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What Everyone Should Know About Marriage & Intimate Relationships
Over time, all relationships evolve. There are natural developmental stages of marriage and family that every couple goes through from the beginning to the end. Reorganization of the spousal relationship at each stage is unavoidable. Some couples reorganize in healthy ways, while others reorganize in an unhealthy way. It is how a couple reorganizes that determines the happiness and quality of the relationship.
You can’t know for sure what is going to happen in life. What you can know is how and why relationships change over time. This kind of knowledge is powerful and with it, you can prepare yourself. With this knowledge, it is possible to avoid some problems altogether and reduce the severity of others. You have a better chance of creating a relationship that works for you and your partner.
A long-term relationship is like white water rafting. Sometimes the water
is calm but when the rapids begin, knowing what obstacles lie ahead
can help you safely navigate through them.
What follows below is an outline of the 12 stages of change that intimate relationships go through.
1) COURTSHIP: Two single people become a couple (not yet living together). They lose their single identity as others start to perceive them as a unit.
2) LIVING TOGETHER: A couple moves in together but does not marry.
3) MARRIAGE: The couple marries (stages 2 and 3 may happen simultaneously). In the first year of living together, the couple develops dynamics between them that will probably last for the rest of their lives.
4) FAMILY: The couple’s first child is born. When a couple has their first child there is a dramatic change in their relationship. The first child changes the husband and wife into parents. This is a new role that neither has dealt with previously. It takes some getting used to. When subsequent children come along the couple are already parents. There is change but not nearly as much. Many babies die in infancy. Mothers tend to make the survival of their infants a priority and put their own lives on hold.
5) FIRST CHILD ENTERS SCHOOL: The family is the child’s first world. School exposes children to the ‘world at large’ and they bring those influences back to the family. The couple has to deal with the influences from the larger world and it is how they do that that counts. For the children life at school confirms or disconfirms the child’s view of life established at home. This also impacts upon Mom and Dad.
6) LAST CHILD ENTERS SCHOOL: Mother’s life comes off hold (for families with one child, stages 5 and 6 occur simultaneously). When children reach ages 5-6 they are more likely to survive. Mother’s life is freed up now to do more of what she wants or needs to do.
7) FIRST CHILD ENTERS PUBERTY: This marks the beginning of a separation between adolescents and parents. Parents are united as a team or divided by their differences at this stage. It’s easier to separate from the first child when there are one or more children still at home.
8) LAST CHILD ENTERS PUBERTY: Couple realizes there soon will be no more children at home. They begin to reorganize to become a couple alone again (for families with one child, stages 7 and 8 occur simultaneously).
9) FIRST CHILD LEAVES HOME: The couple struggles to allow their child to come into his or her own as a separate adult. Usually one holds on more than the other which causes friction. Parents’ developmental task is to let go of their children. Children’s developmental task is to let go of their parents. Later, they reconnect adult to adult.
10) LAST CHILD LEAVES HOME: The couple becomes a couple alone again, but now with independent, adult children (for a family with one child, stages 9 and 10 occur simultaneously).
11) BECOMING GRANDPARENTS: The first grandchild provides a renewed connection between parents and adult children. As grandparents, the couple has a new identity that they must organize around.
12) RETIREMENT: One or both spouses retire and the couple must reorganize around how and when they spend time together. If they both retire they must deal with greater amounts of time spent together.
THE RELATIONSHIP ENDS WHEN ONE SPOUSE DIES: The memories of being in the relationship endure until the death of the other spouse, regardless of whether the relationship was happy or unhappy. Surviving spouse may or may not begin a new relationship. When a new relationship begins the cycle begins again.
In-depth Stages in Intimate Relationships
Stage 1: COURTSHIP—Two Single People Become a Couple (but don’t yet live together)
Each partner has to adapt to being in a couple’s relationship by changing his or her lifestyle. They commit themselves to each other, agree to be monogamous, and agree to no longer seek out new love interests. They begin to develop patterns of behavior that determine how the relationship is going to be. At this point, each partner is still wooing the other and presenting their best side. In courtship, the ratio of positive interactions to negative interactions may be anywhere from 20 – 50 to 1.
When a person is single, they behave differently than when they become part of a couple. Healthy people in a couple relationship are no longer emotionally available to other romantic attentions. Partners focus their attention on each other to the exclusion of other people. They invest themselves emotionally, physically, and financially in their relationship. They do activities together. The outside world treats them as a couple rather than two single people dating. They confer with each other about how to spend time together and individually. They figure out how to spend holidays and special occasions together. People in a couple relationship continue to learn the intricacies of each other’s world: extended family, friends, work, recreational interests, as well as, hopes and dreams.
Jay and Sylvia met on an Internet dating site. At first, they talked to each other anonymously through the site. Eventually, they met and started dating. Jay said he had an instant attraction to Sylvia when they met; her smile dazzled him. It reminded him of his favorite grandmother who had a smile just as captivating. When they met, Sylvia immediately felt comfortable with Jay. She felt like she could be herself with him. Two months later they agreed to date each other exclusively. Each took their profiles off the dating sites. Each agreed to date only each other and started introducing each other to their families, friends, and others.
The Courtship stage can become more complicated when partners bring children into a new relationship, as well as ongoing contact with ex-partners.
Stage 2: LIVING TOGETHER—Couple Moves in Together (but don’t marry)
In a couple’s relationship, each member wants to love and be loved. One demonstration of love is a desire to share their lives more deeply by living together, married or not married. Some couples declare their commitment to each other by getting engaged during this time.
During the first year of living together, the couple defines, both consciously and unconsciously, how they are going to interact with each other. Each behaves in ways that attempt to get his/her own needs met. They develop rituals and ways of being in the relationship that are idiosyncratic to them as a couple. It’s difficult, if not impossible, for intimate partners who live together to hide all aspects of themselves from each other. (occasionally, a partner will have a secret life, but this is rare). Problematic differences that were not revealed in courtship, or were ignored, now come to the foreground and require attention. The number of positive interactions decreases and the number of negative interactions increases. A happy marriage has 5 positive interactions to every negative interaction.
Creating a new home together is a big change. The keys to reorganization in Stage 2 are comfort, safety, and belonging. Each person wants and needs to feel comfortable with the new living arrangements. Each wants and needs to feel like they can be fully themselves and still be loved by their partners. Each wants and needs to feel they belong to their partner.
There are many new issues to address: Household tasks: Who is going to cook? Take out the garbage? Clean the toilet? Choose the décor? Social life: Who is going to do the planning and arranging? Whose family and friends are they going to see and how often? Finances: Is the money going to be in separate pots or one pot? Are expenses going to be shared 50-50 or in some other way? Who is going to take responsibility for paying the bills? Who is going to spend the money? Sexual Intimacy: How often are they going to make love? Who is going to initiate? How are they going to handle their sexual differences? Non-sexual Intimacy: How does each handle different needs for emotional closeness and distance? How affection is expressed, how much, and in what settings?
Charlie and Dawn had each been married before and each had their own apartment. After dating for a year, they decided Dawn would move into Charlie’s place and rent out hers. When Dawn moved, in she put her belongings around Charlie’s belongings. After 18 months of living together, her doctor diagnosed Dawn with depression and referred her for counselling. She did not know what was wrong because the relationship seemed OK. They were not fighting.
Through counselling she discovered, she still felt the apartment was Charlie’s and she did not belong. Not integrating their furniture and belongings indicated a larger problem of not integrating their lives emotionally. After a brief separation, during which they had couples counselling and each had some individual counselling, they decided they still wanted to be together. They learned to discuss their relationship in a whole new way that took them to a depth neither had ever experienced before. Once they were reconnected emotionally and had developed a way to work out issues, each wanted to reinvest in the relationship. They then made a plan that would result in each selling their own apartments and purchasing a larger apartment together. Dawn’s life was no longer on hold. Her depression lifted, even though it was going to take considerable time and effort to carry out their plan.
During the Living Together Stage, the number of positive interactions decreases, and the number of negative interactions increases. Research shows healthy happy relationships maintain a ratio of 5 positive interactions to 1 negative.
Change is easiest during the first year of cohabitation and marriage because the patterns of interaction between the couple are not yet fully established. In the first year, the couple is still in the bloom of love. There is little hurt to overcome, and each is still highly motivated to make the relationship work. People in a healthy relationship are interdependent.
Stage 3 (SIGNIFICANT): MARRIAGE—Couple Gets Married (stages 2 & 3 may happen simultaneously)
If a couple marries, regardless of when there is an important shift in how the couple interacts with each other. Why? When people sign the legal document of marriage their expectations about marriage, both unconscious and conscious, come to the foreground. We all have ideas and preconceived notions about what marriage is. These come from our family of origin, as well as from watching and experiencing other marriages—those of our parents, aunts and uncles, grandparents, siblings, neighbors, and friends. Our religious beliefs and cultural expectations heavily influence our concept of marriage. Our expectations of marriage are influenced by what we’ve read, as well as TV, movies, and celebrity marriages. Living together is not married even though a couple lives and acts in a married manner. For some couples, the reorganization from living together to being and feeling married is achieved easily. For others, the shift is so great that sometimes after years of living together, they separate and divorce after only a few months of marriage. The USA National Center for Health Statistics states that unmarried cohabitations are less stable than marriages.
Julie and Sam had been contentedly living together for five years. They had settled into a way of living their lives that suited them. July was reluctant to get married until they decided to start a family. Shortly after they married Julie started to feel trapped in the relationship even though she was not even pregnant. It was nothing she could explain because their lives were the same. She grew up in a family in which her father felt trapped in the marriage and stayed for the children’s sake. On some level, Julie felt like she suddenly had a ball and chain around her ankle. She began to stay away from home for longer periods of time without really knowing why and by resisting her husband’s attention and affection. She was scared her marriage would be a repeat of her father and mother’s. Ultimately, by talking through her fears with her husband she was able to revise her unconscious belief that marriage was a prison. Their marriage became stronger and more satisfying as a result.
Stage 4 (SIGNIFICANT): FAMILY—Couple Becomes a Family
Research shows the stage of having babies and preschoolers is the most difficult stage of marriage because the most change happens. This stage can bring the most joy and sense of purpose in life even though it is stressful. When a couple has blood ties to each other through their child(ren) it means they will always be connected, adding another dimension to their relationship.
The first child born, whether he or she lives or dies, changes the couple into a family. This is significant in the evolution of relationships. The first child changes the husband and wife into a father and a mother. Becoming a parent changes people in fundamental ways. It is amazing how a tiny baby can effect so much change!
Both mother and father’s lives are changed by the arrival of the new member of the family. Usually, a mother’s life changes the most. A lot of the affection and care-giving that had been focused on her husband now goes toward her child(ren). Having babies and preschoolers is highly demanding of time, energy, and money. Most mothers put their own lives on hold while they have babies and toddlers. Most mothers want to do this. Even if a mother continues to work, her priorities shift and she is still most likely to put her infants and toddlers first. Mother Nature planned it that way for the survival of the species.
Father’s life changes too. A healthy father wants his infant child(ren) to have the attention and love they need. At the same time, he has to make do with less attention, love, and affection from his wife than he enjoyed before the babies came. This occurs at a time when he is feeling the stress of more responsibilities at home and challenges in his career.
Many differences, that were either non-issues or mildly troublesome before, now come to the foreground or get worse. Since standards and values are conveyed to the children through parenting, any differences that are not satisfactorily resolved create stress between the couple.
At this stage, fatigue is a significant factor for one or both parents due to many nighttime disturbances and workload in the home. If the mother has to return to work for financial reasons her stress load is greater. If she would rather be a home with her baby then the stress is even greater. Either parent may be too tired and/or too busy to pay attention to the other. There is much less time and energy left for the relationship. Having fun is a faded memory and seems impossible with the increased responsibilities, lack of time, and/or money. Each wants comfort and help from the other because they often feel overwhelmed, exhausted, and alone. When they cannot get what they yearn for, each feels deprived and let down. When couples do not carve out time in their busy lives to be with each other they tend to lose their emotional connection. Many couples disengage from each other yet maintain a common goal in parenting. This makes the relationship vulnerable to break-up as the children grow older. If they do not reorganize well at this stage, each following stage is more difficult to reorganize. The relationship is more likely to go into crisis in later stages.
On the transition to parenthood, researcher, John Gottman, Ph.D states “While this period holds potential for great joy in a parent’s life, our research shows that shortly after the birth of their child, approximately two-thirds of couples will experience a significant drop in relationship quality, a dramatic increase in conflict and hostility, and an increase in postpartum depression. These negative changes in the relationship result in compromised parenting and put children at risk for mental and behavioral problems and cognitive delays.” If addressed, these changes can be reversed. Dr. Gottman’s team is working on developing workshops to help couples reverse these negative changes.
Couples that reorganize well make the effort to find time for each other even though there are so many demands on their time and energy. They keep emotionally and physically connected to each other. They pay attention to each other’s wants and needs. They integrate their standards and values. A good working relationship helps them resolve their differences. Together they identify and achieve individual, couple, and family goals. Couples that feel emotionally and physically connected to each other resolve differences more easily. Each can let go of the small problems. They are more easily able to handle the reorganization of their relationship at later stages.
As their family grew Susan and Bob had so many demands on their time and energy that they could not find time for each other. When the babies started coming, Susan’s life changed dramatically. She took maternity leave with each baby and had to readjust to work between babies. She ran the household. She organized everyone’s appointments, music lessons, sports, purchasing clothes, and other needs of the family. She coordinated family get-togethers for both sides of the family. When she wasn’t at work she was working at home.
The demands and expectations on Bob changed dramatically as well. He felt the weight of the financial pressures—a huge stressor. His job was demanding. His career was evolving. It required a lot of his time and energy. The attention, love, and affection that Susan used to lavish on him now went to the young children. He wanted his children to have their mother’s love and attention but he felt neglected. He was often too busy and too tired to make time for her. She frequently felt overwhelmed and too tired to make time for him. There were always lots of problems to resolve and decisions to make. There were very few good times with each other anymore. Each felt unappreciated and unimportant to the other. Each became resentful and felt lonely. When each needed the most love and support from the other, each was least able to give it. They co-parented well but drifted apart as a couple.
Stage 5: First Child Enters School
When the first child enters school he or she is exposed to a larger world. They bring home new ideas. They have new authority figures. They meet classmates with different lifestyles. They learn ways of being different in the world and they bring these new concepts and experiences back to the family.
If school life is similar to home life a child’s view of the world is consolidated. But if school life is different, either better or worse than home life, then the child has to adapt and adjust.
Stage 6 (SIGNIFICANT): Last Child Enters School
No more babies or toddlers at home! Once the last child enters school, the mother’s life comes off hold. She can now think of what she wants to do with her life. Financial issues are almost always an issue. Perhaps for financial reasons, she must return to work or if she has never quit work she must work to regain, or try to regain, the advancements that she lost. Perhaps she may want to retrain for a new type of work or career. Perhaps she wants to figure out a way to work from home. Time and energy are freed up to think about her own life. Some couples have another child to postpone this stage.
Jaime and Ralph have come for couples counseling. Tom, the eldest of their three children, has entered high school and the youngest, Dan, is in the first grade. This indicates that Jaime and Ralph are struggling to reorganize their relationship at two important developmental stages: a) the eldest child-reaching-puberty and the youngest child entering school. Both are important stages yet the youngest child entering school is the most significant stage. It indicates that Jaime can focus more on herself now that she has no babies left at home. It also indicates that Ralph may be looking for reconnection with his wife now that she is not so preoccupied with the demands of their very young children.
Ralph enjoys his role as a father and family man. He’s busy with all the children’s activities yet he is lonely. Now that the children are all in school he is looking for more connection with Jaime. He complains that Jaime has no time for him because she spends a lot of her spare time on the computer, emailing and chatting online. He keeps initiating time with her but she is full of excuses. She does not even seem to want to be in the same room. Just when he expected they would have more time for each other, there is even less.
Jaime and Ralph’s wants and needs are changing and each is having difficulty adjusting. They have lost their emotional connection with each other and have drifted apart.
Unhealthy reorganization involves adapting to change in ways that create distance and hurt in the relationship. For example, many wives turn to their children and pets to get their emotional needs met when they cannot get love and affection from their husbands. Unhealthy couples get locked into ways of being with each other that keep the relationship stuck. One or both partners become emotionally vulnerable to influences outside the relationship. This often, but not always, leads to breakup. More often it results in a long unhappy relationship.
Couples that reorganize well consolidate their relationship and move to a new depth of relatedness. Healthy couples develop a good working relationship so they can handle whatever life hands them. By working through a difficult stage couples can shift how they interact with each other; they let go of ways of being with each other that are problematic and accept new ways of being with each other that bring satisfaction and deeper connectedness. Overcoming adversity strengthens and deepens the bond between partners. The increased solidness enables couples to weather the sometimes dark and difficult periods that life hands them. Couples who reorganize well at each stage are less likely to break up.
Problems from the past can be what was said and done that was hurtful as well as what was NOT said and done that should have been said or done. When relationships change in the present couples can overcome very difficult and painful problems that happened between them in the past. With new ways of interacting with each other, couples can forgive or, at least, let go of hurtful words and actions from the past. Because the relationship has improved in the present, even though partners may never forget what happened, they can let go of past hurts. Forgiveness is desirable, but not essential, to improving a relationship. However, if there is no improvement in the present—that is, the same problematic interactions keep repeating—then the hurts and wounds from the past are brought up again and again. An improved relationship in the present gives each partner hope for the future. When the future looks positive, partners will continue to invest themselves in their relationship.
Stage 7: Last Child Enters Puberty
No more young children at home. At this stage, one or both partners realize that one day in the near future, there will be no children left at home. Each looks to the other with questions about the quality of the relationship. Each one asks him/herself, “How are we doing?” This may happen both consciously or unconsciously, openly or privately. Many couples work well together when their children are young because they have the shared value that family is important. But if the couple no longer feels connected with each other their relationship may disintegrate once the children enter adolescence and leave home. The disintegration then occurs at a time when the adolescents are naturally preparing to separate from the family, creating more tension in every member of the family. The adolescents may act out due to the tension causing the parents to fight about the children when the problem really is between the couple. Separation may occur at some point during this time or not until all the children have left home.
A healthy couple will start to refocus on each other and make the changes that they need to make. They start to spend more time together without the adolescents. They work together to make their relationship richer so they still want to be together when their young adults are on their own or soon-to-be on their own.
Stage 8: First Child Leaves Home
The first child leaving home is the beginning of the end for the nuclear family. It is easier to let the first child leave because there are others still at home. Healthy families let their children go with support and encouragement.
Stage 9: Last Child Leaves Home
This stage means the couple is now a couple alone again with independent adult children. It is often difficult to let the last child go. Perhaps the last child is not the youngest but a late bloomer. If the parents are not reorganizing their relationship, they may collude with each other to keep one or more adult children at home, postponing the inevitable. Developmentally, parents’ task is to let their children go in spite of the fact that the world is a big and scary place. Children’s developmental task is to go even though the world outside the home is a big and scary place. Ideally, the separation happens peacefully, but often parents and adolescents have to fight with each other to let go because all are apprehensive about the big and scary world. Eventually, healthy parents accept their children as adults and the adult children mature and come into their own as adults, as individuals, as men/women. Then they reconnect adult to adult.
Stage 10: Becoming Grandparents
This is the stage of reconnection. When adult children become parents they want their children to have grandparents. Healthy grandparents want a connection with their grandchildren and welcome reconnection with their children through the grandchildren.
When Darlynne was 19 she got pregnant. Darwin, the baby’s father, was 20 and felt he was too young to marry. Darlynne’s parents, particularly her father, a very religious man, were devastated and felt shame. He refused to have any contact with her. Darlynne’s mother reluctantly went along with her husband. Darlynne found support and help in having the baby from Darwin’s parents while he worked and traveled in Australia. When the baby was three, Darlynne and Darwin reconciled and married. She quickly got pregnant again. Once she was married, Darlynne’s parents wanted to reconnect with their daughter and her growing family. Darlynne, although deeply hurt by her parent’s rejection of her when she needed them most, wanted her children to know their maternal grandparents. The families made peace.
Stage 11: Retirement
Couples may retire at different times or simultaneously. Healthy couples find ways to be together as well as be on their own and have friends of their own. Interdependence is extremely important in this stage.
Sophie made a frantic call to a couples counselor. Her concern—she and her husband of over 30 years were about to retire at the same time and she was afraid that he would smother her when he did not have to go to work anymore. She feared her marriage would not last. After several sessions, they were able to resolve a core issue that had plagued them since the beginning of their marriage. This helped them to reorganize their relationship in a whole new way. As well, their relationships with their adult children became healthier.
Final Stage: One Spouse Dies
Although the relationship/marriage is over the memories endure in the surviving spouse whether the relationship was healthy or not. The longer the relationship lasts the more spouses become an integral part of each other—for better or worse.
CONCLUSION
When relationships become troubled they rarely disintegrate immediately. They usually fall apart over months and years, often with several periods of separation and reconciliation. Even relationships/marriages that remain intact are not necessarily healthy. Sometimes one spouse may seriously consider ending the relationship but never does. It is as if he or she has one foot in the relationship and one foot out. The other partner could end the relationship but does not. Living this way is stressful for each partner.
There are always factors that stress the relationship—financial issues, drug and alcohol problems, household chores and maintenance, child rearing, illness/accident/death of a child, parents/in-laws, illness of one or both spouses, affairs, too much work, not enough work, too much money, not enough money, etc.
The goal of couples counseling is to facilitate the couple developing a good working relationship so that they can handle whatever life hands them. The counselor’s role is to help them reorganize their relationship so that it improves. The counselor identifies the interactive patterns between the couple that are healthy and builds on them. Couples need to know specifically what is working so they do it more. The counselor also identifies the interactive patterns that are problematic and helps each spouse to make the changes needed. Each spouse is encouraged to take responsibility for his/her part in the relationship that needs changing. The counselor works with each spouse to make changes that fit who they are and enhance the relationship. The couple learns skills and ways of being with each other that work. Gradually the couple gets to the place where they no longer need the counselor’s help. An effective couples counselor’s job is to work him or herself out of a ‘job’ with each couple.
Not all relationships can be turned around and rekindled at a new level. When this happens the counselor’s role is to help each work toward separation/divorce.
Recommendations for Creating a Healthy Relationship
1) Keep each other a priority.
Make time for each other. The busier you are the more you need to carve out time for each other. The time can be brief—20 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour. Take holidays (short and long) together without others—children, relatives or friends.
Support each other. Be interested in each other’s thoughts, feelings, interests, passions, wants, needs, and troubles. Being interested does not mean you have to take any action or feel responsible.
2) Set goals.
First: set long-term goals for your relationship and your family.
Second: set short-term goals for your relationship and your family.
Having long-term goals makes decisions around short-term goals easier.
Short-term goals without an overall larger plan may result in ‘for now’ decision-making that takes your relationship in directions that neither of you want.
3) Take Care of Business—Develop a Good Working Relationship
Learn how to effectively resolve your problems—sooner rather than later.
Couples who feel resentful toward each other do not want to be affectionate and intimate with each other. Resolving problems and differences avoids the build-up of resentment and increases the amount of fun couples have together. Couples who laugh and play together are more likely to stay together.
Be aware of each stage of your relationship and do what needs to be done in each stage. Prepare for the next stage before or when your relationship reaches it.
You can have life plans but life also has plans for you.
A good working relationship will help you handle well whatever life hands you.
There are many identifiable stages in long-term relationships
Healthy adjustment in each stage makes it easier to reorganize effectively at the next stage. A lot of heartaches can be avoided by viewing change as an opportunity.
Most of the time couples focus on the present moment of their relationship and miss the bigger picture. They make many little ‘for now’ decisions that lead in a direction that they do not realize, adding up to a large decision that they would never choose. Understanding that there are many stages in the lifetime of a long-term intimate relationship can help partners prepare for change and avoid relationship breakdown. Then couples see that change is normal, natural, and necessary. By embracing the changes early in each stage, couples can decrease the length of time their relationship is stressful and avoid some problems altogether. Knowing the signs ahead of time can help couples prepare for change. They can take charge of the changes instead of responding or reacting to them.
When a couple has a good working relationship they can handle problematic situations well or they will seek resources, such as counseling, financial planners, self-help material, etc. to guide them. Working together they collaborate on how to handle positive and negative situations in ways that take the best interests of all couple/family members into consideration. One partner is not responsible for making the decisions. The marriage/relationship becomes an entity that each can rely on to find comfort, safety, and joy, as well as, to solve problems. When couples have a good working relationship and find pleasure and companionship in each other, each partner is less likely to become overly involved in activities, such as work, parenting, or hobbies.
Couples who do not have a good working relationship feel alone and burdened by problems that often are difficult or impossible to resolve. They are less able to comfort each other and give each other joy because the unresolved issues create an invisible barrier between them. Buried resentment is the biggest killer of sexual desire. Because each partner is not getting their emotional needs met within the relationship each is more susceptible to depression, health issues, and overworking. They may be either actively looking outside the relationship or be more emotionally available to unsolicited attention from outside the relationship.
All relationships evolve over time. There are natural developmental stages of marriage and family that every couple goes through from the beginning to the end. Reorganization of the spousal relationship at each stage is unavoidable. Some couples reorganize in a healthy way, while others reorganize in an unhealthy way. It is how a couple reorganizes that determines the happiness and quality of the relationship.
You can’t know for sure what is going to happen in life. What you can know is how and why relationships change over time. This kind of knowledge is powerful and with it, you can prepare yourself. With this knowledge, it is possible to avoid some problems altogether and reduce the severity of others. You have a better chance of creating a relationship that works for you and your partner.
A long-term relationship is like white water rafting. Sometimes the water is calm but when the rapids begin, knowing what obstacles lie ahead can help you safely navigate through them.
Decision-Making: The Pendulum Swing—a Battle of Sensations
What’s it like to be conflicted in a relationship?
People who are conflicted are constantly thinking about the pros and cons of leaving and the pros and cons of staying. They continually question what they think and feel. As well, most of the time they are feeling pain and distress that varies from mild to severe. They try all sorts of things to improve the relationship—reasoning, convincing, pleading, buying things, going on holidays, adapting, adjusting, individual and couple counselling, etc. Some people blame their partners and some blame themselves.
When people who are conflicted, still cannot get their needs met, they often give up and resign themselves to the relationship the way it is. To endure it, they do many things to distract from the pain and sense of powerlessness. If there are children they will focus on them. Many people turn to their children and pets for love and affection because they cannot get their needs met by their spouse. They may work longer hours, go out often with friends, or spend more time doing hobbies such as sports, gardening, chess, music, video games, and partying. They may avoid going to bed until their partner is asleep. If there is no love in the relationship they may experience grief and loss of ever finding love and happiness. They may numb the pain with affairs, gambling, drinking, and/or drugging.
The Pendulum Swing
Thinking about breaking up and breaking up are two different things. At one time, the pendulum swings toward breaking up. An unhappy spouse will think and rethink about breaking up and finally get to the point where action is required. To take the actions necessary to break up is very difficult. Taking action creates conflict and emotional pain. It evokes sensations of fear/terror. The pendulum swings back again which alleviates stress because the unpleasant uncomfortable sensations dissipate.
Most people are conflicted about staying in or ending their relationship at one time or another. Even people who remain married or in a relationship for the rest of their lives still go through natural developmental stages that bring into question whether or not to stay together. Couples that have developed a good working relationship usually can negotiate these times easily. Their relationship remains healthy and evolves to the next stage. However, couples who can’t develop a way to handle differences and resolve problems have a much more difficult time going through these stages. Their relationships are more likely to become unhealthy and get stuck at one stage or another. When relationships get stuck, one or both partners swing back and forth, like a pendulum, between staying and leaving.
PEOPLE WHO ARE CONFLICTED SEND THEIR PARTNERS MIXED MESSAGES. Confused, their partners often get upset/angry or they only hear the part of the message they want to hear and respond accordingly.
The Quality of Sensations
Emotional swings evoke swings of sensations in the body. Sometimes these sensations can be uncomfortable or painful. Where do these painful sensations come from? How do they develop? Some people call sensations ‘emotional triggers’. These painful sensations come from traumatic experiences from our childhood, our adult life, and just life in general.
One thing about life is certain—there are ups and downs, good times and bad times, highs and lows, and thrills and chills. This pendulum is mostly about unpleasant experiences, but sometimes good experiences can be overwhelming.
Personal story:
I have always wanted to be a mother. When I was 29, I gave birth to a gorgeous big baby boy, (9 lbs,, 5 oz.). I was so happy to have a baby at last. When I was home with him, he was sleeping in his bassinet. I tiptoed to see him. He was sound asleep. I felt a wave of love rise up from my tummy and into my chest. It was so strong it scared me. Yet it felt wonderful too.
Decision-Making Approaches
There are different habits people develop when handling relationships. Some use logic and compare pros and cons (left brain). Other people are impulsively driven by their sensations and emotions (right brain).
A Logical Approach to Decision-Making—Pros and Cons
Story:
A client came to see me about her intimate relationship. She had been married for 3 months. She told me how she chose her husband. She told me that she wanted a man who would never leave her. She made a checklist of attributes this man would need to have, that guaranteed he wouldn’t leave. It took her a while but she found the guy who checked off all the boxes and married him.
As she spoke to me, she looked sad and replied, “He is a great guy but there is no chemistry between us. I don’t know what to do, because I know he will never leave me.”
She was trying to control the outcome. I pointed out to her that she was terrified of being alone but was ignoring it. She lived mostly in her logical brain and ignored and minimised the information from her sensory brain. She got the outcome she intended: she would never be alone. Adage: Be careful what you wish for—you may get it.
I worked with her to reconnect with the sensory/intuitive part of herself. During this exercise, she accessed a memory of feeling abandoned and terrified. I helped her process this unhealed trauma by accessing sensations, staying with them, and breathing through the waves. I supported her as she re-experienced the terrifying sensations of abandonment, which were driving her behaviour. It took several months.
One day I got an email from her cancelling her next appointment. She told me she had met someone. She left her husband and accepted a job in Thailand with her new boyfriend. I never heard from her again. I hope things have fallen together for her.
Impulsive Approach to Decision-Making—Sensory/Feelings
Story:
A client came to see me. She was in a rage. She had thought her marriage was fine, then recently she found out her husband had sex with an ex-coworker. She said she reacted by throwing him out of their home. She told all of her family and friends about what he had done and loudly claimed that she would never forgive him.
I worked with her about feeling blindsided and deeply hurt and ashamed. Gradually things settled down and as she healed, she started to reconsider. Her husband regretted his encounter, apologized profusely, and wanted to repair the relationship.
She realized that she still loved and missed him. They started work to repair their relationship. One of the aspects she found the most difficult was facing her family and friends with her change of heart. She deeply regretted telling everyone about the incident.
Because the couple worked through things together, she found a way to let go of her hurt and their relationship evolved to a healthier level. However, she found her family and friends had a harder time letting go and continued to treat him somewhat differently.
Relationships are Good and Bad
Relationships and marriages are rarely all bad. When they are, there is no decision about whether or not to end it, it is a matter of, if it is possible, and if so, when. In very abusive relationships it may be dangerous to leave. Research shows that in such marriages a spouse is most likely to be harmed when he or she tries to leave the relationship. Children are often at risk during this time as well.
Relationships may be a ratio of 80/20% bad to good, 60/40% bad to good, or even 70/30% good to bad. When an unhappy spouse thinks of leaving, what comes to the foreground is the grief and loss about the good in the relationship that they have to give up. No one wants to give up the good stuff, or the comfortable and pleasant sensations! Especially the sensation of feeling safe. They fear that they may never find it again.
They often confuse grief and loss with love. That’s when the pendulum starts to swing the other way. As people begin to think again about staying, the sensations of grief and loss dissipate. They may continue to swing toward staying and again investing themselves in the marriage. But sometimes the difficulties in the relationship come to the foreground. They feel the pain of ongoing interactions that are painful and stressful. They start to dread certain times such as coming home and spending time together. They dread special times such as; Christmas, Thanksgiving, Valentine’s Day, and anniversaries. When it gets to be more than they can stand, the pendulum starts swinging back the other way. Back and forth.
Sometimes the pendulum goes slowly back and forth. Sometimes a particular event or interaction may trigger the pendulum to swing quickly from one side to the other.
It takes actions to change this distressful pattern—actions that invest oneself again in the relationship, and either attempt to better the relationship or tolerate it the way it is. And, it requires actions to exit.
When people take action, often their lives go into chaos. The old patterns, routines, and habits are shaken up. While shaking up a stuck relationship is required to reorganize it is extremely stressful for all involved. During this stage, many people will reconcile, not because they want the relationship, but because they want to stop the confusion, stress, fear, and emotional pain. They long for the familiar even though that is stressful too. At least they know that stress—Better the devil you know, than the devil you don’t know. The pendulum swings back again.
Couples often break up and reconcile several times before finally making the changes needed to stay together. Some people change only when the stakes are high. In a marriage break-up, the stakes can be very high. Or, before they finally break up for good.
It is very difficult to take the actions needed to stop the pendulum from swinging. There are different styles of decision-making; logical, impulsive, passive, and active. Often people making decisions will swing from one extreme to the other, sometimes for years.
Personal Story:
I know I did this for many years. In 1987, after 21 years of marriage, I decided I had enough. Yet, it took me until 1991 to finally act upon it.
Bonding Versus Love
Couples often separate and reconcile several times before they make a permanent change. Many couples separate and let go of a relationship that is full of pain and heartache. Once they have deconstructed their old relationship, they come together in a new way that works for them both. Often, an actual separation is needed to fully let go of the old ways of being with each other.
Other couples reconcile because the sensations of being alone are too painful and scary. They reconcile, but they do not change. They pick up where they left off and go through another one or two cycles of reconciliation/breakup before the final separation.
BONDING CREATES STRONGER RELATIONSHIPS. COUPLES AND FAMILIES THAT HAVE A STRONG BOND, ARE MORE LIKELY TO SURVIVE BETTER.
People confuse love with bonding. Bonding does not equal love. Bonding occurs from spending time with each other, sharing a space/a home and their bodies as well as doing activities with another person/people and families. People bond in hate as well as love.
As I mentioned previously, few relationships are all bad. Even if there is only 10% good we still have to give up the good, as well as the bad. Often couples do not realise this, and they are not prepared for it when they separate. It is important to grieve the loss of positive caring, comfort of familiarity, and love that there is still there. People often state they love their partner like a family member but no longer have romantic/sexual feelings for their partner.
Usually, when partners separate they miss their partners because they are bonded, but they do not realise it. They will reconcile thinking they will try again, only to discover that the relationship has run its course. Then they separate permanently.
Managing Versus Processing
Unhealthy people manage painful sensations by blocking, distracting, minimising, drinking/drugging, etc. This prevents emotional healing and the painful sensations accumulate requiring more personal energy.
Healthy people breathe through the painful sensations; they breathe through the waves of the sensations which ultimately create new neural pathways that transcend the painful ones, precipitating new/different sensations.
When you experience creating new neural pathways, through insight, dreams, or just by breathing through the sensations, new sensations are precipitated and when you feel different you act differently.
When you let go of the outcome, things can ‘fall together’ in ways they cannot when you’re trying to control it.
What are we trying to control? We are usually trying to avoid feeling painful, unpleasant, terrifying feelings. But, it is not the feelings we’re trying to avoid, it’s the difficult sensations we are trying to avoid experiencing.
When people realise they can handle difficult feelings/sensations by breathing through them (processing them) instead of deflecting, blocking, and disconnecting from them, they can change in positive, healthy ways. They do what they want to do, and not do what they don’t want to do.
We have all experienced this kind of discomfort—starting at a new school, starting a new job, and moving into a new dwelling. At first, we experience discomfort and perhaps discombobulation. As we get used to it, we develop more and more neural pathways for the new experience, and gradually (sometimes quickly) we become comfortable with the change.
Personal Story:
I loved Vancouver from the first time I, age 22, set foot off the train at the Terminal Station. It was new and different but excitingly different. I welcomed it! It did not take long for me to feel “at home” in this strange, beautiful city.
How did we do that—feel at home? We often have no choice about it, or we choose to make the change, so we accept the discomfort, probably by breathing through the sensations and dreams at night, knowing it will get better. This means we already know how to do it. We need to transfer this skill set to other decisions in life. Thinking about leaving a relationship or a job is one thing, and taking action to do it is another.
Trauma
It is usually the unpleasant sensations that cause us problems in our lives. Trauma, per se, is a problem for sure. When we go through difficult experiences and have healed from them physically and emotionally, we are wiser for having overcome the difficulties. The experience makes us emotionally stronger. It gives us a sense of agency—a sense that we are capable of taking care of ourselves (and others). Once we have faced and processed difficult sensations, we know we can handle them if they ever happen again. This creates a sense that we can do what we want to do and not do what we do not want to do.
Panic Attacks:
A situation (real or imagined) in which you feel terrified, you experience sensations of fear so strong you fear you might die, have a heart attack, heartbreak, or destroy your life somehow or some way.
Once you have experienced a panic attack the sensations are so awful you never want to experience it again. So you try to avoid any situation, in which you might have one or even a lesser version of the sensations. This is trying to control the outcome (i.e., avoiding or stopping the feeling of terrifying dreadful sensations).
The problems stem from unhealed trauma that goes underground into our subconscious and festers there recreating variations of the original trauma. Mostly, these memories are hidden behind a protective screen of our psyche. What happens, is the person becomes developmentally and emotionally arrested at the age of the trauma. It is a survival mechanism to help our organism survive overwhelming, actual or witnessed events (e.g., a child gets scalded by hot soup on a stove, or a soldier witnessing atrocities while powerless to stop them).
Story:
A woman (age 35) came to see me. Her presenting problem was she wanted to have a family but she was unable to decide which man she wanted to have the family with. She had been married for 15 years, and for 12 of those years, she’d been having an affair. She said she’d tried to leave her husband but had not been able to and she’d tried to terminate her relationship with her lover and had failed. She said, “I don’t know why I’m doing this—it’s against my standards and values. Can you help me?”
I recommended that we explore her history. When doing this, she recalled for the first time, a memory.
She was 3 years old and attending the funeral of her 5-year-old sister. Her father had accidentally run over her when he was backing out of the driveway. She was aware of two big people on either side of her as she looked across the gravesite and saw the pain on her daddy’s face.
Somehow (I do not know how a brain can do this) this 3-year-old decided not to have children because it would be too painful if you lose them. It would not have been in a clear cognitive structure—this decision would be coded in painful difficult sensations.
Once we discovered the unhealed trauma, it helped her understand the function of her affair, what it was helping avoid made a crazy kind of sense to her. We targeted the painful sensations and healed her from the original event.
Big changes happened. She left her husband. Went off with her lover. That didn’t work out. Then reconciled with her husband, and the last time I saw her she was 8 months pregnant with a big smile on her face.
People who are stuck in their lives usually have unhealed trauma from an earlier time.
Therapy involves recovering the memories of trauma, if possible, and revisiting and healing them. What happens is that the part of their (emotional ) psyche that has been frozen in time and place, grows emotionally older until it reaches their current chronological age. The person no longer feels like or acts like a 3-year-old.
What to do differently?
- Embrace uncomfortable unpleasant sensations by breathing through them as they course in waves in your body. You will not die from them when you embrace them, although you may feel like you’re going to die.Avoid analysing or asking yourself why, who, when, what, and how—it no longer matters. It does not matter if they are real or irrational. What matters is that, in the here and now, you are feeling these difficult sensations. Just stay with them—breathe through them for as long as it takes. It may be a few minutes, hours, or days.See B’s book Let Go of the Outcome and Let Things Fall Together. Bea shares her story of how she handled a panic attack (page 1).
- Use comforting slogans to help you through the pain/terror.
Personal Story:
I remember after my divorce, when I first was on my own, sitting in my new home, that I was feeling so much psychological pain. I said to myself, “How can the world go on in its everyday way when I am in so much pain?” I know that is grandiose, but that is what I felt at that moment in time. I was ok with the break-up of my marriage, but I was in a lot of pain about the break-up of our family. This phrase helped me get through it.
“This too shall pass”.
When we feel different, we behave differently.
—Dr. Bea
For more information about processing emotions, see Bea’s book “Let Go of the Outcome and Let Things Fall Together”. https://beainbalance.com/book
Relationship Communication Skills: Put the Inside Outside
Put the Inside Outside is another communication skill that I teach clients in both individual and couples sessions.
When people talk to each other they often think thoughts or have feelings that they do not reveal to others. Most of the time this is perfectly OK. It certainly would not be appropriate to say everything one is thinking or feeling. Yet often, when more information is given there are fewer misunderstandings and a greater connection.
It can be as simple as letting others know you are feeling pressured for time. In a session with a client(s) if I’m running late, I often start to speak faster and may interrupt my clients, especially when working with couples. When I notice myself doing that I will say to clients, “The session is almost over and I’m feeling pressured for time to complete what we’re doing.” This helps them understand what is going on with me and lets them know that I’m not impatient with them. They experience how it feels to be informed and usually want to cooperate. I am also teaching them the skill of Put the Inside Outside by modeling it.
When working with couples I often find that partners do not let each other know what is going on inside of them, positive or negative. They do not give each other feedback. It leaves each partner guessing and hoping that the impact of what they said is what they meant.
Example: In a couples session.
Wife to husband, “I appreciate how you help with the kids when you get home.”
Husband, “Well I always do that.”
Dr. Bea, ” Your wife just told you something that she appreciated about you. What was that like?”
Husband, “What do you mean?”
Dr. Bea, “Well, did you like her telling you that?”
Husband, “Yeah, it felt good.”
Dr. Bea, “Let her know.”
Husband to wife, “It felt good to hear you appreciate what I do.”
Dr. Bea to wife, “What was it like to hear that from him.”
Wife, “It felt really good.”
We all laugh.
Often it is the simple things that people communicate to each other that can make a big difference in their communication and their connection with each other.
With care and concern,
Dr. Bea Mackay
Relationship Communication Skills: After the Fact
The After the Fact communication skill is one of the many communication skills that I teach my clients. It is a very useful skill that facilitates connection between partners.
Many clients tell me that during a discussion, argument, or fight they often cannot think of what to say in the moment but then later, they come up with what they could have or should have said. They find this very frustrating.
For some reason, spouses often think if they miss out on saying or doing something at the moment that nothing can be done. So they do nothing. Often they stew or ruminate about it but it does not occur to them that they could remedy the situation.
It is not always possible to think of what to say or do at the moment. Sometimes people are distracted by something or someone else. When people are anxious they often cannot think, so they say or do nothing. Or, they may blurt out something they don’t mean or something that is not even relevant. Sometimes people laugh in situations like this and the laughter is misunderstood.
In ongoing relationships, it is always possible to bring up an issue later. Later can be minutes, hours, days, or even years. This keeps the lines of communication open and strengthens the connection between couples.
Examples:
A while ago you said…to me. I was surprised and didn’t know what to say. Well, now that I’ve had a chance to think about it I…
You know yesterday when we were talking about…I kind of blurted out…I didn’t mean it. What I wished I’d said to you was…
I’ve been thinking about what we talked about last week, you know, about…I want to add…and let you know it’s important to me that…
It’s been a month since we had that fight about…It is still bothering me. Let’s talk about it again.
When we married (10 years ago) you said you never wanted to…I want to know if that is still true for you.
When people use the After the Fact communication skill frequently, the time between the incident and the delayed communication tends to shorten. Gradually, the time becomes so short that partners are better able to think of what they want to say or do what they want to do at the moment. It’s not essential to occur in the moment, After the Fact is just fine.
The After the Fact skill is extremely helpful to keep a couple emotionally connected with positive feedback and behaviors.
Examples:
I had a good time last night. (One partner to another about making love.)
You know, last week when we went to the concert I was so focused on getting there on time I didn’t tell you how great you looked.
The last time my parents were over you treated them well. I appreciate how welcome you made them feel.
While the After the Fact communication skill is really helpful for couples, it is also helpful in many other situations as well – parenting, work, and social interactions.
With care and concern,
Dr. Bea Mackay
