In today’s society, marriages face the war on three fronts:
- Disconnection
- Dysregulation
- Distorated Expections
Disconnection means that the signaliing from one person to the next is breaking down. The easiest communication signaled is to seek understanding. One would think that all you have to do is open your month. This is not always the case since couples are on a spectrum between being overly verbal in communication and less so. Then there is the embodiment of what is seen. As many studies have pointed out, non-verbal communcation is more effective. What is caught is usually better than what is taught. Nonetheless, the deeper challenge is emotional communcation. Practioners like Dr. Sue Johnson and Dr. John Gottman have created marital therapies that have more than 70% success rates. Psychotherapy that is emotionally focused assists couples to heal from the heart of the matter. Hence, it teaches them to have emotional, physical and spiritual closeness from the inside out.
Dysregulation shows that the couple has been facing trouble through poor stress management, conflict, and emotions. Couples could gain from marital coaching to choose more recreative activities that they enjoy together to lesson stressors. Of course, some form of physical exercise is chief among them. What a relief once individuals in marriage and the couple together began to release unnecessary stress and gain more emotional support through achieving the reward of new and healthy dopamine releases. Another way that couples can achieve more together is through couples mindfulness in therapy. Mindfulness begins when couples can relax together and get on the same wave length.
Distorated Expectations are grandiose beliefs that something should happen in the way that each individual in the coupleship envisions it. The expectation is out of shape and escapes reality of what is being required. These types of twisted anticipations often hinder the couple from actually learning from one another and encourage a cycle of more assumptions of how their relationship should remain. In situations where expectations are looming whether quietly or loudly, it leads to distrust, disappointment, and dashed hopes of whether the person for you is indeed for you. Honesty is the best policy. The couple can have conversations about expections and establish new building blocks with a psychotherapist, even for Solution-Focused Brief Therapy, that could yield results you want to see.
Remargo Yancie, LPC is a licensed therapist, a mental health and relationship counselor. Through Central Light Counseling, he provides quality psychotherapy and care. He has the privilege of working with leaders, influencers, and couples in their developments and journeys in life.