Again, speaking abstractly, all interactions in a marriage are, at some level, about communication. Even marital fights, are a certain form of communication. In this vein, marital therapy is about trying to “decode” what is, at heart, being communicated; and helping the couple to discern the underlying message that each in the marriage is expressing about the partnership… and making that clear to all. This is always where marital therapy must start and end… a conversation based upon the couples underlying emotional truth.
However, it is my experience, that most couples who come into marital therapy do not have clarity about the underlying truth in the marriage. Although the couple may think they know whats going on in the relationship, in fact, they often have a great deal of confusion discerning the negative reactive cycles in marriage… versus the underlying emotional truths that truly drive the attachment relationship. Our task as therapists is to help the couple come to a deep recognition/understanding of how the negative cycles work, and to learn to communicate with each other from the core, “more true feelings”, underneath. This, of course, requires the growth of trust and safety over the course of the therapy. It is the creation of safety in the relationship that enables the the couple to by-pass the the tendency to respond with the defensive negative cycle… and talk to each other from the deeper underlying feelings of core attachment and vulnerability. And this is the place where the marriage starts to be each partner’s safest refuge in the world.
