About Trust In A Couple. An Example Of How Difficult It Is To Be Open

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

At the consultation, a woman complains about her husband:

- As we began to live together, misunderstanding intensified between us. The husband became irritated and rude. Yes, I am too. Self-esteem fell, I feel guilty next to him all the time.

For example, I assume that he is in some kind of trouble at work, but he does not tell me anything and at the same time walks annoyed. Any of my requests, attempts to talk are perceived with hostility, cause a surge of indignation and my husband leaves the house, throwing the phrase: "I must be alone!" Why can't I tell me about my need right away?

Or here's another: in the morning I got up dissatisfied, fried eggs for myself, sat ate, frowning. When I sat down next to him to drink coffee, talk, my husband began to accuse that I was inattentive, did not cook breakfast, and he was late for work and he still had to cook himself. I also flared up, we had a fight. Wasn't it possible to ask me to prepare breakfast for him in the evening? I went to bed late at night, I was just as tired. But if you can't keep up and need help, ask. For this, I'll get up early and cook …

Then the woman began to talk about the conflict with her husband, which happened the other day:

- I tried to explain to my husband that he had unfairly raised his voice at me last time. But he denied raising his voice. It made me very angry and we had a fight again.

- Can you mentally return to that moment, think and say what need was behind your nervous breakdown?

- Resentment, anger accumulated, it was necessary to somehow defuse the tension.

- This is a primary need that lies on the surface. What was the secondary need? Why did you need to show anger?

“I thought this was the only way I could get his attention. I wanted him to hug me, to feel sorry for me, but he was cold, and I got angry.

- It turns out that you, too, did not dare to openly tell him that you want him to hug you, regretted …? Why do you think?

- Yes, I was afraid to show my weakness, to show that I need him, his attention, hugs, gentle words … It's easier to show my self-sufficiency, independence. But the dissatisfaction remains, because the feeling of self-sufficiency does not give me what I want.

The excerpt from the session with the client shows errors in their family communication.

What are these mistakes?

1. The expectation that the other must guess for himself what they want from him and do it. 2. Thinking out for another, attributing his mood to his own account, taking responsibility for his emotional state. 3. Fear to ask, because the request is assessed as a vulnerability. 4. Conversion through the accusation of another, not through the "I-message". 5. The cumulative effect of dissatisfaction, when the need is not spoken immediately, is hushed up, the tension reaches its limit and an outburst of anger occurs. 6. Lack of awareness of why we perform this or that action in communication, experience certain emotions, lack of connection with our needs. 7. Reaction to the problem in the form of destructive defenses (avoidance, denial, devaluation of the feelings of the other, the significance of the situation).

Such patterns of interaction are formed in families whose members were emotionally disconnected, where the expression of feelings was not welcomed and was considered a weakness, direct requests were censured, where the parents denied their guilt, responsibility, shifted it onto the child, messages with a double meaning were used in the address, to which he did not know how to react and was forced either to guess what they wanted from him, to adjust, or he did not trust and was isolated in his inner world. The presence of a certain family secret that cannot be talked about (for example, that the father is cheating on his mother, that there is physical violence in the family, etc.) also forms the child's secrecy and shame for himself and his feelings.

This mistrust and the style of maladaptive interaction is transferred to further relationships with loved ones, in view of which communication undergoes many difficulties, and somewhere it turns out to be completely impossible or surmountable only through conjugal psychotherapy.

If mistrust and distance are present in everyday problems, then what about trust in discussing intimate, sexual topics?

Patterns like these turn two once-loving people into alienated roommates, surviving with each other rather than enjoying the joy of intimacy and self-discovery.

A lot of sympathy is caused by the person who allows himself to reveal himself only in a state of alcoholic intoxication, and the realization of his needs in secret is on the side.

What difficulties have you faced in communicating with loved ones, dear readers?

* Reproductions: Vladimir Lyubarov.