When Attraction Turns Sour: How Best to Restore Love in Your Relationship
People fall in love with a person with the opposite temperament to them. It’s challenging when the very thing we like about them becomes a turn off to us. For example, his quiet, seemingly steadfast and reliable nature becomes dull. And alternatively, her outgoing and flamboyant personality begins to feel noisy and irresponsible.
How to Resolve The Downfall
I support both partners to bring an attitude of curiosity and/or compassion to be with the other’s trauma pattern stemming from their family of origin. For example, a partner with a feisty and open personality leans forward to talk about their relationship struggle. She is met with his quiet brooding nature triggers her abandonment.
Therapist Treats The Conflict
My tracking and contacting of both partners’ levels of activation raises their awareness of what they both are contributing to the conflict.
Stage The Conflict Moment
I ask the couple to role play their typical conflict moment in the therapy room to be able to study how their behaviour triggers them. The trigger ‘his quiet brooding eye gaze’ is studied in the present moment. And I ask her, “when he is quiet and brooding, what happens inside you in your thoughts, feelings and body? Is this when you feel dropped?”
“Yes, I feel a panic in my heart and my hyperarousal state is activated and I want to leave the room.”
Resources Used to Interrupt The Trauma Response
I say, “as your body feels a panic of hyperarousal with fast breath and fast heart beat lets find a resource to slow down your activation to interrupt your trauma response.” We can find a self-regulation or co-regulation resource to help you manage. For example, does placing a hand to your heart or placing your hand on his knee soothe you and bring calm to your body to slow down the panic to be able to study how his facial presentation is activating for you? These resources will help to interrupt her trauma response which is to leave the room and the relationship.
Our work is to normalize their trauma responses to each other. Each partner comes to know each other’s trauma as a team effort because you are in each other’s care seeking the same goal of being in a secure attached relationship. As you raise your awareness of each other’s triggers your behaviour becomes more conscious and you can prevent the conflict from happening. We come to realise that our partner’s behaviour is not done on purpose to hurt us, but rather done because we are both stuck in a trauma response. The trauma response feels like a threat. When we feel threatened by our partner’s behaviour it feels like we may die if they leave us or hurt us.
Successful Couples Therapy
It is heartening to be present to couples healing when the partner threatening to leave turns to him and says, “I don’t want to leave you … I do want to be with you.” The partner receiving these words cries with relief and becomes more engaged and alive to her. As her need to leave tappers off with a new found body resource such as placing a hand to her heart or her hand to his knee, bringing a calm she stops lashing out at him verbally or physically leaving him. Conversely his pent-up resentment and blocked self-expression is brought to a halt and their eyes can meet reinvigorating a feeling of commitment and a new found hope.
Interregulation known as co-regulation involving eye to eye contact or other kinds of somatic resources can result in a lowering of the partners’ hyper and hypoarousal which interrupts the trauma pattern of their relationship dynamic. She or he can then turn to their partner and ask them how do you feel and what do you need from me to enable you to trust me again and feel love for me like we use to feel when we first started living together.
Couples work is rewarding for both clinician and couple as they learn together as a team to differentiate their true selves from their trauma.