Attuned= Mind reading + speaking
Are we supposed to know intuitively what our partner is feeling, wanting, thinking? Or are we supposed to tell each other explicitly? Yes, and yes. I’ve recently had interesting conversations with couples about the value of explicit communication versus “tuning in” to each other’s feelings, wants, needs.
Connect to feel better
In the early days of this crisis a friend found this Mark Twain quote chalked on the sidewalk. In these days of heavy burdens, we need to know the secret of lightening our own load by lightening another’s. In stressful situations, the stress we feel is lessened when we connect. A common misunderstanding is that asking another to listen to our troubles, is somehow like transferring the load to them. Somewhat surprisingly, we can lighten each other’s burdens in ways that don’t make our own load heavier. Open your heart, talk and listen.
Different Coping Styles
I was a newly minted psychiatrist in 1989, when the largest earthquake since 1906 struck the Bay Area. The couples I was seeing were having trouble staying connected, and helping each other through the crisis. As I listened it seemed that some of their difficulty had to do with different coping styles. One person needed to talk about their experience, especially their emotional experience, in order to feel better, while the other needed quiet or distraction and talking about the difficulties made them feel worse. One might need to get a lot of information, hourly news updates, while the other needed to avoid disturbing information. Or as one man put it, “what you’re doing to feel better is making me feel worse.”
Emotional Contagion
Emotions are contagious. And the closer we are to others, the more time we spend with them, the more likely it is that we feel their emotions and are affected by them, sometimes “catching” them. On the one hand, this ability to sense our partner’s emotions forms the basis for empathy and intimacy; on the other hand, there are times when this ability needs to be managed well, both by the sender and by the receiver, to maximize understanding and closeness, while minimizing the discomfort and disruption that strong emotions can cause.
Difficult Conversations: The "Doorbell" Strategy
Difficult conversations epitomize the concept of crisis as a moment of risk as well as opportunity. Much of the quality of relationships is determined by how well we handle difficult conversations. Handled well, they further trust and intimacy; handled poorly, they can damage the relationship.
Repair After Injury
We are not able to dance closely without sometimes stepping on each other’s toes, trampling or loosing track of each other. And attachment research tells us that secure attachments happen in relationships where there is connection, then disruption of connection, followed by repair and reconnection. In this way we learn to trust that when the disruptions happen, as they always do whether in the parent child relationship or in other intimate relationships, reconnection is possible.
The Power of an Inspiring Vision
Each of us holds inside of us a heartfelt longing for an ideal relationship with a life partner. It is one of our most precious dreams. Sometimes we know what it is; sometimes we have even talked openly about it to each other. Often it lives inside of us only partially guessed at.We often are most aware of this vision when we fall in love or decide to get married. In my work with couples I have often heard the story of them giving up on such a vision as being naïve and unrealistic.