Lauren and Max came to see us after Max discovered Lauren’s affair. She was remorseful and said she wanted their marriage to work. Max was willing to work on forgiving Lauren but knew they needed help. He thought he was a loving husband and had no idea why Lauren would cheat.

In taking her history, we learned that Lauren grew up with a father who was very critical. In his quest for Lauren to succeed, he set very high standards for her. Instead of this motivating her, Lauren felt nothing was ever good enough. She struggled in school, and in third grade was diagnosed with dyslexia. Despite this, her father never let up. As Lauren got older, she started cheating on tests to get a better grade and win her dad’s approval. Since he never accepted her disability, the only way she was able to meet his standards was to lie. She never felt loved for who she genuinely was.

We talked about the impact of her childhood experience and related it to how she connected in her marriage. She never felt she was good enough for Max and often said he could have found someone better. Lauren had trouble being authentic in the relationship and only told Max what would please him. She hid her unhappiness and the fact that her needs for emotional love and connection weren’t being met. The only way she knew how to meet her needs was to cheat, just like when she was younger.

For better or worse, the relationships we experience and witness in our vulnerable years, teach us how to communicate; how to connect and love; how to be intimate; how to cope with conflict and whether to trust.

The family we grow up in (our family of origin) has a profound effect upon how we will relate to our partners. It is vital to a healthy relationship to dig down and think about what you learned from your parents and to be aware that you don’t have to respond the same way in your partnership.

In therapy, Lauren learned that she could get her needs met from Max by speaking up assertively. And she learned that she was trying too hard to get him to love and approve of her. When Lauren began trusting Max, she realized that he loved her for who she was and that she didn’t have to lie to appear “good enough” for him.

How have your childhood experiences affected you in your relationship?

Joan: You never spend time with me. After work, you come home, eat dinner and then head to the basement to watch ESPN. I ask you to come upstairs when I go to sleep and you say, “Be there in a minute,” but I am usually asleep before you get into bed. I feel so alone every night.

Steve: Don’t you understand that after I have worked all day managing a department of 15 women, I need some space, some downtime to be alone and just escape from the stress at work?

Joan: Why can’t you do that with me? I am not one of the women you supervise, I’m your wife.

Steve: I don’t know. Your feelings are so intense and I feel smothered. It’s not about you; I just need some “me” time. Alone.

Joan: It’s always about you. I feel abandoned every night; doesn’t that matter to you?

Therapist: The two of you, like many couples, keep getting stuck in the same place. There is a theme or a repetition here that I am seeing week after week: Joan, you want more connection and emotional intimacy with Steve; when you don’t receive it, you feel he has left you. Steve, you need more space, more emotional distance. I also sense you are overwhelmed by Joan’s feelings; when she needs you, you run.

Joan: You’ve hit the nail on the head. This could be fixed easily if he would just spend more time with me.

Steve: Or if you would leave me alone.

Therapist: When it looks like there’s a quick fix, but it isn’t happening, we have to look deeper. Let’s take a look at your family histories and see what we find…

The Value of the Archaeological Dig

“Archaeology is our voyage to the past, where we discover who we were and therefore who we are.” Camille Paglia

Why does man (and woman) look back? When an archaeologist locates a previously unknown settlement, he/she may spend years excavating, collecting, studying and analyzing artifacts and relics to glimpse a reasonable picture of the past. The study of history helps us see how societies sustained themselves, why some survived and others collapsed. It helps us avoid the mistakes of our ancestors and emulate their successes.

The Archaeological Dig in Therapy

“History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.” David McCullough

Why do therapists look back? How could your family history so long ago possibly have an impact on your relationship? Some would say, “Ridiculous.”

Take Joan and Steve. The therapist learns that Joan grew up in a family where her parents were always in conflict. After a fight, her father would walk out. Later she found out that her father left to cool off and go for a drive, but in her young, impressionable years all Joan knew was that dad left. Each time this happened she felt more and more anxious and worried that he wouldn’t come back. When she was 11, her worst fear came true.

Joan: My dad left that evening and I just had a bad feeling. Later that night we got the call from the hospital. My dad had died from a heart attack.

Joan sobbed and Steve got up to give her a hug.

Therapist: Maybe that is why you feel so strongly about Steve “leaving” you every night, like your dad.

Joan: Yes, it does have that same feeling. I never connected the two.

Therapist: Joan, often the strong feelings we experience with our partner are so strong because they are triggering uncomfortable feelings we had in the past; And we don’t recognize this. We attribute our present strong, uneasy feelings to our partner, when the strength of those feelings really comes from the past.

Joan: Interesting. How does knowing that help?

Therapist: It helps by being able to separate the old feelings from the present ones. It’s important for you to remember that Steve needing space does not mean he is “leaving” you. It means he needs individual time. Steve, you can help Joan by connecting with her before you go watch TV; it can be a gesture as small as a hug, a kiss, an “I love you. I will be up so we can go to bed together at 10.”

Joan: Wow, I feel a lot lighter after talking about that.

Hearing Steve’s history, the therapist learned that when Steve was eight years old, his father left for another woman. His father divorced his mother and a year later married the “other woman.” When his father and new wife had children, Steve’s father stopped coming around. He had “another family.”

Steve: My mother was devastated and had to raise me and my sister alone. I remember when she told me at eight years old that I was now “the man of the house.” I felt I had to take care of her; she needed me. I would sit and watch TV with her every night to keep her company. I did that until I turned 13.

Therapist: What happened then?

Steve: I started feeling smothered, like she was holding me back. I felt like I needed to get away. I was overwhelmed by her neediness. She looked sad every time I left to go out with my friends.

Therapist: It’s interesting, Steve, that you would marry a woman who needs a lot of emotional closeness from you and feels abandoned when you need space; sort of like your mother.

Steve: Wow, I can see that. It does feel like Joan needs too much from me and I pull away.

Therapist: The fact that you two are together is no accident. Our “baggage” from childhood, whether you realize it or not, unconsciously affects how we perceive our relationships. We tend to choose a partner with whom we can replay the themes from childhood that were never resolved.

Steve (laughing): You mean I married my mother?

Therapist: Not exactly. In psychology, there is a phenomenon called the “Repetition Compulsion.” It means we have a drive to repeat patterns or traumas from childhood in our adult lives. Unconsciously, we put ourselves in the same position and create the same feelings we had in our original childhood experience. We replay the same story, hit up against the same roadblock and get stuck in the same place over and over.

Joan: Are you saying I created this pattern with Steve and set him up to abandon me over and over?

Therapist: You got it; unconsciously of course.

Joan: It actually does have that same feeling.

Steve: And Joan does feel like my smothering mom that I had to get away from.

Therapist: Yes. You two have tremendous insight.

Joan: Why does this happen?

Therapist: Recreating painful, but “familiar” childhood patterns in our present relationship is our unconscious attempt to repair the damage and master our feelings about it.

Steve: So we are trying to fix it using our partner. But that doesn’t work, right?

Therapist: Yes, we carry the pain from our childhood into our adult relationship and our partner unknowingly becomes the image of the one who will heal all that, love us unconditionally and protect us from being hurt. He or she is linked to our deep and unconscious baggage. When he or she inevitably wounds us, we experience feelings of rejection, anger and sadness – and we are back in our old “comfort zone,” coping with the pain in the manner we learned as children.

Joan: So, what can we do?

Therapist: Just what you are doing now: an archaeological dig into the past, excavating and studying the artifacts of your family history to gain understanding and insight. Making the unconscious “baggage” conscious leads to greater knowledge about why you are the way you are.

Joan: How does this help?

Therapist: Digging into our past helps us figure out how much of our hurt belongs to our present situation with our partner and how much of it is our old pain. The more we are able to understand and identify these “hurt” triggers, the better we are able to make sense of our strong feelings. In turn, being conscious of our history lowers our anxiety and allows us to more easily resolve our present hurts with our partner. An archaeological dig will free you from the chronic pain and break the self-defeating, repetitive cycle.

The Power of Then

Thornton Wilder believed that “the Past is not dead,” in fact, he wrote, “the Past isn’t even Past.”

Our past, if you think about it, is who we are. Who or what else can we really be – a self no less reflective of a precise stacking and most intricate interweaving of all the events of our life – beginning even before “Day One” of our life.

We truly flatter ourselves if we feel we can actually “move on and beyond these events,” or that we can just chose to “forget about them.” According to the burgeoning field of Brain Science and the new uses of interventions such as functional MRIs and PET scans, past events and life experiences are not only carefully and exhaustively inventoried in our feelings, but remain active. They are physiologically alive and well, and forever asserting themselves in feelings, thinking and decision making. Even more so when we try to repress them. And what makes us even more vulnerable, is that we are substantially unaware that this process is even going on.

Our only real choice here is to bring this material up to consciousness, painful and fearful though it may be, and not to “move on” from it, but to chose to move into and through it with courage and expanded awareness, lest our unconscious past control us.

“History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.” Maya Angelou

Your Choice

Will you choose to be courageous enough to confront your fears, your sadness and your pain and bring your history to consciousness, so you can work with it to fashion the journey you want take in your life, and in your relationship?

If you answered “yes,” you are ready to undertake your “Archaeological Dig.”

Your Archaeological Dig

Here is our way of conducting an archaeological dig so you will not have to repeat your past:

1. Unearth – Dig up your history consciously and embrace it.
2. Understand – Or “stand under” it and observe the information you learn about your family history.
3. Unravel – Undo the knots; think about and analyze the meaning of what you found and in what ways it blocks you.
4. Unlock – Free yourself from the past; take turns sharing your story with your partner, exploring it together and helping one another carry each other’s baggage.

“Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
George Santayana

How was your dig? Have you discussed it with your partner?

If the answer is right in front of you, it’s best to let the other person know and move on. If you are more deeply invested in the relationship – head, heart and hormones – it is vital that you face and embrace this decision.

In our work with couples in conflict who have been together for years, we ask each person, “Why did you commit to or marry your partner?” We have heard more than once:

• “It was just the next step.”
• “We had been dating for years.”
• “It is what my family expected.”
• “The invitations went out; I would’ve been too embarrassed to cancel.”
• “I didn’t know how to break up. I didn’t want to hurt my partner.”
• “I knew it was wrong, but I walked down the aisle anyway.”

Though breaking up would have been difficult, it is much more painful and complicated after being committed for years, bonding with each other’s families and, of course, having children.

So, if you are in a situation where you have thought about ending a relationship and find yourself uncertain or avoiding the issue, take it on by letting your head lead. The following questions may help:

1. What are my concerns about the relationship? Have I addressed them with my partner? If no, what is holding me back? If yes, was he/she responsive to my concerns?
2. How well do we communicate? How well do we face differences, embrace conflict and work it through?
3. Do I trust and respect my partner and feel trusted and respected in return? Is the power in the relationship balanced? If not, how does this affect me? Us?
4. In what ways are we intimate, head, heart and hormones? Where do we need to improve and would he/she be willing to address this together?
5. Would my partner be willing to get counseling/coaching if we could not resolve our differences?

Sometimes it is too difficult to sort through your thoughts and feelings on your own and individuals seek therapy. In addressing this issue in counseling, we never tell people what to do, but we do help them think through their decisions so they can gain clarity and more certainty about their choice. When couples seek help with compatibility, we help them clearly identify their difficulties and communicate about them in a healthy way so they can make the best decision.

For an in-depth book on finding clarity, we recommend: Too Good to Leave, Too Bad to Stay: A Step-by-Step Guide to Help You Decide Whether to Stay In or Get Out of Your Relationship by Mira Kirshenbaum. It has been helpful to many of our clients.

So, how do you know when to exit a relationship?

Do you use your head, heart or hormones when deciding?

But what if the ride is pretty smooth? And then one day, for no apparent reason, you start to panic. You feel lost and don’t know where you are or which way to go. As your relationship moves toward commitment, you see yellow lights flashing; you know this may be the last time you travel Relationship Highway. There is a roadblock ahead; the sign comes into view, “Fear of Commitment – Exit here or Drive at your own risk.”

“Commitment phobia” is not just for men. The U.S. Census Bureau reports single women are the fastest-growing segment of the American population, with more than 47 million, 22 million of whom are between 25 and 44. What is it that is just so scary about the commitment road? Choosing to marry, love and live with one person for the rest of your life is a daunting promise.

Marriage and/or commitment means giving up…

• Single life
• Dating
• Freedom
• Sex with others (forever)
• The chance to find someone better
• Being solely independent
• Lifestyle and decisions that are all about you

And there is no crystal ball; uncertainty about the future is part of the package. With a 50% failure rate, it’s no wonder people are scared to drive down that lane.

Here is where the relationship may get a flat tire or break down altogether. To avoid this, it is vital to embrace your fear and talk with your partner. Share your thoughts and feelings. Most of us fear the unknown, getting hurt, being vulnerable, trusting and being intimate. When two people share their fears, it brings them closer.

“When you make a commitment to a relationship, you invest your attention and energy in it more profoundly because you now experience ownership of that relationship.”

How do you feel about commitment?

In other words, how fast should you drive down Relationship Highway?

While it’s true that some relationships sky rocket all the way to commitment in a matter of a few short months, many new relationships crash if either partner or both start out with their pedal to the metal. But why can it be so difficult to slow down?

Besides the fact that our hormones are often in the driver’s seat initially, there’s also a cultural factor at play: We live in an extremely fast world.

We eat fast food, we fly across the country in mere hours, we have instant messaging, we can even get the latest news before it hits broadcast on TV. Everyone is wired to expect fast answers and fast action in all aspects of life – even in dating.

Our “fast” society has us exploring sexual intimacy before we even know if we like the person we are dating. It has us moving in together before we are ready to make a real commitment. We can end up investing a lot of ourselves in someone we don’t actually want to spend our life with.

So, here’s the point – and the paradox: If we slow down in the beginning, we’re not only more likely to make better relationship decisions in general, but we’ll also (ultimately) speed things up. The reason? By traveling at the posted speed limit in the beginning, we give ourselves a chance to be certain – and, therefore, we can make decisions and act more quickly.

Of course, there’s a secondary benefit to going slow. We get to savor each stop along Relationship Highway as long as possible. Very few of us would give up feeling that first flush of love just to get to the end game. Or, forgo the excitement of a new relationship just to have a ring around our finger now. Looking back, we might even wish we had made “the beginning” last a lot longer.

So what’s the rush? You want to give yourself the best chance of getting to the final stop on Relationship Highway with the right person in the passenger seat. And the best way to ensure that is to go slow enough to be able to see the scenery.

Do you drive over the speed limit when dating? What do you do to slow things down?

Share your stories and thoughts with us on our Facebook page.

So, this month, we want to focus on what comes after you find a desirable potential partner.

Becoming more deeply involved with your potential “Mr./Mrs. Right” takes you on a journey down “Relationship Highway” – which, of course, is the road to getting hitched. This road is your chance to determine whether your potential partner is the person you want to be your life companion, and, if applicable, parent to your children.

Understanding how to navigate “Relationship Highway” and all the stops along the way will prepare you for what lies ahead, keep you from veering off the road and from falling asleep at the wheel.

There are five stops on “Relationship Highway”: Heaven, Re-Entry, Earth School, Graduation and Commitment.

Heaven

Ah, Heaven, the first stop on Relationship Highway. And, of course, it’s a stop flooded by Hormones.

You meet; sparks fly; the feelings of erotic attraction are potent and intense. Romance, affection and passion are the hallmarks of the blast-off to Heaven. You gaze into each other’s eyes, idealizing each other and each believing that the other is going to fulfill all of your wants, needs and desires for the rest of your life. You focus on all you have in common and minimize your differences.

There is no thought about putting forth effort here; your powerful biologically based feelings automatically propel you as you speed down this part of Relationship Highway. The reason our brains are wired this way is so that our species would survive. However, Heaven is not the best stop for making the best choice about a lifetime partner.

Heart-wise, some of us may mistake these strong feelings for “love.” When you pull over in Heaven, it’s important to use your Head to sort through the powerful feelings and emotions, and not rush too quickly into a relationship that is too new and fragile to support “dream-like” expectations.

Re-Entry

“Mission control-we are coming in for a landing.”

Heaven can’t last forever. At some point, your new and highly charged relationship comes back to earth. It may be that he disappoints you or she criticizes something you do; it may be your first conflict. The best hope is that you come in for a soft landing at the second stop on Relationship Highway – Re-Entry.

At Re-Entry, reality sets in. You begin to see your differences more clearly. You may feel anxious and start to experience some doubts about whether your potential partner is truly “the one” for you. Here, the Head is in control, the Heart is uncertain and the Hormones have calmed down – though affection and passion may still run high.

This is where the true work of the relationship begins. You will need to use your communication skills to address differences, express what you need and listen to what your partner needs. The Head helps you assess if this really is a true and healthy partnership.

Earth School

The third stop on the highway is at the Earth School. Here, you learn and practice communicating. The courses most important in Earth School are “Dealing with Conflict,” “Joint Decision Making” and “Authentic Communication” – and your homework is pretty tough. You and your partner must embrace and face your differences; take them on, acknowledge them and establish a way to work as a team. In the process of doing this, Heads and Hearts become more connected.

Head thinks about the relationship. There may be struggles for power and control as patterns of decision making and managing conflict begin to develop as a couple. Anxiety and fear about the future of the relationship may arise. Especially if it is difficult to resolve conflict or get your partner to understand what you think, feel and desire. This is a bumpy part of Relationship Highway. Your vehicle may even break down and you think about ending the relationship. You question who your partner is as opposed to the romantic image you previously had of him/her.

Again, the work of this stage is negotiating differences and seeing if you can accept the other person with all their warts. If you don’t learn and practice healthy communication and conflict resolution skills, the relationship may end here. If you are able to face and embrace the difficult challenges at this stop, the relationship will solidify.

Graduation

Once you have made it through Earth School, you come to the Graduation stop. You are now exclusively committed to this relationship. Hormones and Heart still work, though sex may not be as frequent as it once was. The relationship becomes more serious and more authentic.

You have become deeply emotionally and sexually intimate with your partner and have learned a way to work through your issues. Sharing vulnerabilities and secret parts of yourselves connects you even more. You become involved with each other’s families and friends and identify yourselves as a couple.

The Head realizes that his/her partner is not perfect, but is perfect for him/her. There is a willingness and commitment to “work” on the relationship together and weather the storms.

Commitment

At the Commitment stop, Head, Heart and Hormones have all connected and you feel very strongly bonded with each other. You experience a boundary around the relationship as a couple and identify yourself as part of this relationship, while still maintaining your own sense of identity. Commitment is where you decide to get engaged.

In this stage, you work through how you will put your lives together and decide to get married. The most important work is to communicate about your future, your expectations, where and how you want to live, how you picture your life together, career goals, your philosophies about spending and saving money, dealing with holidays and families and on and on.

Head, heart and hormones have blended into a balanced dynamic.

Though this is the last stop on Relationship Highway, it is the beginning of another journey, and the Alien Invasion (if you choose to have children).

We will save that for another article.

     You actually called each other on the telephone to make plans for a date.

     You would leave each other voicemails about having had a great time.

     Going out actually meant having your date’s full attention for the entire evening.

If you relate to these “remember when’s,” chances are you are over 45. Today, texting is the primary method of communication for people under the age of 45. This is a frightening thought for us – two therapists who know how difficult even face-to-face communication can be.

Texting in and of itself is not really the problem. It’s actually a very efficient way of letting your date know you are running late or confirming plans for the evening; it’s even okay to let your date know you enjoyed their company or send sweet thoughts that put a smile on his or her face.

The problems arise when dating couples use texting to express feelings or have serious conversations about issues. Communicating without voice, tone, inflection, eye contact and body language leaves too much room for MISINTERPRETATION in capital letters. The written word, devoid of feeling and emotion tends to create more problems than it solves.

For some, “talking” about difficult feelings on a screen is easier than having to look the other person in the eye. The impersonal nature of texting creates an emotional distance that allows some people to say things they might not say in person. But if couples avoid dealing with important issues face to face, they will not learn to become truly emotionally intimate.

Here are five texting rules to live by:

1) Use texting to exchange information, for light conversation or to just say hello, but never for serious conversations.

2) Don’t text others when you are on a date. That would be just like taking phone calls on a date. Rude.

3) Be aware of how your texts “sound” since the receiver may not know if you are being humorous or serious – especially, if you’ve just begun to date.

4) Always use the phone to ask someone out, even if you are worried about rejection.

5) Finally, don’t text during happy hour, after you have had a few martinis. Comedy shows are actually based on this concept so consider that fair warning.

Happy Dating!

We would love to hear about your texting experiences on dates on our Facebook page:

Has a date ever “texted on” you? Do you text on dates? What’s your date texting etiquette?