“I Have No Problem - It's All About Him / Her” Or Why It Can Be Difficult To Work With Married Couples

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Married couples can be difficult to communicate for a number of reasons, and the tendency to constantly fight is just one of the options that we have to deal with in the course of work. Other manifestations of resistance in matrimonial psychotherapy have been identified, which will be discussed below.

• Fatalism … “We have always been like this since our first meeting. Even our venerable parents communicated with each other in this way. I don’t know how you can help us, everything we tried turned out to be ineffectual.”

• Recrimination. “Look, I'm here because my wife brought me. The problem is there. Everything is fine with me. Except that she complains all the time."

• Trying to create an alliance with a psychotherapist. “Look, I'll do my best to help heal my husband. He hasn't been feeling well lately. Perhaps we can do something together. I've tried everything that was possible."

• One is looking for a way out, and the other is not. “My husband betrayed me. I don't trust him and I can never trust him again. He says he will do everything to save the marriage. I think it’s too late. I’m here only because they don’t say that I didn’t try all the means before leaving him.”

• Denial of progress … "She claims that she has begun to initiate sexual intercourse more often, but I have a different opinion."

• Intentional distortion. “Our child has problems in school again. If you don't mind, we would like to start with this.”

Of course, it is not easy for a psychotherapist to resist such forms of spousal resistance, but they pale against the background of acute conflicts between spouses, and even in raised voices. A conflicting married couple includes at once two difficult people in communication, who are distinguished by a lack of flexibility and a quarrelsome character. Another characteristic feature is the severity of conflicts and mutual interest in their continuation, the perverse satisfaction that they seem to experience from ritual encounters, as well as resistance when trying to change the dysfunctional patterns of their interaction. All people resist change, reflecting their fear of the unknown, but the situation is further complicated when emotional stability is at stake. “Whatever the reason the need for stability in families is so strong that it is not the desire for change that leads them to the therapist, but the inability to adapt to them … Most families come to psychotherapy as a result of unwanted changes or inability to adapt to them.

Each participant in the conflict does not want to give up what is familiar, in pursuit of a ghostly goal, for fear of worsening his situation. Partners engage in an implacable battle to prevent a threat to their self-esteem. The very possibility of change becomes more daunting than the prospect of always fighting.

“I hate all this bickering,” the husband says, “but if you get used to it, it’s not so bad.”

His wife echoes him: "I also hate quarrels, but, in any case, we have no other way of communication."

Of course, they don't say a lot: in their hearts they like to attack each other. This is perhaps the only way for them to express their feelings and state their needs. It’s also a convenient excuse to get away from exploring the underlying causes of dissatisfaction with your marital relationship.

One way to resolve conflicts between spouses is to teach them how to express their feelings without hurting each other. Because marriage is so important to adults, partners inevitably develop intense emotional reactions to each other.

Greenberg and Johnson developed Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy, which aims to provide each partner with emotional communication and expression of their feelings so that the other spouse can understand and respond. This procedure has become standard for many approaches in marital psychotherapy. Each of the partners is helped to express the feelings underlying the aggressiveness, whether it be the fear of being abandoned, the fear of engaging in intimate relationships, and the like.

Next, the therapist tries to analyze the interaction cycle. In terms of communication patterns, what does the vicious circle of interaction look like in this family? How do partners provoke each other and how, in turn, are they punished?

“I drew attention to the scenario that you are constantly playing out: first, Carol, you ask your husband to be more honest with you. You, Bert, are trying to obey and express your point of view. Your words sound sincere, but the expression like "I do this, although I do not like it all" does not leave my face. It is at this point that you, Carol, start to get annoyed that Bert is giving too much detail. Then you interrupt him in the middle of the sentence, explaining that he is not candid enough. Bert feels resentment and withdraws himself. He starts provoking you. You are not indebted. And again the war. I've seen it all several times already here in the office."

It is at this point that psychotherapists disagree on what to do next. Greenberg and Johnson, as well as other proponents of experiential psychotherapy, help spouses acknowledge and express their feelings sincerely, encourage tolerance for the other side’s attitude rather than digging into the causes of anger and resentment, and seek to have one spouse gently and tactfully expressed his needs so that the other does not feel rejected or humiliated.

Some authors, on the contrary, believe that more direct and open communication with conflicting spouses is advisable. Family psychotherapists - advocates of the behavioral approach focus on non-constructive behaviors and try to replace them with manifestations of tenderness and care. Structural therapists work to redistribute power between spouses, while strategic therapists are concerned with interrupting dysfunctional patterns of interaction. There are those who, like Nichols, prefer an even more pragmatic approach, focusing on strengthening the mutual loyalty of the spouses, building trust between them.

It is important to remember, however, that there is no single correct strategy for dealing with aggressive spouses: the therapist must do everything possible to destroy the destructive patterns of their interaction. This implies working with unexpressed feelings, and with irrational beliefs, and with unresolved problems of the parental family, and with internal problems, and with the division of responsibility, and with various external factors that influence all of the above.

Bringing all therapeutic interventions together and highlighting the main thing, Shay focuses on the main therapeutic principle when working with conflicting spouses: EVERYBODY GET OUT OF THE OFFICE ALIVE. Of course, spouses have the right to quarrel, but their fight must be fair. They can sort things out while maintaining respect for each other. Their behavior can be as expressive as desired, but the physical and psychological safety of another person should not be threatened.

As a rule, in the presence of witnesses, spouses behave more politely and decently than in private, especially if they are not indifferent to the opinions of those present. There are, however, exceptions when one or both partners cannot control their behavior regardless of the environment. Such spouses will sort things out in a crowded restaurant or in your office with the same vehemence as they would in their own living room.

If you can't call clients to order and take advantage of their respite during an argument, there is little you can do. The challenge, therefore, is to distract the spouses from the skirmish and to divert their attention to something else. Only in this case it is possible to guarantee the observance of the basic principle: everyone leaves the office alive. In particular, Shay recommends talking about the past in order to restore calmness, although some couples may take advantage of this and begin to argue over their favorite issues.

If this intervention does not help, Shay suggests trying a problem-solving method. When the participants work together to solve a common problem, the heat of passion dies down. Whichever method of intervention the psychotherapist chooses, conflicting spouses must be neutralized before they begin to argue, otherwise it will be much more difficult to intervene later. Having secured the consent of clients to abide by the basic rules of human communication - to speak calmly, not to shout, not to interrupt each other, to refrain from offensive remarks and accusations, you can instill in them a healthier style of communication. Spouses have to learn to express their resentment without insulting each other, to take responsibility for what is happening, instead of blaming the partner.

According to Bergman, it is advisable for conflicting spouses to give homework. The couple is encouraged to discuss their grievances every evening for five minutes. In this case, you should use exclusively the pronoun "I" throughout the exercise in order to refrain from attacks on each other or manifestations of irritation. If one of the partners speaks, the other listens to him attentively, then apologizes, regrets the involuntary offense and asks for forgiveness. While such advice can be objectionable or even harmful if left to chance, most of the difficulties can be easily overcome by giving the couple the opportunity to practice in a session before starting the assignment at home. This strategy is only suitable for half of the couples who have agreed to the assignment, the rest will continue to quarrel. The latter can always be given a paradoxical prescription to quarrel as often as possible. While paradoxical interventions fail as often as direct interventions, they at least avoid the boredom of repeating the same techniques over and over again. Walters also suggests the best escape route: “Working as psychotherapists, we cannot change the whole society, but we can help people to be more optimistic about what is happening around them: let them know that they are not passive observers, but actors whose success is significant the measure is determined by the understanding of the meaning of the performance being played."

Bergman, J. S. Fishing for Barracuda: Pragmatics of Brief Systemic Theory 1985

Greenberg, L. S. and Johnson, S. M. Emotion-Focused Therapy for Couples. 1988

Jeffrey A. Kottler. The compleat therapist. Compassionate therapy: Working with difficult clients. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. 1991 (lyricist)

Luther, G. and Loev, I. Resistance in Marital Therapy. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy. 1981

Shay, J. J. Rules of thumb for the all-thumbs therapist: Weathering the marital storm. 1990