One intervention that I have explored of late is to ask each in the marriage to reflect on, and write down notes about, the vision of the life that they wish/want/desire. Then, I ask the couple to take turns, each one having a session to share their vision while the other listens and asks questions about the vision being shared. The task is to be curious and inquire about the vision being shared by the other in the moment, and to inhibit any urge to counter with ones own. 

There are several reasons to do this take-turn exercise. The first is to make explicit the underlying differences in visions that are implicitly present in daily life, often not overtly acknowledged, but constantly in niggling competition. The problem is that these unclarified visions end up being experienced as implicitly threatening to the other… and form an underpinning of the couples negative cycle. 

The task here is to see the other… unto themselves! This then opens up a pathway of both curiosity and empathy, in place of the sense of reflexive threat that happens when what the other desires is automatically experienced as taking away from what oneself desires. This allows two in a marriage to listen to each other in a way very different than happens in an enmeshed and fused marriage where the others wishes are taken in through the filter of what they mean for our own wishes. 

Commonly, the eft process of working the negative cycle, is discussed in terms of the goal of creating more attachment contact for couples. Seldom is the eft process written about as a powerful method to grow differentiation/individuation in marriage.

This is a huge topic that deserves repeated reflection; how do our inherently struggling psychologies impact marriage, and how might marriage help or hinder us with our struggling psychologies? First a comment to frame this discussion… it is my understanding that interior psychological struggle is inherent in the human condition!

The insight that I have in mind here is… that one aspect of marital success or failure has to do with how well a marriage helps each in the marriage with the long standing hurts and difficulties that long predate the marriage, typically related to family-of-origin situations in each partner’s histories. Examples are a disorganized partner with a highly organized partner, or a traumatized partner  with a partner from a constricted middle class history.

We always hope that our lives following marriage will be enhanced compared to our lives before – that our marriage is value-added! Often this is the case. However, it is all far too common in marriages fraught with conflict/mistrust/insecurity that each in the marriage does not feel their partner “has their back” or each feels safer and better within themselves because of the marriage. Often, the opposite is the case, each in the marriage feels less safe with their inner struggles in connection to their partner than they feel when alone. Sometimes it can be that both in the marriage live remote from each other, each in their own private hell. 

In this vein, many of the couples that I have worked with over the years have felt so unsafe/insecure with vulnerable exposure to their partners, that they deeply protect their private inner lives to such a degree… they have almost no inner sense of what a secure home life with their partner is like. In many of these marriages the only picture of good marriage that the couple has access to is one with less conflict, detente from the ongoing war – with no sense of what a truly safe secure primary relationship is like. 

Highly conflicted couples often benefit in the actual eft sessions, however, the negative cycles commonly continue to dominate their marital and family lives between sessions. I have have wondered for some time about possible ways to increase/intensify the de-escalating therapeutic message for these couples. (to be continued)