In marriages that are largely healed of debilitating negative cycles, it is seldom that the more avoiding partner comes to initiate emotional encounters and closeness at a level comparable to their pursuing partner. Even at the close of therapy each partner is left with their differing gifts and differing limitations. Not all of these differences come to even out. 

An aspect of each person’s clarification of “their individual project” involves a personal claiming of “their stuff.” That is, a claiming of the “raw spot” inherent in their own psychology, the place of vulnerability, the place they struggle to cope, and a recognition of some of the emotional costs to themselves and others that ushers from this place of inner difficulty.  

Typically, it is very difficult for partners in a struggling marriage to open up and candidly claim these places of inner difficulty, without first reliably bringing down the couples negative cycle, and having established a modicum of emotional safety in the marriage. The propensity towards mutual shaming and projective blaming makes such levels of self-claiming too unsafe for most couples. However, once the couple learns to reliably circumvent the negative cycle, each partners ability to claim their inner difficulties/struggles/raw spots, greatly enhances the feeling of growing safety and intimacy in the the marriage. Each partner is reassured by the knowledge that their partner is going to be dealing with the parts of themselves that make the marriage harder. And intimacy within the marriage is much increase by the vulnerable sharing about these places of inner difficulty. 

Negative cycles within marriages become very entrenched over time. Effective marital therapy must address this entrenchment. For most couples negative cycles are not confined to discreet moments in time. Commonly, they become part of each partner’s daily, even hourly, anticipation of the other. Over time, they come to infiltrate all manner of couples/family interactions throughout the days and nights, weekdays and weekends. The defensive ways of responding become automatic, barely thought about, even unconscious. 

Another way of saying this is that negative cycles in marriage become implicit in daily interactions, often unspoken of, but nevertheless very present. They are implicitly expressed and implicitly responded to, and barely recognized. The result is that daily life is colored by the underlying cycle… made flat, even grim, and commonly absent of joy!

Effective couples therapy does not mean that the negative cycle inherent in the marriage-of-opposites is forever ended. While it is true that eft couples work most commonly results in a large reduction of negative cycles and greatly improved marital relating… underlying vulnerabilities to disappointment and misunderstanding remain. This is certainly the case for the large majority of couples I have worked with. It is also the case between my wife and I in our marriage-of-opposites.

In this vein, the continuation of a good marriage requires “work.”  I hesitate to use the the word “work” because of the grim connotation it carries for many long struggling marriages. What I have in mind here is a “mature showing up” for the hard conversations that emotionally alive couples must be willing to have. But this is very different from the taxing/soul-sucking negative cycles that most couples first bring to couples therapy. Rather, these are conversations predominated by a sense of safety and trust between partners, even though they involve challenging individual differences, and vulnerable hot spots for both partners. The outcome of these conversations is not one of grim forbearance; instead it is a process filled with rewarding connection and support. In essence, the continuing “work” of a good marriage is inherently rewarding and reinforcing of attachment… ultimately joyful, not work at all!

That there is something about each of us that is rejectable. This is the essence of shame. And this is why some degree of shame haunts all human beings. Try as we might to always be in a validated or winning position in our lives, there is always some exposure to losing or not prevailing. Even among those most blessed among us, there are still those painful moments of failure. More than that, the culture around us is constantly presenting pictures of winners versus losers, success versus failure, those admirable versus those despicable. Reward and punishment becomes mixed in with cultural pictures of value versus devalue in ever complicated ways. 

Shame is a social hurt. It has to do with inclusion versus exclusion. Primitive categories prevail; if your “bad’ versus “good”… your excluded/unwanted/rejected and seen as having no value or worth. Psychological well-being is inextricably tied up with the sense of social belonging… and the sense of social belonging is tied up to being able to mount within oneself a sufficient sense of “good/worth/value.”