Couple Support

How Is Your Tolerance for Tender Moments?

Do You Share Tender Moments with Your Partner?

Tender couple moments are usually moments that are at least somewhat vulnerable for both partners. "Tender" is open, soft, heartfelt, accessible. That says vulnerable to me. Is fear of vulnerability the reason that many couples don't share tender moments?

The couples that come for relationship counseling seem, at least in the beginning, to have a particular aversion for shared tender moments. Not surprisingly. They have typically hurt each other and been hurt by other relationships, back to childhood. Being soft, open and feeling-full in each other's presence is too scary.

As the counselor, I watch each of them at times reach out to the other in a tender way. Invariably, the potential recipient either misses the overture, and the opportunity passes, or does see the possibility of a tender response to a tender reaching out - and turns it down.

Here are some potential tender moments. I'm going to run through them twice. The first time, the offer is declined - no tender moment. The second time, the offer is accepted. Note your feelings as you read each set. What do you notice in yourself?

* One searches for eye contact, the other doesn't meet the gaze.
* One compliments, the other fails to say thank you or show any warmth.
* One touches, the other flinches.
* One speaks gently and softly, the other responds coldly.
* One moves closer, the other pulls away.
* One says "I'd really like..." The other says, "I don't think so."

¥ Now the opposite response. What do you feel this time?

* One searches for eye contact, the other joins. They hold each other's gaze.
* One compliments, the other says warmly, "Thank you for saying that."
* One touches, the other smiles and accepts the touch
* One moves closer, the other does also. They nestle against each other.
* One says, "I'd really like..." The other says, "I'd like that, too."

Please comment on this post. I'd welcome your reaction.

Where is Your Relationship on the “Brightness/Dullness” Scale?

I remember a client once saying about her marriage, “The brightness  is beginning to fade.” The remark stayed with me. “Brightness”  – could we say that it’s a necessary ingredient in a successful  relationship?

To me “brightness” suggests energy, aliveness, spark. The opposite  would be dullness - an absence of energy, deadness, a lack of spark.

If my marriage was all brightness, I’d probably be looking for a  break. Too “on,” too exhausting. On the other hand, if my marriage  was never bright, I’d be worried that it was still alive. Either my wife or I would do something to spark things up for sure.

My guess is that every marriage or couple relationship is overall  bound to have many more dull exchanges than bright ones. Why? Bright  takes a lot more energy than dull. And the energy of most people –  at least those with a job and/or children at home – is pretty well  depleted by the time they get around to the relationship.

But relationships with no brightness – perish the thought!

Here’s an idea: Conduct your own brightness/dullness inventory. For  a few days classify every encounter between you and your partner as  either bright (energy) or dull (no energy). In particular, note the  bright/energetic encounters. What were you two doing at the time –  fighting? having a good conversation? laughing together? making love?  enjoying a walk in the woods?

Keep those bright, energized encounters, and add to them whenever you  can. They are key to the relationship staying alive and growing.

Where Do You Go When You Are Under Attack?

Disputes in many marriages and couple relationships tend to be really unsatisfying events - not because partners yell at each other but because no resolution comes from all that output of energy. Nothing gets settled: It was all a waste of time. Why?

Resolution takes one person listening when the other is speaking. It also takes two people sufficiently temperate to be interested in resolution and in control enough to pursue it.

In most disputes there aren't two people available for anything like resolution. One person is attacking, or so it seems, and the other person is busy protecting herself or himself. What do people do when they feel under attack? Here are some possibilities:

* They go into hiding. (Go into your cave. Roll a boulder across the entrance. Sit inside, not saying a word. Wait for the storm to pass. Then come out.)

* They get their spear and shield and go on the attack themselves. The dispute quickly becomes attack, counterattack, countercounterattack - a noisy blur, convenient in the sense that each can "justifiably" blame the other.

* They immediately go to a "you're right, I'm guilty" place. Surrender. Assume complete blame. "It's all my fault. I apologize." Such people hate argument and are willing to falsely acknowledge a responsibility that isn't theirs if doing so stops the fight.

The difficulty with all of these "defend myself" stratagems is that they fail completely if what is needed is for each partner to hear the other out, then work together for a resolution that is genuinely acceptable to both. Takes time, but so does fighting that settles nothing.

I Just Want Her to Be Happy

"What are you looking for?" the counselor asks the couple at their first session. The wife has a list of changes that she wants. The husband says, "I just want her to be happy." Why the difference between what she wants and he wants? More specifically, why does the husband apparently want so little?

Speaking cynically, "I just want her to be happy" could mean "I want her out of my hair with her misery. Doctor, doctor just make her stop."  If that were the case - and sometimes it is - we could assume that the husband wants little or nothing from the marriage, except for his wife's noisy unhappiness to stop - because he isn't really in the relationship. His concern is limited to securing peace and quiet for himself.

Another possibility: The husband long ago ceded the marriage to his wife. She can talk about feelings. She understands relationship. He is too relationship ignorant and incapable, he thinks, to have any legitimate wants or needs of his own. She is the important person here. He wouldn't think of trespassing on her domain; hence "I just want her to be happy."

And another possibility: Past experience with his wife has shown the husband  that it is simply not safe for him to have real needs of his own with her. He used to complain, he used to object - and got nowhere. His complaints were not legitimate. His needs were unfair or insulting to his wife. He was wrong - every time. So the husband stopped expressing his needs and, in fact, did his best not to have any.

The counselor working with this couple would need to support the husband in having needs of his own in the relationship and in expressing them. He would need to support the wife in respecting her husband's needs. He would need to honor the loneliness that they both had suffered. He would need to work with both spouses in finding common positive goals for their relationship - and in working together to realize them.