Commentaries on the Marriage-Of-Opposites

Thoughts on "avoider re-engagement" and "blamer softening."

I have found that periodic individual sessions can be very helpful in taking down blockages to the eft couples treatment, and very helpful in an overall deepening of the couples treatment. Providing the trust of the therapist is solid and reliable, these individual sessions can permit a more candid access to what is happening deeply inside of the individual in the marriage. Often such meetings are avoided by therapists for fear that they will result in splitting off the partner from the marriage. I have found that, keeping a firm grounding in attachment theory, and the defenses against attachment wounding, I am generally able to turn these individual meetings to the purpose of deepening the attachment in the marriage. The benefits to be gained from such individual meetings is that they can enable a more profound unpacking of the individual hurts and defenses in the actual couples sessions, thereby deepening the re-attachment process. 

What I wish to do here is to comment on aspects of the "avoider re-engagement" and "blamer softening" that can be crucially engaged in the individual sessions, but difficult to do with both partners present. (to be cont)

Summary of benefits of EFT Men's Group

There are certain benefits that I observe to men who participate in the eft group that I conduct in my practice. First, there is a powerful interruption of isolation which is replaced by emotional sharing and support with other men... all who are all trying to hold onto their primary attachment worlds. Second, repeatedly witnessing the different men "unpacking" the negative cycle process in each of their marriages deeply instills within each man the eft understanding of how marriages go astray; that there is a "rhyme and reason" to marriages in trouble, and it is not shameful proof of moral failing or "bad marriage." Third, they get to witness many of the victorious moments when the eft work improves and restores marriages, thus growing within each of the men healthy optimism about the eft therapeutic process. Forth, the different men bring different assets and levels of maturity to working on their marriages. It does not escape the men's notice when one of the members displays a greater capacity for loving their wives, empathic understanding of someone different, greater commitment in the face of struggle, or, in general, functioning from greater maturity in their marriage/family relationship. Over time, these "higher angel" capacities of some of the men... come to influence all the men! The men come to emulate and internalize the best qualities in each other!

Further comments on the two "personal projects."

In my experience, the "personal projects" of the core-styled pursuer and outer-styled avoider are significantly  different. The task of the avoider is to engage the fearful underpinnings of why they do not reach out. The task of the pursuer is to engage the underpinnings of emotional escalation and compromised self-regulation. 

Of late, I have been experimenting with following up actual eft sessions with 15 minute phone calls to this or that partner "stuck" in the eft process. What I have been noticing is that these followup conversations are most productive when we are able to directly talk about how that person is doing in their own personal project to understand their contribution to the marital negative cycle, rather than focus upon their partners missteps.

The intention of these phone calls is to be able to create one-on-one safety where the partner "stuck" in the eft process feels safer to open up about the vulnerabilities inside and let me help them with how to proceed, both in the next session and in their life outside the session. Oftentimes these conversations help locate an underlying vulnerable feeling that needs to be shared in session with their partner. And a recognition of the defensive functioning that is interrupting the process. Sometimes, the phone session will engage dysfunctional ways of thinking about the marriage, suggesting healthier ways of thinking. Often times I take these opportunities to once again present the "positive attachment reframe" about their partners behavior that is hard for them.   

Couples must grow mindfulness in two ways... outer and inner

As I have commented elsewhere in this blog,  eft interventions create not only an improved sense of contact with one's primary partner, but also an improved sense of differentiated identity within the primary relationship. That is, unpacking the negative cycle down to the the essential feelings underneath, not only reconnects a couple to the attachment feelings that bring them together, It also reveals to each partner where they are with themselves within the relationship. What eft brings to couples therapy is not only a profoundly powerful method/technology for working/bringing down the negative cycle between two partners... but also a process for two people to not only sort out what is happening deeply inside themselves, but even more... to share this vulnerable inside-truth with their partner. To open up rather than fight.

What I wish to emphasize here - is that this process is most healing when partners move back and forth between what is happening between, with what is happening within; that there is a conversation happening not only with ones partner but also with oneself, and that both conversations are evolving. As I have said elsewhere in this blog, with regards to the conversation with oneself, it is most helpful for each in the marriage to conceive of their conversation with themselves as "their personal project."  

To make a "personal project" out of self-reflection implies a "certain taking responsibility" for oneself to do that inner probing and sorting out, irrespective of whether one's partner clamors for it. This is not where many couples begin eft couples therapy, but it is where the therapy best comes to its close. In a way, the sorting out of oneself - and the sharing of each step along the way with ones partner - this is the biggest gift that one can bring to a marriage.  

Valuable results of an eft men's group

For two years now I have been facilitating an ongoing weekly men’s group designed along EFT lines. With one exception, all the men in this group are in eft couples therapy outside of the group. Two years into the group's existence, the therapeutic benefits of the group have been remarkably positive.  

 

To begin with, the group has become a rare environment where men can talk and open up about the challenges of their marital relationships within the context of eft couples therapy. This is an absolutely unique environment of cultural-therapeutic support, coming from outside of the marriage, for work within the marriage - this, in a western culture where men tend to be hugely isolated in the face of marital hurt and difficulty. 

 

The group is composed of eight men, along with me as the lone facilitator. As in all other men's groups that I have facilitated, the men were largely outer-styled avoiders in relationship with core-styled pursuing wives. At the beginning of the group there was a great deal of mutual comiseration about the challenge of pursuing, expressive wives who were experienced as overwhelming and "impossible." Although the mutual support was valuable in terms of ending isolation, it was not helpful to the extent that it supported male tribalism and a sense of their more emotional wives as "bad" objects. Over months and persistent psycho-education on my part, the groups culture shifted out of polarization... into a much more balanced exploration of the marriage-of-opposites, and their own part in activating and continuing the negative cycles, Over time, a great deal of empathy for vulnerable emotional wives has taken up residence in the room.  

 

As the group has progressed over the months, defensive devaluing of partners has greatly diminished, and has given way to a sense of each man having a precious relationship to be cared for.

Grappling with log-jams in eft work with couples

Of late, I have been struggling to work through negative cycles highly resistant to change. In particular, I have begun to focus upon the "key shift" that each partner needs to make that would allow them to feel less defensive/threatened by their partner's behavior. With this in mind, I have begun to explore following up the eft sessions with brief individual phone sessions, with this or that partner, specifically to further tease apart and unpack why they continue to feel threatened by their partners behavior. 

Communication is key to everything...

Communication is the primary potentiating and limiting factor in the healing of the marriage-of-opposites. As a rule of thumb, when we don't know how to say a "certain something" that "certain something" does not get shared, or it comes out in a negative cycle way. Beyond that, when we do not have a sense of how to speak a feeling inside, or a need... the inner experience inside remains global, under-differentiated, inarticulate and poorly sorted out. If we do not know how to speak of something... we hardly know how to think about/consider/or feel that something - much less even begin to share it with someone else. Commonly, avoiders in this situation learn to repress/suppress what they are truly feeling inside; in essence they learn "not to go there," and so much of what is felt inside never gets shared with others or even themselves. Pursuers, on the other hand, can end up repeatedly trying to communicate their feelings/needs inside but do so in a global, emotionally-infused way that threatens or scares off their partner. The acquisition of languaging skills that are both expressive and considerate of the other is a central task of eft couples therapy. 

Partners in the negative cycle hang onto their protest

At some level inside each partner in the negative cycle is in some form of protest towards the other. On the outside the protest appears reactive and defensive. On the inside, the partner in protest is trying to maintain "a certain fidelity" to who they are inside. The problem is that the protest  gets all wrapped up in the negative cycle and is not a functional sharing/communication of what is inside. It is the longing for connection all covered over with defense and self-protection. An opening to vulnerable expression  is the only solution to this. By hook or crook, safety must first be created in order for underlying vulnerability to open out. 

Avoiders commonly have underlying fears centered on inadequacy, shame and vulnerability

In contrast to pursuers who fear abandonment and being seen as somehow "bad-bad" (bad object not to be loved), avoiders tend to be more focused upon the question of their performance in the world as capable/adequate/admirable versus incapable/inadequate/shameful. In contrast to pursuers functioning more from "their gut" avoiders tend to be more concerned with outside images of success and social appropriateness.  Avoiders tend to be truly intimidated by the pursuers tendency to confront and seek to avoid vulnerability and socially appearing shameful and socially irresponsible or negligent, or even selfish. 

 

Pursuers often end up in the "all bad" feeling

The dynamic for many pursuers is that they end up in a place where they are left "all bad." This is often the outcome of the negative cycle where their avoiding partner distances them out of their fear of confrontation, leaving the pursuer triggered into abandonment feeling, and more and more escalated and carrying the feeling of all the badness. It is my experience that pursuers, on the whole, end up carrying the "self-badness" feeling far more often than avoiders. The reason for this is that while avoiders typically clam up in defense as a response to conflict, pursuers become escalated and increasingly disregulated as they keep trying to reach their avoiding partner who is pulling away. In essence, the abandonment panic leads to escalated reaching on the pursuers part, which only shuts the avoider down further, resulting in a frustrated anger within the pursuer, which then causes the pursuer to become hunkered down or withdraw further. The pursuer then begins to feel that somehow the whole terrible cycle is their bad... that somehow they end up feeling that they themselves are the very reason they don't get the contact they so desperately need. Over time, it is not uncommon that the "hopeful pursuer" eventually becomes the "burned=out pursuer." This is a dangerous development in the marriage... if this situation persists too long without repair or therapeutic intervention, the pursuer can begin to profoundly detach and withdraw from the marriage, putting the very survival of the marriage at risk. Bringing the burned-out pursuer back into marital re-engagement can be a very challenging and uncertain process.  

The problem of "object lack" fused with our own shame about ourselves

The problem of "object lack" in our lives is that it gets all mixed in with our own conclusions about ourselves as rejectable. And it activates our own deep shame over who we are. This creates a kind of fusion between the barriers towards towards the primary other we deeply need and the sense that our own badness/undesirablenessis is the reason for our being rejected or not responded to. This combination of factors makes it highly likely that trying to work past our issues with our primary other will result in activating defensive negative cycles rather than create healing. This is why couples therapy, such as eft, is so often needed to help couples disentangle their fused reactivities to enable truly connecting healing, conversations. 

The longing for the "primary object"

There is a notion in psychodynamic psychotherapy of “primary object;” in essence, the caretaker who held/nurtured us/made us safe in early childhood. The one, commonly the mother, sometimes the father, who we emotionally invested in and turned to in need. The relationship that forms the foundation of our attachment world. The contact with this person is literally life-giving when we are young. It is in this relationship where we first learn about love. And where we become awakened to the fuel that drives our lives. 

 

To a degree, it is this same kind of feeling that drives us latter in life in our love relationship with our primary partner/spouse. Consciously, often unconsciously, we seek that same life-giving supply with that person. This morning, I am reflecting upon how totally painful it is, how much we suffer, when that emotional access to our partner is blocked... when we cannot make our way to the fuel supply of contact with the person we love. This is, inherently, a situation of powerful suffering. And, for some of us, an almost an unbearable repeat of what happened in our traumatic childhoods.  

 

My reflection this morning is on this suffering… caused by blocked, unreachable, scared off, self-rejected, or minimized connection. Of course, for many of us, these feelings are hardly ever felt... they are warded off by powerful defenses, displacements and addictions. 

 

This morning, however, I am in touch with how much pain we carry inside when the life-giving connection cannot be made, no matter how much the defenses or distractions operate. That the pain is too much, and how many of us...  we numb ourselves - to survive!  

The "over-regulated civilized" paired with the "under-regulated primitive"

Not uncommonly, my work has taken me into contact with extreme marriage-of-opposites contrasts. One such contrast is when a highly cultured intellectual person is paired with someone who primarily operates from their gut. Often, what I call here, "the over-regulated civilized", is attracted to the aliveness and emotional heat ushering from their partner who functions from raw impulses or emotions. The, what I call here, "under-regulated primitive" is often attracted to the apparent cultural success/value evident in their refined, often highly educated partner. One person feels like they win because they are emotionally warmed up, the other because they have affiliated with someone who carries high currency in the larger society.  

A turn-taking exercise for couples in the marriage-of-opposites

I am thinking today that it would be a valuable exercise for each partner in the marriage to fill-in a detailed picture for their partner of their own vision of how a particular conflict situation would come to resolution, totally from their own point of view, from inception to conclusion. This would be done in a turn-taking way, so that while one is describing their vision of the situation the other is simply listening and taking the picture in. The task is not to solve the situation. The task is to see how the other person sees it. To walk in the others moccasins. Objections are saved for latter. Often we do not stop to actually take the other person in on their own terms. To actually be with them as they are. This is an exercise meant to increase both the experience of connection and empathy with ones partner.

This experience of empathy/connection is necessary for each in a marriage to feel that their partner "gets them." This is a necessary foundation to feeling that we "have our partner's back." That we are "there for them." 

A complexity about primary attachment and vulnerability

Related to our mammalian/primate evolutionary roots, core attachment in the home base is typically the place of safety from the threats in the outer world. And psychologically this is probably our deepest longing towards our primary partner... that with them we will be emotionally most safe. But there is a complexity inherent in this process, because our very vulnerable reaching to our primary partner for safety can itself be fraught with its own feelings of deep threat. In order to come home to the safety of our partner, we must first heal our fears about reaching for home with our partner. Something well worth doing. 

The two different action tendencies and the issue of vulnerability

The two different action tendencies (pursuing and avoiding) are two different ways of responding to vulnerability. One reaches for reassurance from the other to be reassured while the other holds back and cautiously proceeds until the signs indicate that is is safe to proceed. The pursuer will commonly not be reassured by the avoiders holding back, and the avoider will commonly feel intimidated by the pull from their partner to come forward.  `

The two different action tendencies

Thinking about the two different action tendencies... to pursue or to avoid. And about how each in the marital dance, is somehow doing the best that they can... but within the framework of their respective tendency to either reach or to hang back. If each could tell their attachment story, there would be two different depictions of how contact comes to be made. 

Each has a picture of how the love dance comes to fruition, but the pictures are commonly different, and in the fusion of loving, both are commonly unaware of how different the other's picture is. And when the love dance fails each often miss-concludes that the other doesn't actually love them at all. 

Some cannot escape the feeling of "being bad," while some others cannot bear the feeling of "being bad."

Some cannot escape the feeling of "being bad," while some others cannot bear the feeling of "being bad." This is a common but very difficult contrast in many marriage-of-oppposites. Among these couples the core experience of each partner can be inherently threatening to the other. This sense of mutual threat can deeply interfere with the couple's experience of mutual empathy, joining/connecting, or being "on the same page." 

Commonly, the partner identified with "being bad" can end up feeling very alone and judged in their badness... that they are the only one in the marriage who is bad. This sense of not "sharing the badness'" can overwhelm profoundly threaten their sense self-worth/self-esteem, resulting in defensive attempts to throw the "badness" back at their more self-assured, defended partner. 

Two situations that block empathy for our partner

There are two situations that commonly block empathy for one's partner. The first is when we have have been traumatically damaged by our partner, as in situations of infidelity, life threatening addictions or intimidating rages. The other is in situations where our own self-image does not permit the acknowledgment of our own hurtful imitations. 

Always the deeper question...

Always the deeper question is not about the "content" of the fight, but the "how" of how you talk to each other. It is not "what" you are arguing about but rather how you are "interacting" that truly drives the negative cycle. `