How To Save A Struggling Marriage

In childhood, the game of hide and seek was fun. One person hid and the other tried to find him or her. Great fun. But in marriage, hide and seek is definitely not fun. It is painful and destructive. Yet, it is a “game” that couples play nearly every day, creating loneliness and disconnection. One partner tries to engage and be heard, only to receive a grunt in response. One seeks, the other hides. What causes couples to play this game of marital hide and seek, and how can they end it and save a struggling marriage?

Every Struggling Marriage Is Marked By Pursuing and Withdrawing

When a relationship is healthy, partners seek closeness and find their partner accessible, responsive, and engaged. But when a relationship has lots of conflict, to cope with the conflict, partners take one of two roles, pursuer and withdrawer. One partner stridently pursues, seeking closeness by blaming, nagging, or criticizing while the other partner silently withdraws, seeking to stop the damage by shutting down emotionally, going silent, or leaving. Of course, the pursuer is not aware that she’s seeking closeness, and the withdrawer is not aware that he’s hiding to save the relationship. It just feels like a fight where one is seeking and the other is hiding. Sadly, for all the seeking, no one gets found.

By the way, I used those pronouns on purpose. Pursuers are usually female, and withdrawers are usually male. There are exceptions, and rarely both pursue or both withdraw, but usually the female pursues and the male withdraws.

Pursuers Seek Engagement

Pursuers seek closeness, which requires accessibility, responsiveness, and engagement from a partner. When she reaches out to her partner for reassurance, she needs to know that he understands and empathizes with her. When he does, the mirror neurons in her brain find comfort in that mirroring of emotions; but when he does not mirror her emotions, her brain becomes distressed and insecure. In desperation, she tries to connect again but with more intensity, triggering his withdrawal, which only makes it worse and the couple then spirals into an escalating conflict cycle.

Pursuers Seek Peace

While, pursuers seek closeness, withdrawers seek peace. When he failed to engage with her and she ups the intensity, he becomes overwhelmed and his brain sets off an alarm telling him that anything he says or does will make things worse. So, his coping mechanism is to calm the waters and keep the relationship from further harm by shutting down emotionally, going silent, and/or leaving the space.

The Negative Cycle

This strident pursuing and silent withdrawing is a perfect storm for conflict. The pursuer desperately needs to see their partner’s emotion and hear their partners words of understanding and support, but the withdrawer is frozen in place by fear of losing the relationship, and so instead of fighting for the relationship, he shuts down, which only escalates the pursuer’s panic, and it escalates from there.

This is what we call “the negative cycle,” and it is the enemy of your relationship. She’s not the enemy and he’s not the enemy. The negative cycle is the enemy. Both partners are both the creators and victims of their negative cycle. In time, the smallest disagreement or even raised eyebrow or tone of voice can send them into the negative cycle.

The fuel for this cycle is vulnerable, primary emotions that are mostly based on each one’s fear of losing the relationship. The solution seems simple: just acknowledge this fear and move forward in love. But when people fear losing a relationship, they don’t do that. Instead, they self-protect and defend their actions. This only reinforces those fears that the other partner doesn’t care, which escalates the fear. This is the negative cycle.

How To Break The Negative Cycle

The first step in breaking this negative cycle is to de-escalate the cycle by helping the couple see what they each are doing to trigger it. When they do, they then have the power to stop it. That’s easy to say, but it takes time to learn to recognize those soft, primary emotions and connect the feelings with fear or anger or sadness. But a therapist trained in Emotionally Focused therapy can help. Emotionally Focused Therapy has been scientifically proven to be effective. 95% of those who completed EFT said they made significant change, and 75% said they reconnected and moved into a healthy relationship. No other therapy model can even come close to making that claim.

Once a couple sees their negative cycle and their fearful emotions that fuel it, they can begin to repair and reconnect and move into a new relationship of closeness, safety, and security. We would love to help you re-connect as a couple. I urge you to read about couple counseling and Emotionally Focused Therapy, then reach out to us to schedule a free thirty-minute consultation to get you started.