonding occurs when you are unsure if you matter to your partner, unsure if you can rely on them, unsure if they will catch you if you fall, hold when you hurt and celebrate your triumphs with you.
The majority of couple fights are about conversations that didn't occur and needed to. Troubled relationships can talk about everything else but what really matters. Healthy relationships bounce back from troubles relatively quickly. They are not without troubles, they just work better as a team.
The inner love work of relationship occurs in each partner's head. Thus there are two locations in one relationship where that work is done. For example, in thinking through the problem alone or in holding back saying difficult stuff until a better time. Two locations makes for very different perceptions and meaning of the same events.
This is a reciprocal dance of pursue and withdraw or criticise and defend, alternately seeking to get up close and get a safe distance. Like the loop image, it can go on and on. Yet, unearthed, it can become a dance of illumination in the darkness.
Underneath the noise, hurt and disappointment there are mature adult needs for secure attachment, for responsiveness, availability and engagement.
A cartoon-like example of the loop is the too tired for sex dance. In a heterosexual couple it's usually the guy who appears to move first. He approaches her for sex at the end of her kids, family and work hassled day, without prior quality time for them to re-connect and often without a clear organisation of family jobs and couple time.
She's too tired and not ready, so he pursues it, is refused, feels rejected, so withdraws. She feels unappreciated, her needs misread but later approaches him for the connection and affection they both need. By then he has the wall up to defend himself from further hurt, so she criticises him for being unavailable or worse, only interested in sex. It is downhill from there and it's the same routine most times they try it.
The same dance can occur around money and household team work.
The average couple waits six years before they seek help with their negative interaction cycle. It can usually be undressed and re-directed within 3 sessions of couple's therapy. After 8 to 12 couple sessions couples are likely to report: 'Even when we fight or disagree I know I am important to my partner and we will find a way to come together.'
Whilst individualistic approaches to couple problems can inadvertently maintain the negative interaction dance, most relationships problems (and problems impacting a relationship) are explored in one to one therapy sessions without the other half of the story witnessed, acknowledged and validated.
This is expensive and inefficient when the pattern is the problem.
Insist that you come as a couple to a couple's therapist and not to a therapist or counsellor whose primary focus is the individual.
If you are already in individual therapy, ask your therapist how to actively involve your partner in managing mental health issues. Some partners are unwilling to be involved and deny the reciprocal influence within relationship ecosystems.
FACT: The divorce rate in Australia is NOT between 30% and 50%. There are 70,000 divorces each year from around 3.5 million married couples. In fact, 4.6 adults per 1000 adults divorce each year, giving a divorce rate of 0.46%.