Well, that’s a big question. And I love it, because it means you’re curious enough to actually consider it might help.
Let me tell you what I think actually happens, when it’s done well.
First, there’s some organizing. We’re just getting on the same page, the three of us. You, your partner, and me. What is actually going on here? What is the emotional system you two have created together? Because here’s the thing most people don’t realize when they walk in the door. The conflict you’re having? It’s never just one person’s fault. Both of you are creating this loop together, this negative cycle that keeps spinning. And until someone names it clearly, you’re both just stuck in it, blaming each other for the spin.
Then there’s another type of session where we slow everything way down and we go looking at what is actually happening right now. Not what you think is happening. Not your story about your partner. What is actually happening inside you, and inside them, in real time. Three scientists together, just trying to understand the data.
And then the third kind of session, the one that people don’t expect, the one that can feel like you’re going under water, is when we actually go through it. Not over it, not under it, not around it. Through it. You know that kids’ book, “We’re Going on a Bear Hunt”? Oh no, we can’t go over it, we can’t go under it, we can’t go around it. We have to go through it. That’s emotionally focused couples therapy right there.
Because what’s really happening underneath most fights is this. Both of you are actually scared. Scared the other person isn’t there for you. Scared you’re not enough for them. Those are the two sides of wounding in love that I see over and over again. One person asking, “Are you there for me? Where did you go?” And the other person asking, “Am I enough? Am I a disappointment to you?”
And when those two fears are bumping into each other in the dark, without anyone to hold a light, you get a cycle. You get distance, withdrawal, criticism, pursuit. You get the same fight on repeat with different furniture.
What couples therapy does, when it’s done well, is it brings you both down into the real pain underneath all of that noise. Not to drown you in it. But because that’s actually where the connection lives. That’s the fertile ground. And most people spend their whole lives doing everything they can to stay away from that place, which is why it usually takes a third party to help you get there.
My job is basically to be the person in the boat with you. You look at that river and you think, we are better off going over it, around it, under it. I look like an Irish Shrek, I’ll be honest with you. But I have done this thousands of times and I know how to get you both to the other side without letting you drown.
That’s what happens in couples therapy, when it really works.
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Figs is a licensed marriage and family therapist with 16+ years of experience working with couples. He’s the co-founder of Empathi, host of the “Come Here to Me” podcast, and author of an upcoming book on relationships and the systems that shape how we love.
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