Not all marriages are happy and fulfilling, and weak marriages are those that are fragile and insecure, where couples are always subject to factors that prevent emotional rebuilding, permanently and completely destroying their relationship and causing the original precarious marriage to The marriage collapses instantly. How can we protect and maintain our connection in the face of this pattern of marriage?
Blame each other
For less stable couples, it becomes habitual and ingrained. It can become habitual and ingrained, preventing any possibility of emotional rebuilding and repair, and permanently and completely destroying the relationship.
When we feel distant, we choose to be demanding and caustic, or withdraw and shut down strategies, partly reflecting our personalities, but mostly depending on what we’ve learned from certain important attachments in the past
Once we lose our sense of security and our partner’s response, we want to protect ourselves and maintain our connection to each other in two ways:
1. by avoiding getting emotionally involved.
2. is to listen to one’s anxiety and fight for the other person’s attention and response.
Once it becomes habitual and ingrained, it creates a strong and powerful vicious cycle: the more you attack, the more threatening it feels to me, the more I will defend myself against you and the more powerful the counterattack will be.
The secret to stopping this pattern is to recognize that no one is bad, that both spouses are victims, and to be able to say, “Here we go again trying to prove each other wrong. If this continues it will only hurt each other, can we talk about it again?” It doesn’t have to be about who’s right and who’s wrong.
The only culprit is the mutual accusation itself. Their enemies are not each other, but each other’s negative interactions.
Chase and flight
This is the most common and hardest to get rid of interaction pattern in emotional relationships. to get rid of the interaction pattern. Because behind it are the strongest emotions and needs in the world for a response that is connected and reassuring.
In a good marriage, pain or disappointment is taken as a sign of need for closeness rather than a critique of the relationship. However, if the couple is unstable, the two will complain about each other, become more and more bitter, and the relationship becomes more and more distant, creating a stable circuit. Newlyweds fall into this pattern and usually don’t last five years; some are stuck in this rut for years.
When faced with a relationship crisis, men often feel judged, rejected, and denied by the other person, and take a retreating role. They suppress their emotional reactions and needs, do everything they can to avoid the other person’s anger and denial, and use rational analysis of the problem to avoid emotional communication rather than admit that there is a problem between them.
Women talk about their feelings of abandonment, lack of acceptance, loss and loneliness, feeling unappreciated or unappreciated by the other person, and feeling angry that the other person rarely responds. Because women’s emotional needs are usually more sensitive, they often play the role of the strong, demanding, blaming party.
The sad thing is that while a man does everything he can to understand his wife’s troubles and offer advice and solutions, he doesn’t understand that what the other person really wants is his emotional reassurance, and that his reassurance is the answer she needs.
From an emotional attachment standpoint, it’s about emotional distance, not about conflict or restraint. If there is no response, a “fatal” sense of isolation, loss and helplessness will follow. Especially when the person you rely on and love ignores you.
Take a holistic view of the cycle of being caught in this pattern, and know how each other’s behavior can draw each other into the pattern. Understand the nature of this pattern of interaction and learn to recognize the call for emotional connection. So don’t just focus on the last thing the other person said, and don’t respond to it. Knowing that our partner is not the enemy but the “couples dance” itself allows couples to be on the same page and to discuss each other’s emotional attachments and needs.
Cold and Retreat
Once the stronger, harsher partner tries to suppress emotions, gives up and begins to be silent, both people have become defensive and in denial, shutting themselves down and entering a state of self-preservation. Both people decide that their own flaws are the problem, and in order to hide their unlovability, no one wants to risk reaching out to the other, so there is no interaction at all.
In this interaction, one person usually describes how he or she is obsessing about the other and protesting the lack of connection; the other person usually chooses to abstain, stuck in withdrawal and trying to deny the possibility that they are about to separate.
The crux of the “cold and withdrawn” pattern is actually the sense of helplessness it gives. The more time passes, the more distant they become and the more afraid they are to open their hearts to each other. As the feeling of alienation and helplessness grows, they will hide themselves more and more.
The first step to starting over is to understand how you’ve cocooned yourself and how you’ve deprived yourself of the love you need, to resolve to end the cycle of alienation, to get rid of the painful interactions, and to rebuild a strong emotional connection.