Why Your Partner Needs Therapy, But You Don't.
Transcript:
When a couple's relationship is going well, differences are affirmed and celebrated. one partner brings an excitement; the other brings a calm. One brings a closeness for intimate bonding; the other creates space for renewing desire. Partners move back and forth with each other in a dance, and find a way to make differences work for the relationship.
But under stress those same differences end up splitting and taking sides in each partner. Now, excitement feels like a neediness to the other and calm feels like a an indifference or a disregard. Closeness feels like a suffocating pressure, and and space feels like an abandonment.
This isn't a problem with one of the partners but a split involving both. One is anxious and outwardly upset; the other is anxious but inwardly overwhelmed. One is angry and shouting; the other is expressionless and quiet. One seems to overreact; the other seems to under react. One expresses their emotion trying to bring back a connection or a closeness; the other disconnects from emotion trying to bring back a calm or peacefulness.
Now, on the surface it appears that one partner is upset and out of control, and the other is calm and in control. But both partners are anxious. One experiences it outwardly and the other experiences it inwardly. And the the more one partner goes up in emotion, the more the second partner goes down in emotion. The more the first person partner gets angry and shouts and criticizes, the more the second person withdraws is quiet and shuts down. And the more the second partner shuts down the more it feels like a rejection to the first partner and the more upset they become. The more upset they become, the more overwhelming it is to the to the second partner, and the more they withdraw.
Each partner is reacting to the other, and things escalate. Now here's the thing: If only one partner shows up for therapy it tends to be the one who's angry and shouting, the one who seems to overreact, the one who expresses their emotion outwardly, the one who appears to be out of control, and anxious.
But the other partners inner anxiety may be causing just as much stress to the relationship. Because it's inward it's hard to see this difference.
May be why it appears that your partner needs therapy but you don't
All too often, it seems that it's just one partner that's responsible for stress in the relationship. But in dynamics like this, therapy serves the relationship best when both partners show up for the work.
Years ago i showed up to couples therapy thinking that i was mostly there to support my anxious partner. I was more surprised than she was to find out why there was so much stress in our relationship.
