Marsha and David came to couples counseling after separation hoping to resolve the anger between them and reconcile.  They both agreed that the biggest problem in their marriage was anger.  In exploring her anger in therapy, Marsha was able to see the connection between her own explosive anger in the context of her upbringing and her father’s angry, abusive outbursts.  

As therapy progressed, David and Marsha explored the effects of 'anger' on their relationship and their desire to be free of it.   In Couples Therapy, Marsha realized it might help her to talk with and write to her father about their mutual struggles with anger and how he had finally overcome anger.  Marsha decided that she wanted to resolve the legacy of explosive anger, which kept her and David from the intimacy and communication they really wanted.  In therapy, Marsha learned about explosive anger's tricks and triggers and her awareness increased her ability to not allow anger to overtake her. 

As Marsha freed herself from explosiveness, she and David developed  a stronger connection and better communication.

Brooke and Steve came to couples therapy because they were caught up in fighting and confrontation.  They had each experienced emotional and physical abuse as children and brought that legacy to their relationship.  In couples counseling, we explored each of their negative ‘childhood legacies’ and the “mistrust” that stood between them.  Steve realized that he was re-creating the childhood struggles with his mother in his relationship with Brooke.  He also assumed a “mask of competency”, worn since childhood, which often kept him from intimacy with Brooke (see Article on website entitled “Boys to Men, Girls to Women: How our Culture Shapes Our Children for more on boys/men and this mask).  For her part, Brooke felt a deep mistrust of Steve, having learned in childhood that those closest to her could not be trusted.  Brooke had also watched her mother and father caught up in fighting and mistrust.

In our counseling sessions, we explored these childhood legacies and the influence that they had on their current relationship. When there was a disagreement, Steve became angry and Brooke closed down and could not tolerate continuing communication.  Ultimately, in therapy, Brooke and Steve were able to short-circuit fights by spotting when the ‘legacies’ were at work.  They then could move more easily into the present tense, rather than acting out old relation­ships in their disagreements. 

In their couples therapy, we worked on creating communication modules where they could take turns communicating, asking their partner to fully listen, as a close friend.  As I interviewed each of them, we were able to create conversations of connection and intimacy, rather than distance and shut-down.  This also encouraged them to expand their ability to listen to each other.  In couples therapy, part of our work was to explore the hopes, dreams and intentions they had at the outset of their relationship.  What brought them together?  What, even in tough times, continued to bring them together to make each feel unequivocally that the other loved them.  We explored how they had not lost sight of this love even in the hardest times. 

One of the other major areas we worked on was the power of ‘relationship repair’ (see article in Articles section for more information).  According to Dr. John Gottman, relationship researcher and author of The Seven Principles for Making Relationships Work, the single most important factor in couples creating and maintaining a successful relationship is their ability to repair their relationships.  It is not the ability to find agreement, but rather the ability to let the disagreement go and return to their care and love of each other that is the key.  As Brooke and Steve’s ability to communicate; tolerate difference; and spot when the ‘legacies’ were running improved - so did their skills in repairing after disagreements.