Do you ever feel like you're living with a stranger rather than the person you married?  Or like you are fighting an endless battle over nothing in particular with increasing disconnection?

I promise that you are not alone - those feelings come up for many people in long-term relationships and marriage.  We try to talk about the stuff in life that needs to be ironed out - content like finances, kids, or extended family, but we get derailed not because of the subject matter, but because of the feelings that come up underneath.  

It's normal to go through phases of feeling like you can't connect - where everything feels like an effort.

The truth is, most of us can get into 'negative cycles' in our relationships that are exacerbated during stressful times.  By negative I mean that we begin to misread each other, make assumptions based on the body language or tone of the other, and end up feeling unsafe and shut down as a result.  

We sometimes create just what we don't want, increasing disconnection.  This is because we can begin to experience our partner as a scary tiger based on what we see on the surface.  Ironically, we are often surprised to find out what is happening for our partner underneath: their unspoken fears, hurts, and misunderstandings.  So we react - based on what we initially see as a growling tiger, without seeing the scared bunny rabbit underneath.  

The goal is to learn to talk with each other from the bunny place, the place that is soft and vulnerable.  The catch is that you need to feel safe enough to dare to do that.  Ironically, the closer you feel with your partner, even though it can feel scary, the safer you actually are.  

We tend to create disconnection and hardened defenses (anger and withdrawal) in order to feel safe, but it actually makes us feel more alone and less resilient.  It also feeds the 'negative cycle'. 

Coming to know that cycle like a team investigating a phenomena, working together to understand and defeat it, is a bonding experience in itself.  The immediate result is that we tend to feel more bonded and supported, with a common goal.  The more transparent and safe we feel, the less assumptions we tend to make about the other.  Starting to see the world through our partner's eyes and thereby daring to give them the benefit of the doubt.  

From there the results are plentiful: we can find our way back to one-another more easily and swiftly.  This closeness and safety inevitably brings with it less effort in communicating, and most importantly, a secure and lasting connection.  

The Blame-Avoid Cycle is an offshoot of the distanced-pursuer dynamic that is common in partnerships.  The pursuer tends to blame while the avoider evades being blamed by withdrawing.  

Without being checked, these cycles can snowball and rigidify, each person setting off the other while strengthening their respective positions.  Say Brian has a habit of blaming and criticizing Susan, she will feel hurt and angry from his constant attacks.  Susan will probably go into her shell, avoiding him in order to get away from the blame.  But Brian participates in the blame cycle because he covers up his more vulnerable feelings by criticizing her.  Underneath the blame, he has likely been feeling neglected by Susan for some time now.  He probably feels alone, frustrated, and rejected by her withdrawal.

So which comes first, the chicken or the egg?  Neither - each partner's participation in the dynamic feeds off the other, creating a balanced, but steady intensification of the cycle.  

There are plenty of assumptions at play here.  Brian believes that Susan's withdrawal is rejection; he may wonder if she loves or finds him attractive anymore.  Susan, on the other hand, feels bewildered, confused, and helpless because it seems that whatever she does is not enough.  In her mind, she gets criticized and attacked no matter what.  She avoids Brian further because she doesn't know how to make him happy.

Gaining understanding of the feelings beneath each partner's reactions can soften respective positions.  This creates more empathy, less reactivity, and ultimately a turn-around of the negative cycle.  Once the cycle softens, there is room for awareness and self-responsibility.  For example, by listening to his/her partner's feelings, the blamer begins to realize that the avoider actually just feels helpless and afraid - attack is actually part of what is driving him or her away.  The avoider understands that the blamer is actually just craving contact and validation, that he or she longs for connection but is expressing it poorly.  This begins to shift the position of the avoider, who can begin to take risks by being more open and assertive.  This is an obvious but initially scary way of making clear contact with the pursuer.  

From this, trust has a chance to build - the pursuer blames less because there is more contact from the avoider who is now speaking up more.  Positive cycles begin to form and the relationship regenerates trust and connection once again.

Insight meditation - the type that has it's roots in Buddhism - has recently become well-known in the Western mainstream.  It is recognized mainly as an empirically backed stress-reduction technique, but it is so much more than that.  Not only is relaxation and less stress a side effect of mediating, but it can help to slow down repetitive thoughts enough to understand and gain some necessary distance from them.  The basic message of insight meditation is: 'allow whatever arises, don't push it away or try to hold onto it, simply nod to it like you would to someone you are used to passing on the street.' 

The reality is that we are accustomed to have many thoughts that are repetitive, some can be debilitating and negative.  The ability to slow down those thoughts and question their validity is a basic tenet of both insight meditation as well as aspects of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy.   

The practice of insight meditation is to allow whatever experience is there to pass through your awareness, or even hang out for a bit if it wants to.  Simply noticing these thoughts and feelings leads you to begin to understand yourself a whole lot better.  It helps to develop the capacity to gain some objectivity by witnessing the thoughts and thereby choosing which you would like to cultivate and believe, and which you would rather set aside. 

To understand your thoughts for what they are means that you begin to know them - often swirling judgements, plans, memories, fears, etc, going around and around.  When we are "identified" with those thoughts, whatever they are, we naturally believe them.  So if you have a recurring judgement about yourself or a chronic expectation of yourself in relationship to others, then you naturally believe it without even noticing that the thought occurred.  You end up feeling sad or scared, without understanding that the feeling most likely came from a negative, judgmental, or worrisome thought.  

When you start to slow down the process of thought and become more of an objective observer of it, then you can begin to see that your thoughts don't define you.  They are often not even based on reality, but are just subtle messages that you may have picked up from relatives, teachers, friends, etc.  When you begin to separate from the thoughts and gain some objectivity, you realize that the resulting feelings also change.  In other words, why be sad, fearful, or depressed when you are not believing negative thoughts about yourself?  Insight meditation can help you to become your own therapist by learning to gain more awareness and thereby control over your mind.  What a relief! 

For more on Insight meditation, here's a great user friendly book I highly recommend by Jon Kabat-Zinn:  Review - Wherever You Go There You Are

Couples are complex and unique in the way that they function and what roles partners take on.  Traditional couples therapy has generally focused on the Freudian model of how childhood issues affect each partner in the relationship.  This methodology can be time-consuming, while leaving less room for the couple’s interactions based in the reality of every-day life. 

When partners seek counseling, it is not only more effective, but more alive to focus on real-time discussion during therapy.  As a result, each person in the relationship can express the nature of their needs and grievances while learning to listen to and understand the other.  These may have been suppressed due to fear of conflict or other concerns.  Couples can learn to become increasingly honest with one-another – this in itself creates intimacy and trust when done in the safe space of therapy.  In other words, the therapist acts as a catalyst to careful discovery and real-time expression of subjects that may be unresolved in the relationship.

This doesn’t mean that childhood issues are never included.  However, what is happening in the present time, how and why thoughts and feelings are not expressed, and assumptions made by each partner can often more efficiently be worked with in the present.

Because people are so unique, couples have their own dynamics that are best understood as their style of communication unfolds.  These interactions are full of interest, life, and patterns to be understood and shifted.  The focus on getting things done in therapy is often a relief to people, as it doesn’t need to take years to make lasting changes in communication and intimacy.  This approach can be extremely effective, especially for highly motivated couples who are willing to look deeply and honestly at patterns and communication styles that may be hampering intimacy.