Problems With Your Partner? The Culprit Is The Negative Cycle
In our daily lives, when we have problems with our partner and we feel that he does not understand us, the rest of our life is affected. In reality, what happens is that When we are not well with our partner, everything ‘weighs more’: life weighs more, problems weigh more, even joys are not enjoyed as much…
And in this burdensome situation, feeling that the person we love most does not understand us, an infinite number of emotions are felt.
Faced with these emotions, we all need to protect ourselves Some act by withdrawing, like they ‘don’t care’ (called ‘avoidants’ in Emotionally Focused Therapy – EFT). Others show with intensity how much it affects them, wanting to find understanding at that very moment (the so-called ‘persecutors’ in TFE). Both ways are a demonstration that it does matter.
This is where the negative cycle is “born”, a repetitive pattern of relating in the couple that is activated in different day-to-day situations, because each one wants to be seen, wants to be accepted, wants to feel the most important to the other and wants be ‘enough’ for the other person.
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) is based on the premise that a solid relationship is based on feeling that your partner is emotionally available, he offers you security to be who you are show your feelings and feel like you have someone to turn to when you need it.
From this therapy model, ‘the negative cycle’ refers to the inevitable interconnection between, on the one hand, who I am, what I need and the way in which I act with my partner to let them know and, on the other, the way in which the one that my partner understands and responds to it from who he is and what he needs as well.
What I think, what I feel and what I do in response to what I see in my travel companion can be understood by him/her in a different way, because he/she also thinks, feels and does from his own need. Each person has a particular way of understanding the world and relationships.
The origin of many discussions
The ‘negative cycle’ is the trap that all couples fall into ; that way of relating to the person we love most that is repeated over and over again, especially in moments of conflict. It is a pattern of behaviors, personal interpretations and internal emotions that occur in each of the members of the couple when a difference arises: the behavior of one person awakens emotions in the other, these emotions along with the interpretation made of them They activate ways of acting and responding that, in turn, also awaken emotions, behaviors and interpretations in the former. What all of them express is the deep need to feel accepted, valued, loved.
For this reason, they are repeated over and over again in the day-to-day life of a relationship and if they do not feel heard and understood, they are responsible for the distance between the couple.
This negative cycle explains and gives meaning to discussions and silences. We argue because we care. We stay silent and withdraw because we care… Both positions show how much the other person means to us.
Work from Couples Therapy Focused on Emotions for couples
One of the objectives of Couples Therapy Focused on Emotions is accompany both members of the couple in the discovery of the negative cycle and the part that corresponds to each person: Your behavior has an impact on the other and vice versa.
From my experience – as a person in a stable emotional relationship, and as a psychotherapist with more than two decades of therapeutic work – observing my own way of acting, how it has an effect on my partner and being aware of my personal interpretation of the actions of ‘my life partner’, it becomes easier – and they have more value for me – when I don’t feel judged, when I feel that my emotions, my intentions and my needs are understood.
This is precisely what Emotionally Focused Therapy achieves for couples: empowers, in each member of the couple, the acceptance of both their own needs and their emotional desires It is only after this individual acceptance that one can also embrace those of the other person. TFE focuses on strengthening the emotional bond with the couple so that each person’s pain and personal struggle has a ‘safe harbor’ to rest in, from which they can go out to explore and to which they know they can return. Because each person has the right to be who they are. To feel like a person accepted, valued, loved, just as they are.
