Dueling Baggage: The Parallel Journey

Family History – Alex and AlisonAlex was 12 when his father walked out, leaving him and his three younger sisters. His mom, who had previously stayed at home, worked two jobs to make ends meet. Being the oldest and the only male in the household, Alex assumed many adult responsibilities throughout his adolescent years, including cooking and helping his sisters with homework.When Alex started to drive, he went to work to bring in extra money for the family. Though he missed the partying and freedom that his peers had, he felt good about being able to take care of the family.Alison’s family history was even more traumatic. She never knew her father. Her mother was alcoholic and had a series of boyfriends as Alison was growing up. As a young adolescent, Alison was molested by one of her mother’s boyfriends. She never revealed the abuse to her mom for fear that her mom wouldn’t believe her.Being an only child and having few close friends, Alison spent much of her time alone or taking care of her mother. To earn money, she babysat for the three kids next door though she didn’t really enjoy taking care of children and often felt overwhelmed.The BeginningWhen Alison and Alex met it was “love at first sight.” There was an immediate attraction and they enjoyed the same activities. For the first time, Alison felt there was someone she could depend on, since Alex was so responsible and always put her needs first.Alex appreciated Alison’s maturity and her willingness to open up to him. He was the first person she had ever told about the sexual abuse. He enjoyed the feeling that Alison depended upon him and described him as her “knight in shining armor.”Marriage and KidsAlison and Alex married and within four years had two very young children. After the birth of their second child, Alison stopped working to stay home. She often felt overwhelmed and anxious, and was worn out by the end of the day.Alex worried about being able to support the family on one income and worked hard to make ends meet. Most days, he came home and made dinner for the family to give Alison a break. In the evening, Alex drank a couple beers to relax. Despite the fact that he never abused drinking and was the king of responsibility, Alison hated having alcohol in the house. They argued about it often. Alex was resentful that he was the sole provider and cook for the family. And he complained they never had sex.Since the birth of their second child, Alison felt increasingly anxious about their marriage. She sensed Alex pulling away and worried that he would leave. Her unquestionable feelings of belief and trust in Alex started to erode. Instead of telling him she wasn’t feeling safe, she withdrew – emotionally and sexually.Couple to Couple CounselingWhen Alison and Alex came to us for Couple to Couple Counseling, they were emotionally adrift. At first glance, their marital stress looked relatively normal for a couple at their stage of family life – married, two kids, working hard, tired, no time for emotional and sexual connection. However, when we begin to dig and took their family histories we knew the issues ran much deeper.We embarked upon an archaeological dig, uncovering the historic artifacts that needed to be excavated and studied in order to “unearth, understand, unravel and unlock” the deeper meaning of their current marital conflict.The Archaeological DigOur psychological model of a “family history dig” consists of four steps:1) Unearth – Dig up your history; search for relics and artifacts you have suppressed, i.e. resisted or avoided thinking about in your conscious mind, and repressed, i.e. blocked painful memories from your conscious mind. Once you find them, embrace them.2) Understand – or “Stand Under” your history; retrace your steps from the present back through childhood and then “look up” and see how it played out in such a precise way that you find yourself in the exact place you are now.3) Unravel - Undo the knots of your history; analyze your historic discoveries, becoming more consciously aware of how your past has continued to affect you and denied you a deeper, more genuine life.4) Unlock – Separate your history from your present; free yourself from the hold that the past has had on you and share it with your partner.Parallel JourneysThe “family history dig” necessitates an interweaving of your own work with the work that your partner does – side by side. You walk the journey together and draw upon your relationship with your partner to help you see your history from more than one perspective – through your eyes and through your partner’s.From this higher, or more correctly, deeper perch, you will find greater clarity within yourself and your relationship. We refer to this as the “parallel journey” - your personal journey that takes into account the corresponding and intricately intermingled journey of your partner.1) UnearthingIn this “parallel journey,” you and your partner dig deep and unearth ancient relics from the very beginnings of your lives – no less than the totality of your experiences as an infant, child, adolescent, young adult and adult. Who we are at any given point in our lives is a culmination of all these experiences and relationships, one stacked upon the next and then integrated, resting on the foundation of our genetic make-up.“Human beings are of two minds,” said Carl Jung, renowned psychiatrist, referring to the conscious and unconscious. The unconscious mind, keeper of painful memories, works hard to protect us from our history of distressing thoughts and feelings which push to make their way into consciousness at every turn. We may think we are no longer affected by our history, however, in this circumstance “out of sight" is not out of mind. As a matter of fact, the more we willfully try to deny our hurtful history, the stronger it grips us.Couple to Couple SessionWe spent time with Alison and Alex, asking each of them to dig deep into their family history for the purpose of 1) raising the unconscious baggage to the conscious, and 2) creating a deeper sense of empathy and appreciation for who their partner is and how they came to be who they are.Alex recalled the devastation and grief when his father left, leaving him as the only male in the home. He became a “parentified child,” surrogate father to his three younger sisters, household cook and babysitter. He broke down when he described having to give up softball and having no time to socialize in middle and high school. While his friends were out driving to events and parties, he drove to work.Alison also was abandoned by her father, though she never knew him. Her mother began drinking when she was left alone to raise Alison. As Alison described the parade of men that came in and out of their lives, she felt anxious, and with a blank stare explained the incidents of sexual abuse perpetrated upon her by one of them. She cried about being unwanted by her father, who physically left, and her mother, who emotionally left. As a result, Alison was extremely shy and had few friends. Her only sense of family connection was with the family next door. Alison babysat for the parents, but was often stressed by caring for three kids.The act of opening up and sharing these painful memories, in itself, creates a deeper connection and sets the stage for partners to ultimately understand each other’s triggers. On the “parallel journey,” we refer to this as “giving each other a hand” carrying your respective emotional baggage.2) UnderstandingUnearthing relics of past hurts raises powerful feelings that have lingered under the surface for a long time. Our next step is to understand them or “stand under” and observe them. So what do we do now? It is said, “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em,” that is, come into greater proximity with the feelings that are most responsible for the life you are “choosing” to live. When you experience anger, sadness, pain, or most significantly, fear, do not run away from such feelings and empower them to control you, but instead run toward them, embrace them and then walk through them. It is truly the only way you will ever understand them.Anger is often the most obvious emotion to face, yet it is the deeper, more vulnerable feelings of sadness, pain, and especially fear, that you most need to “stand under” and observe. The key to accepting these ancient and threatening feelings is to appreciate the enormous impact that they had and continue to have on your feelings, your thoughts and beliefs, and on your relationship.On the “parallel journey,” you will mutually develop a more comprehensive understanding of each other and a greater understanding of each other’s powerful feelings. Your partner’s responses to you, based upon his/her life experience, will make more sense. You will truly be able to “walk a mile in his/her moccasins” and see how his/her history created the present.Couple to Couple SessionThrough exploring his history, Alex understood that having lost his youth, it was second nature to him to care for others and put his needs last. He recognized that unconsciously he took the caretaker role and had done so with Alison. He had in essence, rescued her, like he had rescued his family after his father left.Alison’s exploration helped her recognize that she had tremendous fear of betrayal and abandonment and depended on Alex to care for her at the expense of building her confidence in her ability to care for herself. She realized that her feelings of overwhelm parenting her children were rooted in her old feelings of inadequacy taking care of her neighbor's children.With this deeper understanding of each other, Alison and Alex formed a much deeper, mutual respect.3) UnravelingAfter you unearth and understand, the next step is to unravel or analyze how your emotional baggage impacts your relationship. Here is where your partner commands a critical role. As Einstein stated, “You can’t solve a problem with the same mind that created it.” You need another mind – you need your partner’s mind. With a deeper understanding of you, he/she will be the most effective and objective observer to assist you in your analysis. The relationship can be the necessary by-way for a fresh new look and understanding of your most fundamental self.In the unraveling process, you must disentangle your intense feelings here in the present and ask yourself, “How much of this feeling belongs to the present situation/my partner and how much of it belongs to something triggered from the past?” Rule of thumb is: if your emotional response to a current situation/your partner is more intense than the situation/your partner deserves, it is most likely triggering a similar feeling from the past. Ask yourself, “Where have I felt this feeling before?” Doing this prevents you from getting stuck in anger towards your partner. Although you are hurting in the present, the real pain, at its core, is located within your past, before your partner was ever on the scene.As you proceed with unearthing, understanding, and then unraveling, a most curious thing happens – you will find that you become less angry, less judgmental of yourself and others. If you both commit to work on these issues with each other, and become more conscious of what is happening, you will be happier together.Couple to Couple SessionAlison and Alex worked together to unravel their emotional drift from each other. Over the course of several sessions, Alex realized he resented the “overgiving” he had done in their marriage, AND that he had done all his life. He realized he needed more balance between giving and receiving love, and that he had to ask for this. He also realized he was treating Alison like a child by rescuing her and not trusting that she could find ways to cope with her own feelings of stress.Alison recognized that her fear of being abandoned and betrayed led her to lean heavily on Alex so he wouldn’t leave her. Alison also realized that being a full-time mom triggered the feelings of stress and inadequacy she experienced babysitting for her neighbors.The two of them realized that part of their attraction was that Alex wanted to protect and care for a woman and Alison wanted to be with a man who was caring and dependable. That was not unhealthy. It was when their old baggage led them to create a rigid dynamic - he becoming the rescuer and she being the damsel in distress – that they were unconsciously controlled and crippled by their history; with Alex, stuck in “overgiving” mode not asking for more from Alison and turning to alcohol to soothe his anger and resentment. Maybe, unconsciously, it was a way of expressing his passive anger toward her since this was the one behavior that triggered her. Alison created the world of a dependent victim and soothed her anxiety by withdrawing and shutting down emotionally and sexually as she had when she was younger. Unconsciously, she played out depending on him as a way of “holding on to him,” even though the opposite was true; he felt she was more attractive when she showed independence.In Couple to Couple Counseling, we worked with Alison to build her confidence in caring for the children and trusting that depending on Alex was not effective in “keeping him from leaving.” Depending on him was actually pushing him away. We worked with Alex to trust and support Alison’s competence in her roles as mother and wife and for him to ask for his needs to be met when he needed her support.4) Unlocking When you have unearthed, understood and unraveled your history, you are in a position to let go. The fourth step is to unlock or unchain yourself from your past. Experiencing the archaeological dig helps to shine light on the deepest, most vulnerable part of your “self.” Doing this on a “parallel journey” with your partner, deepens the relationship and unlocks the potential within yourself and your partner, and in the relationship.This is a giant step forward in achieving the life that we were meant to live, our best life, but which easily could have slipped from our grasp.Couple to Couple Session: Not the End – A New BeginningAlison and Alex felt emotionally closer and began having sex again. Alex stopped using alcohol and recognized how much of a trigger this was for Alison. Alison took on more responsibility and they worked together to create a balance in their relationship.As a result of going through these steps together with us, Alison and Alex reconnected, and in a deeper way than they had ever connected before. They committed to being much more conscious of their emotional closeness or distance and to keeping the lines of communication open so that they would never drift that far again.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------What is Couple to Couple® Coaching?In traditional couple’s therapy, there’s the couple and then there’s the counselor.In Couple to Couple® Coaching, you and your partner work with both of us, Lori and Bob, as a team in a powerful process to transform your relationship and achieve the partnership that you desire.If you’d like to read more about Couple to Couple® Coaching, click here.