Client Portrait "Married Couple In Crisis"

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

Married couple

37-50 years old

Wealthy, achieved a lot. Dear family. The husband or both occupy leadership positions, own a business, and have a high social status. Adults or maturing children. Financial and social stability. The marriage is stable.

Mature people who have formed their own idea of life. They are distinguished by their awareness and rationality of their actions. Impulsiveness and emotionality are manifested within the couple, which leads to misunderstanding, conflict, and distance from each other. At the same time, in society, in a wide environment, they prefer to behave with restraint, delicacy, and polite. Do not allow themselves to harsh, emotional reactions. Keep the person in line with the status. Everyone has a stable idea of themselves, an image of I (who I am in life, what I am, what I can, what I can, what I want). Realized creative and professional potential - each in a pair is a specialist in his field, realized, competent. The couple is in crisis.

Options for regulatory crises the couple is in:

1 - the child enters adolescence

(against the background of the child's adolescent problems, acute conflict relations between the spouses. Protest, problematic behavior of the adolescent is a symptom of their broken relationships.)

2 - the child becomes an adult and leaves the house.

(Syndrome of "empty nest" - the loss of the previous meanings of marital interaction, the usual way of life, a collision with the need to reconsider the interaction in a couple - remain one on one, there is no longer an opportunity to "hide" behind the parental role, the problem of intimacy, sexual activity, romance arises)

3 - children get married, and the family includes daughters-in-law and sons-in-law.

(a revision of family roles and relationships is required - the child is no longer "theirs", disagreements arise between the subsystems (child and parent), lack of flexibility in communication, loyalty, show habitual patterns of controlling and authoritarian behavior, which leads to conflicts, resentment, and guilt stressful environment)

4 - the onset of menopause in a woman's life, a decrease in her libido, due to age (her sexual activity decreases, with the continued or increased activity of her husband. Then they face: fear and jealousy of the wife, her control increases, her self-esteem decreases. She becomes anxious, irritable, which affects her behavior. The husband develops avoidant behavior - leaves home for "work", connections on the side. Mutual distrust, reproaches, feelings of resentment and guilt.)

5 - decrease in male sexual activity due to age

(with the preservation of the wife's attraction and sexual potential. Her exactingness towards her husband increases, her self-esteem decreases, due to the fact that she associates this with herself - she is not attractive, his self-esteem, self-esteem also drops sharply. Becomes aggressive, irritable)

6 - spouses become grandparents.

(fears of aging, death are aggravated. The difference between the perception of oneself as young and active and a new social and family status. Reassessment of one's parental role, the desire to "replay it", to realize it more efficiently)

Situational crises (related to regulatory)

Treason (betrayal) of one of the spouses

(Acute emotional experiences, the collapse of the picture of the world, ideas about oneself, about the future, loss of self-esteem, if it is impossible to get out of the situation, divorce is impossible)

Death of the parents of one of the spouses

(Acute grief, fears, awareness of the finiteness of life, loss of meaning)

Emotional background of the couple. What they live in, what they see.

The spouses are married from 15 to 25 years old. In connection with the crisis of family life, in a couple, increased emotional instability, fears appear, the feeling of loneliness of everyone associated with the departure of children intensifies, the wife's emotional dependence, her worries about rapid aging, as well as possible sexual betrayal of her husband, his possible desire to sexually manifest yourself on the side "before it's too late."

An increase in the feeling of general dissatisfaction with family relations, the discovery of differences in views, the emergence of tacit protest, quarrels and reproaches, a feeling of deception in everyone, the destruction of established family values and the lack of formation of new ones (we cannot in the old way, but in a new way, we don’t know how), violation customary traditions and rituals (family dinners, visits, meetings with relatives, the usual pastime of the family on weekends, holidays, kissing before leaving, massage at night, etc.). Psychological fatigue from each other. Each of them lives his own inner life, despite the fact that they have a lot in common - common life values, memories, an idea of the future, outlook on life. There is a lack of intimacy, warmth. Gone are tenderness, trepidation for each other, tactility, intimacy, romance. There is a feeling of distance from each other, mutual shyness in familiar, in the past situations. Experienced as "loneliness together." At the same time, they are very afraid of losing each other, which is due to the fear of shocks, possible global changes (divorce, division of property, explanations to children, loss of the usual joint environment).

Disagreements and mutual dissatisfaction are either - actively conflicting, blaming each other. Or, they prefer leaving, and avoidance, as a rejection of the conflict, which transforms this conflict into a chronic one, exacerbating family relationships.

The loss of a very important common side of their life - direct participation in the life of children, daily care for them, reveals the need for close marital interaction, the implementation of matrimonial rather than parental relations, but this is precisely the problem. What they previously “endured” for the sake of children, did not pay attention, was sharply revealed, disagreements intensified, to which it is impossible to close our eyes, but there is no opportunity and skill to discuss. They can effectively communicate on different topics - the life of children, politics, business (values and views coincide, they understand each other well, code is not "about themselves"), while avoiding clarifying their own relationships, what happens to them, do not share their experiences, moving away emotionally. They do not talk to each other, do not declare their needs openly, for fear of revealing their own vulnerability, for fear of being rejected by their spouse, looking ridiculous, showing their weakness and need for warmth, tenderness and intimacy. Moreover, everyone needs it.

The influence of the crisis of family relations extends to all spheres of everyone's life: they do not get pleasure from what they previously received, they go into work with their heads (they hide from family problems), or vice versa - they do not see new goals and tasks in work, the work seems to be uninteresting, routine, monotonous.

In interaction with the environment:

Or social isolation (they communicate less with the environment, close, avoid being in the spotlight).

Or vice versa - they actively interact with society, compensating for unmet needs - they attend events, do charity work, visit salons, gyms, etc. efficiency.

Core values and needs

1) family, maximum realization of my family role (I am a good husband / wife, satisfaction with marriage, closeness, finding new meanings, high-quality conflict-free communication in the family, trust, confirmation of value and significance for each other.)

2) the need for communication (high-quality social and friendly ties, pastime, demand, necessity, significance)

3) cognitive needs (recreation associated with broadening one's horizons, being in trend, being modern, competent, fashionable, possessing information)

4) material needs (stability, status, inheritance)

5) the need to protect the “I-concept” (self-respect, respect for others, protection of psychological boundaries, to feel mature, important, necessary, valuable).

Psychological tasks of the couple:

- renewal of marital relations

- restructuring of communications

- restoring intimacy and romance in a relationship, in a different, mature relationship context

- adaptation to age-related physiological changes

- creative joyful use of a lot of free time

- restructuring and strengthening relationships with relatives and friends

- entering the role of grandmother (grandfather), father-in-law, father-in-law, mother-in-law, mother-in-law.

- awareness of their own attitude to old age, death, loneliness. Passing an existential crisis

- adaptation to a changed, mature, age-related life