All Couples In Therapy Face This Moment
You leave your breakthrough couples session feeling hopeful and relieved –
Inspired by your renewed connection, grateful for its depth and ease, determined not to lose it, to keep building upon it –
And absolutely eager to use all those new communication tools and skills from the session-
But then of course, sure enough, within a few days – just like you were afraid of – some triggering incident or interaction pops up –
And the whole vibe switches in an instant, at the speed of darkness –
The space between you flash-floods with tension, while your emotions transform into electrical storms –
All of which we knew was going to happen, so we prepared you for it –
And now this is it – that very moment –
Where you must actually deploy all those powerful new therapy tools and skills you were loving so much –
(The leading with love, the healing words, the patience and empathy, perhaps some transformational breathing)
Yes, this is the moment –
Where you either do it, or you don’t –
And you don’t. You just don’t.
You can’t.
You do exactly what you’ve always done: you blame, you argue, you shut down, you get passive-aggressive –
That same old dance, that’s what you do.
You feel so defeated – will this ever really change?
Why did this have to happen?
Because You’re Wrong
There is a reason that this triggering moment became a breaking point, where instead of following through on your positive intentions, you flew off the rails…
In the counseling session, you felt emotionally safe, in a collaborative environment.
All of your most disturbing emotions came to the surface – rejection, mistreatment, abandonment – but no matter what came up, you could explore and resolve them safely, because you felt supported, cared for, and secure…
In other words, in the session, you feel like a team – but at home it’s different.
At Home It’s Different
But outside of the session, when the very same triggers come up, you no longer feel supported by the dedicated setting and the grounding presence of the counselor.
And so even though the very same emotions that you worked through so successfully in the session are being triggered now, you don’t feel like you are working through them together, you feel like you are going it alone.
You don’t feel like a team –
And this is the moment where most couples break down –
But this could actually be the moment when your partner needs you more than ever –
And it could also be the moment where you show up for yourself – and heal your old wounds – more successfully than ever before.
The Paradox – Shifting From “We” to “Me”
You know how every snowflake looks basically the same – but each one is totally unique?
Or how light is both a particle and a wave?
Or perhaps you are aware that at the subatomic level, quantum particles can actually be in two places at the same time…
Well, marriage is also a paradox, because while it is obviously a team effort, where the whole idea is to cultivate a transcendent connection of love with another human being –
It’s also, at the same time, a solo endeavor –
A crucial opportunity to bring out the best in yourself – and by doing so bring out the best in your partner –
To cultivate your special unrealized potentials, and become whole within yourself on your life journey…
And so you can – you should – leverage your relationship challenges –
As personal milestones, where you discover how to empower yourself to create the love you need to thrive…
To discover and fulfill who you really are…
One essential part of that wholeness is learning how to support yourself emotionally when your partner is triggered, and actually walk them through to an emotional healing –
In the same way that you felt supported by the counselor during the therapy session… where you were able to emotionally connect with each other under his or her guidance.
Think about it: in the therapy session you felt the same uncomfortable emotions – but you did great at working through them!
Why is it so much harder once you get home?
Life Is Giving You A Gift
At the counseling session, the therapist gave you both a feeling of stability that contained all your triggered emotions, so you could each experience how to process and resolve them from a place of care and safety –
More specifically, the therapist gave you that sense of teamwork, that sense that you were all working together –
And maintaining a vision for success – the light at the end of the tunnel – even when your emotions were distorting you into opponents…
But now that you’re home, you have to give yourself the internal support that you received from the therapist at the session –
And recognize that these uncomfortable feelings which trigger you are a test –
They are life itself giving you a gift on your journey:
The chance to break free from your own negative emotional patterns – by experiencing this epiphany:
Your ability to love yourself – your wholeness – is not at the mercy of your partner’s emotional state
And so when they get possessed by negative emotions–
Stop shifting the situation into the demand that they make you feel better –
About the bad feelings their emotionality provokes in you!
Stop playing tug-of-war with whose “pain” gets the attention – let go of that rope – feel the relief. –
And think of it this way:
You are both trying to squeeze through the same doorway at once, your shoulders jammed together –
Let your partner go first!
We’ll get to you, I promise (if you’re working with me – that’s a guarantee!)
So cultivate your patience and empathy –
And when that the moment of truth, conflict, challenge comes, don’t allow your disturbing emotions to compel you into reactive words and actions that sabotage your connection –
Instead recognize that the reason they are being emotional is because they are suffering –
Because on some level, for some reason – some reason important to them – they are feeling mistreated –
And then instead of fighting back at them, reframe the situation to yourself like this:
“They are having a painful emotional episode”
And then, like the loving, caring partner you are, use your therapy de-escalation tools to help them through it –
And when you are helping somebody, you are not asking them to help you.
I’ll say it again:
You are not fighting with them, you are helping them through an emotional episode –
Just like the therapist did for both of you.
Soothe them, empathize with them – recognize that they are in an agitated state where all they really want is to be reassured that if they are in pain, you care about it.
That’s all you want from them when you feel triggered, right?
The more you do this for your partner, the more they will do this for you –
And this mutual soothing and reassuring will eventually become what you both expect from each other – until ultimately, you will never trigger each other at all – because you will only experience each other as authentic, unconditional love.
Utilized in this way, their emotional incompleteness can actually be a force that inspires both of you to become whole –
Which makes you a truly victorious team.
Disclaimer: all of the insights and advice of this blog are NOT intended to apply to emotionally or physically abusive relationships – they are only to be applied to marriages and relationships with two basically well-intentioned and loving people trying to understand their emotional triggers and improve their connection. Assessing if that is the case for you is beyond the scope of this blog.