What You Need Is Friends

So often, when couples come to therapy, they’re in a really difficult place, spending years re-enacting the same dysfunctional script.

One of the common threads linking many of the couples who come in the most deeply entrenched in painful, unhelpful scripts is a lack of meaningful support outside the relationship, whether from family or friends.

When we’re feeling overwhelmed, we need support. We need people who are able to listen, help us to find meaning in our most difficult emotions.  We need people who can discern when to be quiet and when to offer reflection.  We need people who won’t immediately offer us their version of solutions, but can help us to find our own way.

Since our chosen partner is literally the person we chose to be closest with, we tend to rely on this one person to help us with so many of our emotional needs.

We ask so much of one person in our lives… and it’s far too much.

What tends to happen is that members of a couple vent to process difficult emotions about each other--frustration, exasperation, anger--to each other.  Unfortunately, if there’s one person who really can’t help you process your emotions that are triggered by your partner, it’s your partner. 

Hearing our partner vent their frustration with us is painful, often too painful to hold. The more we feel bombarded by criticism, the more defensive responses become entrenched as normal responses. It’s a vicious cycle.

To break this cycle, we need help.

I am a voracious reader, and one of the best books I have read this year is “Everything Is Tuberculosis,” by John Green.  In one story early in the book, he speaks about the mother of a TB patient as being “woven into the social fabric.”  This image struck me as being so important: human beings are social creatures, and we are meant to be connected with and supported by each other. And yet, how unusual it is to find someone actually woven into that fabric.

One person is not fabric. One person can be a wonderful thread.

If you struggle to find your tribe, your people with whom you feel connected, you are not alone.  In the world we have built, finding connection truly is hard.

And, for the health of your partnership, it’s really important to have at least one person with whom we can process difficult feelings about the relationship.  To start with, that can be a trained professional, such as a therapist or a coach.  In the long term, I aim to help my clients find and build social networks… to find their fabric and invest in strengthening it.

If you’re struggling in your relationship, couples therapy can be wonderfully helpful.  Individual therapy can be just as important--especially if you don’t have someone with whom you feel safe sharing difficult things.  Therapist, friend, or family, it’s important to have as much support as we can in our concerns to tackle difficult things.

Any support you can find is likely to help.