MAKING LOVE WORK

Joan E Childs, LCSW

Love is a feeling—Marriage is a contract—Relationships are work! Three facts I learned from Lori and Morris Gordon while involved many years ago in a PAIRS (practical applications for intimate relationship skills) training.

More than 50% of marriages end in divorce and too many relationships end before they really begin. Why? People lack basic skills in communication and suffer wounds of childhood trauma that are unconsciously carried into adulthood.  What are the requirements for effective communication and how can we learn and apply them to our relationships?

THE IMPORTANCE OF EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION

It is important to understand why many people don’t know how to effectively communicate, thereby never having successful conflict resolution. Our families of origin either argued, each trying to prove the other wrong or blamed everyone else instead of taking responsibility. Some chose the silent treatment whereby they don’t speak to each other.  Many were critical, judgmental, fault-finding, contemptuous and even gas lighting.  They practiced behaviors that contaminate the relational space that is also the playground for the children. The children learn what they see and hear; not was they are told. Sound familiar?

Effective communication was most likely never modeled in their families of origin.  We only know what we know. We need to understand the damage that might have been perpetrated upon us when we were young, innocent, vulnerable, impressionable and unable to protect ourselves.

A SECURE ATTACHMENT

Many of us never had a secure attachment in our childhood.  We never felt mattered, valued or appreciated for the very one we are.  Many were abused, neglected or abandoned by either one or both parents.  Abuse comes in many forms: physical, emotional, verbal, sexual, intellectual and spiritual. These childhood traumas leave deep scars that don’t disappear as we age.  Unfortunately, we carry them into our adulthood and they interfere with our lives and the quality of our relationships.  We unconsciously recreate what we once suffered as children to work through our childhood wounds.  We end up choosing partners who give us the worst nightmare possible to resolve the unresolvable.  Freud called this repetition compulsion, the need to recreate the past and Alice Miller, MD, psychiatrist and author of THE DRAMA OF THE GIFTED CHILD called it the logic of absurdity. We are unaware of our choices until we recognize the relationship has dark shades of our dysfunctional parenting.  Essentially, we must understand and work through these wounds before we can make healthy choices or learn effective communication.

JIM

If Jim had a mother who neglected his needs as a child, he would grow up repeating his past unconsciously by choosing a partner who behaves like his mother.  It’s a natural process.  The only way his relationship could work is if his partner was not only aware of his childhood history, but willing to be a partner in his recovery.  This would mean she would need to have empathy, be supportive and be present to his unmet needs.  Unfortunately, it usually doesn’t seem to work that way.  Instead she would find fault, blame, criticize, stonewall, be contemptuous or be judgmental, what John Gottman, a renowned marriage counselor calls the Apocalypse of the Four Horseman.  I named six behaviors that would destroy any relationship. When one partner labels the other as not being OK, and the other is OK, there will be a demise of the relationship.  The goal is to work through this together.

MARY

If Mary had a father who berated her since early childhood and throughout her years, being verbally and emotionally abusive, she would then become attracted to men that would be a clone of her father and unconsciously seek out narcissistic, toxic men to carry on the damage. She might consciously choose a husband that is seemingly the opposite, but unconsciously she would eventually act out her unresolved wounds with a man not unlike her father.  Never feeling loved and accepted by her father or protected by her mother, she will choose men who are also narcissistic and emotionally unavailable, to give her the attention and love denied to her.  She will unwittingly look for love in all the wrong places, becoming self-destructive, trying to repair the damage perpetrated upon her. The sorrow is, this effort will never resolve her original pain. This addictive behavior eventually damages both her marriage and children, if any. The sins of our fathers and mothers corrupt the lives of their children and the generations that follow. This is known as multigenerational toxic shame. It too often becomes a cauldron for cross addiction.  The truth is that both partners in the marriage or relationship have unresolved issues from their past that need to be addressed and resolved.  It’s a dynamic.  Does the husband drink because the wife nags, or does the wife nag because the husband drinks?

THE SOLUTION

Both partners in the relationship must address their family of origin wounds.  If this is not accomplished, the space between the relationship becomes polluted.  If it gets worse with no intervention, the space becomes dangerous and the couple reacts to the danger in the space co-created by both —hence a break up or divorce.

This cannot be done by the couple alone.  A seasoned couple’s counselor/therapist must be part of the recovery to facilitate such an effort. In couples counseling, the partners learn how to respect each other, be present for one another, learn effective communication and fair fighting rules.  Empathy is installed to replace shame, fear and deregulation and trust, intimacy and connection are restored.