I’m in Love… How Can I Heal My Relationship?
Written By: Jaime Allen, AMFT #163181
Supervised By: Andre Sy, LMFT #136608
We dream our whole lives to find that special person… that soulmate. We want the fairytale. We are raised to idealize it and strive for it. Feeling truly nurtured and understood can be experiences that we rarely find. When our relationship is going well, everything seems beautiful and perfect. But when our relationship is suffering, it can be terrifying. And when love feels so sacred and aloof, it can feel like holding onto it is the only thing we want to do. When we are attached and our hearts are invested, we just want to find the answers to save it.
True love is the ideal but others of you are here for more practical reasons. You need to make your relationship work because you have kids together. You share a house together. Financial obligations and children are two of the primary motivators of why people don’t just break-up, they try therapy.
Relationships feel so complicated but that’s because no one ever teaches you in school how to be a good partner. We want love so much but no one ever teaches us how to love someone… not really. We study math and history and art but nobody teaches us in High School how to repair after a fight… how to respond to your girlfriend’s need for connection, how to respond to your boyfriend’s specific need for affection… what makes your wife feel seen… what makes your husband feel appreciated. No one ever shows us how to communicate effectively so that we can get to the heart of what your person really wants. Some couples go their whole lives without ever getting their needs met and they think that they just have to deal with it. And that’s heartbreaking.
Fortunately, there is a real science behind what makes relationships work. Dr. John Gottman and his wife Julie Gottman spent decades observing thousands of couples to understand committed love. They would notice how lovers interacted with each other - what they did that was helpful and created closeness and what they did that was destructive and eroded partnership. They learned how people responded emotionally, what triggered them, and predicted which couples would make it and which ones would divorce. They became so educated and so accurate that they created the Gottman Institute in Seattle, Washington. In this economy, you might find it unrealistic to visit them but don’t worry. The good news is that you can still use these tips tonight. Here are some practical ways to strengthen your relationship.
Habits That Hurt Relationships
In the beginning of your relationship, it was probably really easy to treat your partner well. They were perfect, right? But over time, you started to see their flaws, there were fights, you felt unloved… life got in the way. When we are hurt or frustrated, we are not as careful with our loved one’s feelings and they wound us too. Sometimes it’s easy to know when we cross the line. Major betrayals, abuse or big acts of disrespect are easy to recognize because they are obvious. But it’s much harder to understand the more subtle habits that slowly push our partner away. Most times we don’t understand why we have fallen out of love with each other, it seems to just happen mysteriously. One day, they just tell us that they have been unhappy for a long time and they leave. Or we wonder why we aren't in love with our partner anymore when we used to be so in love. We didn’t know that for years, these habits were happening in our relationship and slowly breaking it.
It all boiled down to how we talk to each other. Gottman identified four main behaviors that damage trust in our connection. He called them The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse because these negative communication patterns end relationships and can make you feel like your whole world fell apart. They are: Criticism, Contempt, Defensiveness and Stonewalling.
Criticism: attacking who they are as a person instead of talking about what they are doing.
Contempt: using sarcasm, rolling your eyes, making fun of them, sighing loudly, or acting superior to them.
Defensiveness: when we don’t admit that we did something wrong so that we can protect ourselves from bad consequences.
Stonewalling: shutting down, giving the silent treatment, ignoring your person or emotionally withdrawing.
(Side Note: Stonewalling is not the same as saying that you need to take a temporary time-out for an hour or two in order to calm down. Taking a time out is good and is a helpful way to calm down a conflict when an argument is getting out of control.
How to take a “Time Out” in your relationship:
You notice that you are getting emotional. You tell your partner that you need a break to calm down and set a reasonable amount of time to do this. You remove yourself from the room and do a self-soothing activity for 20 minutes to an hour. Then, you return to the room and continue talking to your partner. You don’t excessively avoid your partner and you only take a “time out” for yourself. It is only for the purpose of calming down. You do not tell your partner that they need to take a “time out.” This is only to regulate your own emotions.)
Reading this list might bring up a lot of feelings for you. It’s natural to feel grief, remorse, anger or shame when we learn vulnerable hard truths. Luckily, this new perspective can be the first step in saving your relationship. And that’s what we all want to do at the end of the day. We all just want to have peace and to be close again. When we learn how to identify these patterns, we get to have real power. If you have ever felt helpless because relationships always end or people always leave, it can be really empowering and a new sense of safety to know that there are ways to break the patterns and prevent this from happening over and over again. Because you are not always doomed to lose relationships in your life. You can have healthier interactions with your partner.
The Emotional Bid
Sometimes we can be in a relationship and feel like we are the only one who cares. Everytime we reach out to our partner, they are too busy. When we feel insecure, we try to get reassurance only to be rejected. And trying to get emotional closeness while we are in a fight is the hardest of all. That is where we can feel the most lonely. That can feel like the scariest time. So how do we connect with our partner when we are crying out for love, especially during the tough moments?
A key concept that Gottman teaches about is called “the emotional bid.” It’s when we try to get our partner’s attention so they will connect with us and give us love. We might reach out in small ways by asking to spend time together, wanting to cuddle and hold hands, asking about their day. Sometimes we try to get love by being louder. That’s when we scream, cry, threaten to leave, act out, try to make them jealous… positive and negative behaviors can all ask for love. We need to know that we matter especially to the person we love. When we ask for connection and our partner meets it, it’s healing. It strengthens our relationships. And it’s so needed. Especially during the times when connecting to your partner is inconvenient or when we are triggered.
Gottman talks about “Turning Towards Your Partner” even when we are fighting and when we feel unloved by them. These are the times when the relationship is the most fragile and therefore it’s the most important time to hold the connection together. Sometimes a fight can break-up a relationship. It’s also when it’s the hardest time to connect with them because this is when our brains see our partner as the threat. When we fight, we don’t feel like partners anymore… we feel like enemies. Because of this, we naturally will try to protect ourselves. We will yell at them, try to destroy the enemy with mean words. We will run away from them to try to distance ourselves from the heartbreak. And we will freeze and shut down just to shelter ourselves. But turning towards our partner can reprogram us to preserve our connection and remind our brain that they are not the enemy. They are cherished. We love them and we are loved. It trains our brain to still find safety in them when we want to oppose them, run from them or shut off all the lights inside. These emotional bids can build and sustain trust and intimacy.
So how do we do it?
Conflict Isn’t the Enemy
Healthy couples argue. That’s normal. The difference is in how you handle it.
Gottman talks a lot about something called “The Repair.” The reason why it’s healthy to fight in a relationship is because it’s a form of communicating how you feel and what you need. Sometimes we don’t feel safe to communicate our needs until things have built up so much that we explode. Sometimes we tell them over and over and over again and feel unheard or nothing is being done about it.
Here are a few main reasons of why we fight with someone we love:
We have an unmet need that has gone unaddressed
We are asking for love in a certain way and it is not happening
Our life goals or values are clashing
We don’t feel understood
We don’t feel emotionally safe
We feel rejected, unimportant, controlled, criticized or judged.
The problem with most arguments is that people don’t know how to fight (communicate) effectively so most of the time, fighting turns into unproductive loops. And then if you add name calling and insults to the mix, it moves the conversation away from the unmet needs and into a place where no one is hearing each other anymore. Also, a fight that lasts ten minutes will have a different effect on your nervous system than a fight that lasts all day long or even weeks or months. Most couples in long-term relationships will recycle the same fight over and over because there has been no resolution to it. Without a solution, couples will eventually dread any conversation with each other because any interaction could and most likely does lead to the same repetitive fight. After enough time, couples start avoiding each other or acting out. Eventually, one person has the courage and strength to end the relationship altogether.
The Power of Repair: Finding Your Way Back To Each Other
So how does this stranger that used to be your soulmate get past this? Gottman talks about a very powerful solution: The Repair. You can fight as long as you repair the connection afterwards. That is the key to maintaining deep passionate love in a long-term commitment. Repairing after disagreements starts with apologizing, validating your partner, taking accountability for your part, and then refocusing on your connection, is what keeps relationships strong. You can improve your relationship by doing just five things. Here are a few examples of some simple things to say that can make a big difference:
Apologizing
“I’m sorry - I can see how I hurt you.”
“I didn’t handle that well.”
“I love you and I’m not talking to you the way I want to be talking to you. Can I start over?”
Validating Your Partner
“I can understand why you feel that way.”
“That makes sense.”
“Thank you for telling me.”
Taking Accountability
“I didn’t handle that well.”
“You’re right.”
“I’m not proud of how I handled that.”
Refocusing On Your Connection
“We’re on the same team.”
“I don’t know how we are going to get through this, but we will figure it out together.”
“I don’t want to fight with you, I want to be on the same side.”
Coming Back Together After A Fight
“Can I give you a hug?”
“Can we start over?”
“Thank you for talking this out with me.”
“I love you.”
Remember, when you try these techniques, it’s important to be sincere and genuine even if it’s hard. It’s ok to struggle. You’re trying. For me, something that helps me during and after a big fight is reminding myself that I love them and that they are my best friend. I don’t want to talk to my best friend the way I do when I am speaking out of anger. I don’t want to hurt them, I want to nurture them. Remembering that helps me calm down and change my language. Repair doesn’t mean having perfect conversations. It means coming back to each other after a period of tension.
Two Bonus Habits That Will Strengthen Your Relationship
The Gentle Startups: Begin sensitive conversations calmly, without blame. It can help to soften the beginning with a genuine compliment or a soothing touch. Starting with kindness instead of criticism is hard, but it will help your partner hear you and stay open to your feedback. This will help your partner be receptive to what you have to say.
“I love you and there’s been something that’s important to me that I’ve been thinking about. When is a good time to talk about it together?”
“I love how supportive you are and that’s one of the reasons why I love you so much. Can I talk to you about something that has been on my mind?”
Express Appreciation: Share things you value about your partner. Most of the time, they don’t know how we appreciate them, what we are grateful to them for, what we admire most about them - and it can really warm their hearts to hear it. Sometimes it can make their whole day. Everyone wants to feel seen and be valued.
“I want you to know that I really appreciate how hard you work for this family.”
“I was thinking about how lucky I am to have you. Thank you for everything you do for me.”
You can adjust these examples to fit your real relationship and their real attributes. Small, consistent changes like these build trust and emotional safety over time.
You Can Apply These Tips To Everyone In Your Life
You can also take these ideas and improve other relationships in your life. They will strengthen your friendships, your relationships with your family, even how you get along with people at work. These universal truths will help you understand people emotionally, which makes all relationships healthier.
There Is Hope
I’m really glad that you are ready to improve your relationship. It’s not easy. You will feel triggered and clumsy at first. But keep trying and keep practicing with your partner. I’ve personally seen many relationships improve when both people want to work together. My favorite part about doing couples therapy is that I can literally see the love in the room. Even when they are at odds with each other - even when most people would ask, “Why are these two people even still together?” The love in the room tells me why. And if there is love, there is always hope.
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