Typically, struggling couples focus on the particulars of what the other does as “the problem” in the struggling relationship. That is, each in the marriage focus on “what the other does or fails to do” as needing to change in order for the marriage to improve. The unconscious thought is often “if I can get what I need from the other, then that will evoke the “loving feeling that is missing inside of me that I want to feel.” The difficulty with this unconscious reasoning is that it enmeshes “the other” in one’s “own ability to love the other” in an unstable fashion that is not sustainable. Hence, the ability to love “the other” is only as good as “the recent good interaction.” Deep change in the internal representation of “the other” does not occur. This dynamic readily evolves into the endless repetitions of negative and positive cycles. This lends an “unreal” and “insecure” feeling to the “underlying felt sense of the marriage.”
What has become increasingly clear to me is that depthful change within a marriage depends upon an improved capacity on the part of both in the marriage to internally represent “the other” in an increasingly positive light; that is, a shift within both in the “core attitude towards the other.” Hence, couples therapy must deeply engage each partner in how they “think about and feel” towards “the other” deeply inside. This, can only happen, within an atmosphere of reduced polarization and the creation of an “empathic bridge.”
