Is it Ever Too Early to Start Couples Therapy?

I think you probably know by now if you’ve been reading my newsletters that the short answer to this question is no. 

On occasion I will get a call from a couple who is engaged or newly married and they will say something like, “we don’t have a lot of issues, but we want to get started on the right foot, do you think it’s a good idea for us to come to therapy?” 

To which I will respond with a very enthusiastic - of course!! And then I do a little song and dance and praise them for taking the time to invest in their relationship before things get overwhelming. 

I honestly wish that couples would invest their money in therapy rather than a lavish wedding, or that it was more normal for family and friends to gift couples therapy to newlyweds. 

*Sigh* Maybe one day. 

There are some major benefits to investing in couples therapy early on in your relationship. 

I know that therapy can be expensive. But think about it like going to the dentist - if you brush and floss regularly you’re less likely to get cavities. If you get your teeth cleaned every six months as recommended then that gives the dentist an opportunity to detect a cavity early and take care of it before you are in need of a root canal or something more serious. 

Starting couples therapy before things get too out of control is like getting a filling. The amount of time and money you’ll be spending in therapy is going to be much less than if you’ve been in the same negative patterns and routines for years. 

Finding a therapist who practices Gottman Therapy is also really great at the beginning of your marriage because the protocol for treatment includes the Relationship Checkup, which is an extensive background questionnaire designed to measure various aspects of your relationship. 

In most Gottman Therapy practices like Rancho Counseling, you come in first as a couple, complete your Relationship Checkup and then each partner has an individual session with the therapist. 

After that you have a second couples session where the therapist will sit down and show you all of the components it takes to have a really strong, healthy relationship. 

The therapist will discuss your strengths as a couple, and the areas that you have as opportunities for improvement which come from the conversations the therapist is having with you as well as the Relationship Checkup. 

Once those areas are identified you go to work and learn ways to improve the areas that are going to translate to a healthy, happy connection. 

Many couples tell us that even completing the assessment is super helpful because it gets them thinking about their relationship in ways they haven't in the past. Couples also report an increase in their satisfaction levels after just 3 sessions, which is before the real work even begins. My theory about this is that dedicating the time and space to focus on the relationship gets couples thinking differently. They feel excited about the process, and happy that their partner has agreed to focus their time and energy on making improvements. 

Most people don’t actually know what it takes to have a strong, healthy marriage. They have some ideas - good communication, spending time together, etc., but the Gottman method of therapy is backed by years and years of actual research and gets into the nitty gritty of helping couples understand their communication patterns and learn what truly works. 

Much of what people know is by gleaning from what was modeled to them by parents or family members and many times people will tell me they learned what NOT to do because their parents divorced or don’t seem very happy. 

Investing your time in the beginning of your marriage will give you some amazing tools to keep in your toolbox for years and years to come. 

If you are on the fence about it, give us a call and schedule a free 15-minute phone consultation and we will be happy to answer any questions you might have about the process.  

4 Actual issues disguised as, “Trouble Communicating”

Since I started my therapy practice over a decade ago I’ve taken thousands of calls from people over the phone looking for therapy. The first thing I ask is, “tell me a little bit about what you are looking for help with.” And inevitably within the first minute everyone I have ever talked to about their relationship in one form or another tells me they need help with their communication. 

However, in 90% of the cases I have seen, communication is not the biggest problem. There are so many issues that are masked and placed under the category of “communication.”

Simply put, communication is the imparting or exchanging of information or news. Most couples don’t actually have an issue exchanging words, information, or news with one another.

They actually have problems listening, empathizing, talking about their feelings in a constructive way, and dealing with their own triggers which cause them to become flooded, shut down, and unable to focus on their partner’s requests and communication.

Listening

There is an actual art to listening. It doesn’t always come naturally to us and most people listen to the first part of what their partner says, then they think they have the gist of what was said, and they begin formulating their response while the other person continues to speak. While they are formulating their response they tend to stop listening or cut their partner off before they are finished speaking.  

At this point the conflict or discussion can become derailed and the focus is shifted onto the fact that the person speaking was interrupted, feeling like they are being dismissed, or there may be a blow up if this is something that happens continually in the relationship. 

Instead of formulating your response while your partner is speaking, work on building your empathic response. 

Empathizing 

You do not have to agree with your partner’s feelings or thoughts to be an empathic listener! (Trust me on this one - I literally empathize for a living, and I do not always agree with what my clients are saying.) Empathic listening is the best way to convey to your partner that you hear and understand what they are saying. 

Here’s an example: 

Partner 1: “Today was so terrible! My boss has been such a jerk lately and she called me in to discuss everything that was wrong with the project I have been working on and now it’s going to put me back 2 days to make all of the changes to things she already approved last week!”  

Partner 2: “Babe that sounds rough, I’m sorry you had a bad day. I could see how that would be so stressful for you to make those changes in such a short period of time.”

Notice Partner 2 did not say anything about how to fix the issue, make any criticisms about Partner 1’s approach, or tell them they shouldn’t be stressed. Your partner may wish for your feedback or advice, and in those cases they will ask. You can also practice asking, “do you need advice, or do you need me to just listen?” 

Talking about feelings

Talking about your feelings in a way that your partner can hear is one of the best skills you can learn to improve your relationship. Couples will tell me they’ve discussed how something their partner did or said made them feel, but when I actually sit and break down their conflict with them it turns out they haven’t actually done so and are counting on their partner to read their mind or “just know” based on their reaction. 

What not to say: 

“I do everything around here! I’m running around all day, getting the kids here and there, trying to get everything done at work, and I’m so tired! I don’t get any support from you!” 

It might seem like the partner expressing this has conveyed how they are feeling, however this statement is void of any important emotional dialogue necessary for their partner to hear. Instead, “I don’t get support from you!” is a criticism. This statement is used to convey blame, not to convey how the person is actually feeling. When someone feels criticized or blamed their natural response is to become defensive. 

If this person would like help from their partner, they aren't actually asking for it, nor are they letting their partner know what it feels like when they don’t provide assistance. 

What to say: 

Instead saying something like, “Babe I’ve been feeling so overwhelmed lately, I have deadlines at work, and running the kids back and forth has felt so exhausting. Can you help me by taking the kids to school tomorrow and picking them up from daycare on Thursday?” 

If the pattern continues or the partner is unable to offer assistance, coming back and saying, “I’ve asked you for help, and I get that you can’t pick the kids up Thursday, but I feel so hurt and alone when I don’t have your support. Can you help me come up with any other solutions?” 

Focusing on the feelings of hurt and loneliness is important, and it gives your partner an opportunity to respond to your emotions with much less to become defensive about because you’re not attacking, criticizing, or blaming. 

Recognizing triggers

Recognizing your triggers can be one of the most difficult things to do on your own. That is why therapy is so helpful. It’s like sitting in your living room and your therapist can ask you to pick up the rug a little and see what is under there, or behind the couch where you might not have looked in a while. 

Many times couples have perpetual problems that just keep resurfacing and turning into blow-ups. Remembering the saying, “if it’s hysterical, it’s historical,” can be helpful - meaning, if you are having a really big emotional reaction to something, it’s probably a trigger from your past that is resurfacing. 

When you are not in the heat of the moment and can take time to think about the reaction, ask yourself, where have I felt this feeling before?

Many times couples aren’t just responding to one another when they are arguing, but they are having an automatic response that is related to a previous trauma. 

Having a big reaction to a spouse who appears nit-picky can bring up old wounds that come from having a highly critical parent while growing up. Feeling the need to control your partner’s actions may actually be coming from living with an alcoholic parent where life was very unpredictable. You can read more about how trauma can impact your relationship here. 

Once you are able to recognize where your triggers come from, working through them in your own personal therapy or in couples therapy will immensely benefit your relationship. 

What leads to an Affair?

I’ve been thinking a lot this week about how people give themselves permission to have affairs. I know they don’t do it outright - it’s not the first thing their minds jump to. But when I’m sitting with a couple, the betrayed partner always wants to know, how did this happen? 

What I've learned is that there is a cascade of things that happen in the primary relationship before an affair happens, and I want to share a few of those things with you.  

This can help you either look at your own relationship and work on things so you don’t get to that point, or if you’re in the trenches of affair recovery, it will help you understand how you and your partner got there. 

Just as a caveat, I’m in no way blaming the betrayed partner here for their partner’s choice to step outside the relationship. That was their poor choice, and sometimes that choice has nothing to do with them being in an unhappy marriage. (I think that’s important to note before we dive in.)

Before there is even a thought of an affair, many times an erosion begins to happen in the relationship. This erosion chips away at all of the factors that help couples build trust, opening them up for such a vulnerability. 

The erosion begins with feelings of loneliness. Couples stop turning towards one another and reciprocating one another’s bids for connection. Some examples are: when you feel like every time you walk through the door and say hello, your partner is too busy for a hug or a kiss. Or when you invite your partner to sit next to you on the couch, and they miss your subtle gesture and move into another room or on the opposite end of the living room. 

You may be the one missing the bids for connection - your partner begins to talk about their day, but you’re busy scrolling on your phone or checking the scores of last night’s game and don’t even hear what they have to say. 

Those are just a few examples. You or your partner may be reaching out to one another in a bunch of different ways, and not having your bids for connection reciprocated takes a toll. 

When your partner doesn’t reciprocate your bids for connection you make meaning of that, and the meaning that people tend to make is, “I’m not important,” or “what I have to say isn’t important.” When you internalize those types of thoughts, you can start to feel lonely and even stop making those bids for connection. 

The distance between partners grows when no one is reaching out to connect. 

After the connection stops couples can start to live parallel lives. They pass one another, make plans with friends or coworkers, or focus only on their kids. They have logistical communication - where are you going? What time will you be back? What’s for dinner? And stop having the connective type of communication that is so important to keeping marriage strong, “How are you feeling this week? What have you been thinking about?” 

At this point couples can find it difficult to reconnect - sometimes it’s easier to keep focusing on the kids or work  because you don’t know where to begin, or feel timid in making that connection out of fear of rejection. 

At this phase it can start to feel like your partner isn’t there for you. So seeking comfort outside of the relationship through friendships is common, but also dangerous. Spending time out after work, having drinks with colleagues, or staying late at the office begins to feel better than coming home to an empty marriage. 

During this stage, conflict can be high or avoided. When it’s avoided, partners begin to suppress their feelings, and then they tend to have big blow-ups over things that might be insignificant on the surface, but are more indicative of the feelings underneath - “I’m lonely, and I want to connect with you!” But saying those things might just feel too vulnerable. 

When conflict is avoided, self disclosure is also something that is commonly avoided. You no longer want to tell your partner all about your terrible boss, or run through all of the items on your to-do list for the next day because you internalize that they don’t care, or it’s not important. You may even begin to keep secrets from your partner. 

Keeping secrets can begin to happen quite innocently, because it is often done as an attempt to keep from burdening your partner. You might think, “she’s so busy with the kids, she doesn’t want to hear about all my work stress,” or “he’s so stressed with his own work, I don’t need to bore him with my work stresses.” 

You or your partner may then turn outside the relationship and begin confiding in a coworker, or someone who is part of your workout crew at the gym. Things typically start pretty innocently. But the moment you begin minimizing your partner’s positive traits and maximizing their negative ones, it can become a slippery slope. 

Actively looking towards others in an attempt to feel less lonely, more heard, and understood, can lead in all the wrong directions, and an innocent outing with coworkers, can lead to more and more one-on-one time with a member of the opposite sex that you feel connected to.  

I could go on about how that outside relationship can continue to develop, but I’ll stop here. This is where I hope you’ll stop and begin to recognize that looking outside the relationship is not the answer, even when it seems innocent, but it’s a wake up call that you need to do the difficult work to reconnect with your partner.  

Resolving Resentment in Relationships

Audiobooks are my jam - especially when I want to read a book for learning purposes. I love that I can listen while doing something else like driving, cooking or cleaning. This week I’ve been listening to Brené Brown’s newest book, Atlas of the Heart. In it she talks about all the different types of emotions we can experience as human beings. 

One that shows up in so many of the couples I’m working with is resentment, and as I listened, Brené describes resentment as coming from the envy family of emotions. I’ve never actually thought about resentment in terms of envy, but it makes so much sense! 

Resentment in relationships happens when events take place and a partner’s needs aren’t met in some way. You may try to communicate how something made you feel, but it may not have been conveyed in a way they could hear, or it may not have been expressed at all. 

That time your partner didn’t stand up for you when their parents were critical of your parenting, or the many times they didn’t communicate where they were going and who they were with, even though you asked repeatedly for them to do so as a courtesy. 

It could have been something big, or something small that continues to happen and the longer you harbor it, you run the risk of a blow-up later. 

When we think about those examples from a lens of envy, it can be more apparent as to why it’s easy to harbor anger and resentment. Let’s dig a little deeper into those examples: 

Not having your partner stand up for you when you needed them to may be more about the envy that comes up for you as you watch their parents needs be met over your own. 

Frustration over your partner not communicating where they are going and who they are with may be about the envy of them getting their time alone to blow off steam with friends while you’re home with the kids. 

When resentment goes unchecked, you also risk falling into the cycle of negative-sentiment override, which is a concept we use in Gottman therapy in which you begin attributing negativity and negative sentiment to the things your partner expresses to you. Things that may have a neutral or positive connotation begin to be seen as negative. 

For example, your partner may express something like, “I love how your mom did our daughter’s hair, she looks so cute!” And you meet this with, “I know, I never do her hair anymore,” and internalize feelings of inadequacy or interpret the comment as a dig at you rather than a compliment to your mom. 

Responding to your partner with criticism or contempt is a sign that there have been unresolved hurts that have caused resentments. 

Expressing your needs and communicating using “I-statements” can help counteract this pattern. 

Having open dialogue about issues also goes a long way, especially when you are communicating to truly listen to your partner. The best time to have conversations like this is when you’re not in the heat of the moment. Ask your partner to listen while you express calmly how their behavior makes you feel. 

Example: “When we had that conversation with your parents I felt attacked by them. I also felt so hurt and alone when you didn’t stand up for me. I really need you to say something to defend me the next time they are being critical. 

If you’re the listener in the conversation, use active listening to respond to your partner’s feelings and offer an apology. 

Example: “I could see how you’d feel hurt by their criticism. I’m really sorry for not sticking up for you. It was not my intention to make you feel alone, I will offer my opinion if that ever happens again with my parents.” 

Learning how to communicate in this way takes practice, and you might not always get it right, but the more you do it the easier it becomes. 

Mind-Reading in Marriage (part 2)

Last week we talked about mind-reading and how it can be such a disappointing pattern when you think your partner should just know what you need when you need it. In case you missed it, you can read that here. 

This week I want to talk about the other side of the mind-reading pattern. It’s also something I see a lot in my practice where one partner will say something like, “well no, I did not bring that up, because I already knew exactly how he/she was going to respond.” 

To which I typically reply, “oh, so you can read your partner’s mind?”

The truth is, we don’t know exactly how our partner will respond to something. 

Yes, you may have had a similar situation or pattern and you know things about what your partner may like and dislike, but when you assume that your partner will respond in a certain way and as a result of this pattern of mind-reading, you tend to either alter your communication or you avoid the conversation altogether. 

You might tell yourself you’ll get a negative response to something because you’ve felt negativity in an area of the relationship, and this sets you up for a pattern called negative-sentiment override. 

One of my clients used to refer to this pattern as the merry-go-round. 

Altering and avoiding communicating with your partner because you are telling yourself you know how they will respond only perpetuates the pattern and many times you will treat your partner as if you’ve already had that conversation and you’ve already received that negative response even though you only actually had the conversation in your mind and not out loud. 

Once you get into the pattern of negative sentiment override it can be difficult to get out because you aren’t actually having the conversations and you’re always assuming your partner’s negativity. Not having the actual conversations never allows for a positive response from your partner and keeps you perpetually stuck in assuming negativity and you might even begin to see your partner in a negative light altogether

When I reality test with clients about their assumptions of their partner’s negative responses and they actually have those conversations in session they find out things like: 

Their partner gave a negative response to helping with the kiddos' bath time once when they were stressed from work, and if they could do it all over again they’d respond differently. 

The assumption that was made in this case was that helping in the evenings was not going to happen, and one partner just assumed all responsibility without asking for help due to one negative response. 

One partner didn't want to talk about vacation planning one evening because they’d just had an issue at work with a coworker who typically covers for them, and didn’t feel comfortable asking for coverage at that particular time. 

The assumption that was made here was that vacations weren’t a priority for this person, and their partner was afraid to broach the subject. After further conversation in session it turned out this wasn’t the case, and once things were running smoother with the above mentioned coworker, vacation planning could easily resume. 

One negative response from your partner should not mean you’ll always receive that response in similar scenarios, and it could just be situational. 

So have the conversations. Make the requests. Don’t assume you know exactly how your partner will respond and get into a rut of negative sentiment override.

If you’d like help improving the communication in your relationship, we are here and eager to help! Click here to schedule your free 15-minute phone consultation and get hooked up with one of our amazing therapists who can walk you through improving your relationship.