It is crucially important for the core-styled to grow the capacity to contain their aggression/anger/outrage in relation to their more avoidant outer-styled partner. This, of course, entails learning to manage feelings of disappointment and to reign in the tendency towards emotional escalation, all of which go to the heart of the core-styled’s personal project within the marriage-of-opposites.
The hard part to all of this is that improvements in emotional containment on the core-styled’s part do not necessarilly guarantee that the outer-styled partner will become emotionally present and available. It does, however, contribute to an emotional environment wherein emotional availability may eventually emerge, especially if both in the marriage are assisted by a therapeutic process.
