I’d been seeing a young couple for a number of weeks. To start with it was too difficult for them to be in the same room together so they joined the online meeting from different locations. But before too long they were beginning to connect more warmly. There they were, on my screen, sitting side by side.
I suggested that things seemed to be easier because they felt safer with each other, and how safety was at the heart of good communication.
“Safety…?” said the husband. “Oh, right. I hadn’t thought it of like that.”
What had clicked for him was the idea that you must feel secure before you can be vulnerable. Before you can open up and tell your partner what you’re feeling. This is a crucial part of making relationships better.
In his case it was because he had remembered traumatic experiences in his childhood, which in turn made him feel frightened and unsafe: he had seen the look in his partner’s eyes, heard the tone of her voice, and felt that churning fear… It might turn into an awful argument and then into days of agonising withdrawal and isolation.
Couples that come for counselling are generally not getting on: arguing, getting defensive, going silent, feeling despair about the future of the relationship. And they can’t talk about it because they’re afraid to. They don’t feel safe.
Let’s look at some other typical examples of feeling unsafe:
- Feeling anxious but being afraid of telling your partner in case you are dismissed or ignored
- Feeling angry and either shutting down and avoiding eye contact/conversation, or else exploding with frustration and finding that your partner then withdraws – which makes it worse
- Feeling a familiar sense of worthlessness, then becoming tearful, ashamed and afraid to mention it
- Feeling unheard and lonely and not knowing how to bring it up with your partner
- Feeling terrified/overwhelmed when you see that your partner simply doesn’t want to engage with you.
Common to all these is the feeling of disconnection, of isolation. And what you crave is connection, togetherness.
All humans want safety. When we are tiny babies we want the warmth, the food, the touch and presence of the caregiver to make us feel secure. When we’re little we want to be tucked up in bed so we feel safe before the darkness of night. When we’re grown up and in a relationship we need to feel someone is there for us, someone we can trust and share things with.
That person will listen to us when we need support and respond kindly and without judgment. They may well not have an “answer”. They may just give you a hug.
These loving responses calm our nervous systems, build up trust and start to heal fractured relationships.
And we reciprocate. That’s the two-way process we work on in couples counselling.
The goal is to bring a deep connection back to the couple. Naturally it takes time and effort (and tears) to go from the fearful sense of a broken relationship to the secure, safe feeling that we crave.
The process in the usual work I do (using Emotionally Focused Therapy) involves you listening carefully and respectfully to your partner’s experience of unhappiness and sharing what you have heard. You learn to be vulnerable too and open up to him/her your because you want to be heard and you want to heal.
Gradually the negative cycle of emotion that you have recognised in the relationship is overcome. And when it happens, you as a counsellor see the smiles, the sense of achievement, the optimism, the joy.
They are safe with each other again.
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