Betrayals, Redemption and Celebrating Anniversary Dates in Couples Counseling
My wife Carolyn is an OT and she works with traumatic brain injured adults. In her practice, she and other therapists help clients cope with anniversary dates of the accidents or incidents that caused the traumatic brain injury. Anniversary dates of tragedies are often difficult as we remember and re-experience the event as a post traumatic experience or similar to one. These are dates we often dread.
A brilliant and encouraging way Carolyn’s practice helps their clients is to celebrate the date rather than dread and suffer through the date. One of her clients, who gave me permission to share his story, planned an outing to Red Mile race track where he had never been. Since his auto accident around 20 yrs old, he could only go places with his parents. He wanted to do this without them and with Carolyn’s help, was able to experience and celebrate an independence he had not known in over 20 years going somewhere he had never been. The joyful expression on his face said it all. The anniversary of his tragedy had become a redemptive experience.
His story reminded me of couples who I have seen in Emotionally Focused Therapy sessions and who, having worked through their betrayal, come out more connected, in love, and fulfilled than they were before the betrayal. Anyone who has worked through betrayal by a loved one knows it is a difficult and painful process, but these memorable moments of tragedy have become stories of deeper connection and redemption. Although the memory of the suffering may not completely go away, a breathe of new life has come into their relationship giving a renewed sense of hope and meaning to their lives with each other. They have come to value and respect the integrity of a secure emotional connection and a haven of safety they can rely upon.
So many times during my session with couples there is a moment of loss of connection and all of a sudden the part of our brain that monitors threats, the amygdala, goes into action in a split second (1/1600th of a second, to be exact). Whenever we have such a threat response our partner becomes “the enemy” and we no longer experience them as our haven of safety who understands us and loves us. The Real Enemy is this threat cycle itself that takes away our freedom to choose. Our biology is such that when the amygdala takes over our focus is only on the threat and our reasoning/thinking brain (the prefrontal cortex) is pretty much offline. We struggle to reflect and remember the soft, tender, connecting moments we have previously experienced with each other. The one thing we must learn in therapy is to not be trapped in this cycle of despair. Your partner is not the Real Enemy, the threat cycle is. Stop coming after or withdrawing from your partner, come together right now like the song says. This coming together will calm your biology and take your amygdala offline so that your narrow focus is broadened and you once again can remember how safe your partner can be.
Couple arguments and loss of connection
The primary factor for satisfied and happy relationships is being emotionally attuned. As couples we are in an almost constant dance of emotional signals that are cuing in on connection. When we lose connection, get into a fight or argument it is always because of a miss of being out of tune emotionally with our partner, it is never really about the subject or context of disagreement. Something has happened in our interaction that has made us experience emotional disconnection and we become self protective, no longer open and vulnerable to each other. This happens in a fraction of a second and propels us into a spiral of fear and doubt about our partner. You are suddenly on guard and ramping up your favorite protective measures like blaming and defending.
Effective couples therapy is able to help you identify and improve your dance of attunement with your partner by helping you pay attention to what matters, how we lose connection and how we restore it.
EFT Creator, Sue Johnson Passes
Sue Johnson, the creator of Emotionally Focused Therapy passed away on April 23, 2024. Those of you who read her books or had counseling sessions based on her method of couples counseling around emotional bonding and attachment know something of the tremendous impact she had worldwide on the profession of couples counseling and couples who benefited from her therapeutic approach. A Celebration of Life ceremony is taking place in Victoria, BC, Canada on May 25th.
Why Emotionally Focused Therapy? EFT in Lexington KY
This is how Sue Johnson, the developer of EFT, describes the counseling process for couples;
Emotionally Focused Couple and Family Therapy is a treatment methodology that shows the best outcomes of any intervention for troubled relationships. And these outcomes appear to last! You can look on the EFT website, www.iceeft.com, for a summary of the many research studies and articles showing the efficacy of this approach.
EFT does not teach communication skills or give advice. It basically sets out clearly how partners trigger each other, lose their emotional balance, and pull each other into an escalating dance of emotional disconnection. EFT therapists understand the dynamics of distress and, because we have learned how to work with emotional signals, we know how to help troubled couples change their emotions – the music of their dance. When the emotional music changes, they can move together in new ways.
EFT is also the only approach to couple and family therapy based on a clear and scientific understanding of adult love – why it matters so much, and what is needed to make it work and last. EFT understands that love is not just about sentiment and sex. It is an ancient, wired-in survival code designed to keep a few people you can really count on close so they are there when you are vulnerable and need support. This longing for connection is wired into our nervous system, and when partners can be attuned and emotionally responsive to each other in what we call “Hold Me Tight conversations,” they can deal with almost any personal differences and stressors. This scientific approach to love allows us to be on target and to help people actively shape their love relationships.
Our Relationship and Emotions
When couples get lost in their threat narratives, what we commonly call fights or arguments, we are being driven by emotions we do not fully understand. One of the powerful and effective results of EFT (Emotionally Focused Therapy) is that we become more aware of our emotional experience and how our emotions, our feelings, affect our interactions, our communication, with our partner. Couples, or marriage therapy, is most effective when it helps couples experience what is really going on inside of us and between us in those challenging and difficult moments. The key to that is being able to fully process (talk through) our emotional experience with each other. We then feel “safe” with our partner; we are not reacting to perceived threats or attacks, but are more open and responsive to each other, able to really listen and understand what is going on with each other. This draws us closer and strengthens our connection, making our relationship more secure. Couples who are not able to do this gradually drift farther apart, and if not repaired, will likely end in separation or divorce.
Being able to talk about, describe or process your emotional experience is a developed skill. Many of my clients who struggle with getting the results they want from therapy have great difficulty sitting with their emotions, having enough space between experiencing what they are feeling and understanding what they are feeling. EFT really focuses on helping our clients in couples therapy develop this skill and then do it together. We learn to hit the pause button and reflect on what we are feeling and why:
“I am feeling scared because I am afraid you might leave me.” or “No matter what I do it never seems to be enough and that makes me sad.” Naming these emotions and the thoughts that accompanying them calms us because we better understand what we need and what to ask from our partner. Our partner is empowered because what was confusing and chaotic is becoming clear and simple. Sincerely expressing things like reassurance is powerful when coming from a loved one who we are turning to for comfort and care: “I’m not leaving, I just get overwhelmed too”, or “You are enough for me, I too get scared.” All of a sudden our relationship struggles become clearer and we know what to do, how to respond to each other. It almost sounds too simple but these are powerful, bonding experiences that draw us closer to each other. We understand each other, are able to be there for each other, and that really feels good.
Couple’s Threat Narrative or What Happens in a Fight
A reason I write these blogs is to stay in touch with former clients and provide some kind of ongoing support. I need to be more faithful about that so here is a reminder for every couple I have seen about what arguments, conflicts, or fights are: Your partner is not “the enemy” or the problem, the threat cycle is, and the narrative in your head that goes along with it.
One of the more powerful insights from EFT (Emotionally Focused Therapy) for couples to understand is the threat narrative, that voice in our head telling us what is happening is not good. When we are threatened, either emotionally or physically, our brain and body go into reactive, self protective mode. Our perspective narrows as our fight/flight center in the brain ( the amygdala) takes over in a split second and our thinking, reasoning part of the brain (the prefrontal cortex) goes offline. We are geared up and ready for action and the threat is our loved one. This is the genesis of our fights. And this little voice in our head is creating a narrative, a story that we tell ourselves about our spouse or loved one, and maybe even about ourselves, that is based on a narrowed, limited threat perspective. In other words it does not represent the whole picture of who your spouse/lover is and you cannot trust it as the truth. If we are to stop our fights with one another we must learn to recognize this commentary in our head and stop listening to it. This is what couples therapy helps us do. This is the first issue we address in couples therapy and it changes relationships.
No doubt it is challenging to slow down this adrenaline driven threat response, it is probably the most challenging hurdle to overcome in repairing your relationship. Everything in your body and brain is screaming “danger, danger” and it’s difficult to listen to the new voice of attachment saying “your partner is not the real enemy”. Well, your partner is not the real enemy, so listen to the voice of attachment and work with each other to get out of the threat, attack-defend cycle that may spiral out of control into a very ugly place. Then we couples can create a new, more safely connected narrative together.
Blessings and may peace reign in your hearts.
We want to let all our clients know that Don Sizemore & Associates is offering telehealth services in a very convenient format. We can do all our counseling and many of our OT therapeutics through this format (my wife, Carolyn is an Occupational Therapist and partner). We will be contacting those of you who are active clients to arrange this service. Both Carolyn and I will continue to see clients face to face on a limited case by case basis either in their homes (Carolyn) or at the office (Don). We follow the social distancing and infectious protocols for disinfecting physical surfaces. Please let us know if you have any questions and our prayers are with everyone.
Please do the things that promote immune system functioning: meditation, exercise, good nutrition, stress management, and loving one another. Our spirit, mind, and body need to be made ready to battle whatever comes.
Considering Marriage Counseling or Divorce in Lexington KY?
When you are considering who to see as a therapist, counselor, or marriage counselor it is one of the most important decisions you can make. There have been many instances where clients have experienced frustration and disappointment with previous counseling experiences. I am often amazed that they are willing to try counseling again. This is especially true with marriage counseling. Please make sure the counselor you choose has the experience, training, and track record that reassures you of a good counseling outcome.
If you are considering divorce and you decide to try marriage counseling before making a final decision there are a few things to keep in mind. First of all some statistics show that only about 10% of divorcing couples seek marriage counseling before ending their marriage in Lexington KY. Couples are making one of the most life changing decisions that affects their children and entire families without consulting a professionally trained marital therapist or counselor. We don't hesitate to consult our car mechanic and even pay them hundreds, if not thousands of dollars to keep our car running. I recently had to replace a clutch in my Subaru for $1800 just before Christmas! Merry Christmas to me!
Please consult an experienced and trained marriage counselor or couples therapist before deciding on divorce. One caveat, beware if your counselor recommends divorce, it probably means they do not know what they are doing. Competent therapists and counselors know how to allow their clients to make their own decisions.
Marriage Counseling for Irretrievably Broken Marriages in Lexington KY
Go to my website, donsizemore.org, and check out new video interviews with couples who were on brink of divorce and reconciled!
These are two video interviews with couples who wanted to tell their story of their decision to pursue marriage counseling and reconciliation. They were part of a two year project in the Fayette County Family Court of Judge Tim Philpot in Lexington, KY. Judge Philpot, Dr. Wm. Doherty of the University of Minnesota, and myself, introduced measures to help couples pause on the legal superhighway to divorce. The couples' experience is a powerful testimony for that project and Emotionally Focused Therapy, a marriage counseling approach with proven results.