One of the things I kept thinking about while travelling through Eastern Newfoundland recently was how much of travelling with a partner or companion is really about negotiating and relationship work.
Which way are we going?
How far do we want to walk?
Do we stop here?
Do we keep going?
Are we actually on the right trail?
Should we turn around?
Who needs a break?
Who is pretending they don’t need a break?
That last one may be the most important.
I found myself thinking about couples and couples therapy since it’s a big part of my work.
Because travelling together can be a surprisingly good relationship exercise.
You are constantly making small decisions (and sometimes bigger ones like how close to that cliff do we actually want to be) with another person.
And you will not always agree.
One person wants to keep walking.
The other is ready for lunch approximately forty-five minutes ago.
One wants to explore one more trail.
The other is wondering whether the car has air conditioning.
And suddenly a seemingly small decision can carry much more emotional weight than it deserves.
Repeated misunderstandings are often about more than the misunderstanding
When couples come to therapy after having the same fight repeatedly, the argument is often not really about the thing they are arguing about.
It’s about what the thing means.
A forgotten text may become:
You don’t think about me.
A question about money may become:
You don’t trust me.
A partner wanting time alone may become:
You don’t want to be with me.
A request for help may become:
You think I’m failing.
And once those meanings get activated, couples can become very reactive very quickly.
The cycle starts to run the relationship
One partner feels hurt and reaches harder.
The other feels criticized and becomes defensive.
The first person feels dismissed and becomes more intense.
The second person feels overwhelmed and withdraws.
The withdrawal feels like rejection.
So the pursuit increases.
And around and around you go.
This is one of the things I look for in couples therapy is the cycle between you.
Not simply who is right.
Not who started it.
Not who has the better argument.
What happens between the two of you when each person begins to feel threatened?
Emotional safety doesn’t mean never disagreeing
This is an important distinction.
Emotional safety doesn’t mean your partner will always agree with you.
It doesn’t mean you never get annoyed.
It doesn’t mean every conversation is calm and perfectly regulated.
That would be lovely.
It would also be wildly unrealistic.
Emotional safety is more about developing the sense that:
We can have a difficult moment without the relationship itself becoming the enemy.
You can tell your partner something hurt.
They can hear it without immediately defending themselves or counter attacking.
You can disagree without humiliating each other.
You can ask for space without creating panic.
You can come back after taking a break.
You can repair.
I thought about this on the trails
There were times when the trail demanded that I slow down.
There were times when I needed to pay attention to roots crossing the path.
There were times I had to look back or ahead to see if my partner was keeping up — or whether I was.
There were times when the weather changed.
And there were moments when I wondered whether we should continue or turn around.
It struck me how similar some of this is to partnership.
Sometimes you need to move forward.
Sometimes your partner needs you to slow down.
Sometimes one of you sees something the other doesn’t.
Sometimes you’re both tired and neither of you is at your best.
And sometimes the right answer isn’t deciding who is right.
It’s deciding what the relationship needs right now.
Couples don’t need perfect communication
I don’t expect couples to stop misunderstanding each other.
People bring histories and past ruptures into relationships.
We have different families, attachment experiences, expectations, sensitivities and ways of protecting ourselves.
Even people who love each other deeply will sometimes get it wrong.
The work is learning how to repair.
This is where I draw from approaches including Emotionally Focused Therapy, Gottman-informed work, Imago and Terry Real’s relational framework.
Although these approaches differ, I find them useful because they help move couples beyond the surface argument and toward what is actually happening underneath.
What are you protecting?
What are you longing for?
What are you afraid will happen?
What is the story you are telling yourself in any of these moments?
What does your partner hear when you say those words?
And how can the two of you respond differently?
Sometimes rebuilding emotional safety starts with slowing down
You don’t have to solve the entire relationship in one conversation.
Sometimes you need to stop.
Take a breath.
Notice that you’re both activated.
And remember that the person in front of you is not necessarily the problem.
The pattern may be.
You are two people trying to find your way through uneven terrain.
Sometimes you’ll choose different paths.
Sometimes you’ll get lost.
Sometimes one person will need to turn around.
And sometimes you will discover that the trail you were arguing about wasn’t actually the important part.
Finding your way back to each other was.
#CouplesTherapy, #RelationshipTherapy, #EmotionalSafety, #RelationshipRepair, #CouplesCommunication, #HamiltonTherapist, #OntarioTherapy
