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Why do couples work so well together only to irritate the heck out of each other shortly into the relationship? How is it that people lose patience so quickly with the one they love so much? Have you ever seen behavior from yourself that shocks you? Maybe you broke something or threw something in anger because you were mad at your relationship? Maybe you’ve even been physical with your partner out of anger and you never thought you would be like that. Are these problems solvable?
Whether these questions are solvable is up to the couple. The key factors that I look for in a couple who wants to be together is 1) the couples approach to communication and 2) the amount of individual work each person is willing to put into the relationship. I find four subjects very useful in revealing a couples style of communication and how much work each person is willing to do. I have also never yet met any couple who line up identically about religion, sex, politics and money. These subjects can bring out authentic individuality and through individuality within the relationship, I can most easily identify a couples motivations.
Before proceeding further, I must confess I don’t subscribe to the definitive labeling processes often used in therapeutic settings. It’s my opinion that labeling people with disorders or highlighting only the less functional parts of a person can be cruel and inappropriate. Who wants someone to point out all their flaws? However, I learned from a professor by the name of Rand Michael, Ph.D. that identification and classification are important in the process of identifying differences and therefore critical to helping us decide who we are. For this reason and only this reason, I will explain some identification and classification provided by the book titled “In the Quest of the Mythical Mate” by Ellyn Bader, Ph.D. and Peter T. Pearson, Ph.D. The insight gained is not to label anyone as superior or inferior but to identify differences that will strengthen understanding of yourself and those you care deeply about.
Bader and Pearson offer us four phases of a couple’s relationship. They call them symbiosis, differentiation, practicing and rapprochement. A couple can be in different phases at the same time or they can be in the same phase together. Each scenario presents different kinds of struggles and excitement.
Symbiosis – The early phase of a relationship is described as the joining phase. It is natural to highlight similarities and minimize differences.
Differentiation – The second phase of a relationship highlights differences. The identity of each person in the relationship is no longer defined by the other person, which is typical in the symbiotic phase.
Practicing – This phase is where an individual has differentiated enough to remember their own dreams and aspirations and is devoting themselves to agendas that are outside the relationship. It requires a lot of practice to manage the needs of the relationship, one’s self and aspirations. Trust is essential at this point because time apart is more common as goals require time and energy. This stage is often very scary for many people because their past often influences their ability to trust in a healthy way.
Rapprochement – In this phase, an individual would be learning how to manage closeness and independent distance within the relationship. It’s more a matter of learning to shift in and out of the relationship without feeling guilt, anxiety, etc.
So, what does all of this mean? It means what most things in the mental health arena mean, it depends. That’s right, “it depends”. What I have found very useful about these categories is that they provide some normalizing to the complexity of relationships. For example, a couple in symbiosis is often referred to as “fake”. They may even refer to each other as fake if they break up in or near this phase. The reality is they are acting perfectly natural to highlight similarities and minimize differences. We would all look a little fake if we responded in this way all the time but it doesn’t mean that we are. It also means we all have the potential within us to have a long term relationship if we choose to do the individual work and put in the work as a couple.
What I would hope for all of my readers is that they may gain a little perspective about themselves that would allow them to look at their partner with a bit more patience and empathy. If any of this is new knowledge for you and it is used to point out superiority or inferiority of one individual in the relationship, my words have been in vain. The descriptions, as I provide them, are intended to create improved empathy for where you and your partner are in life as a couple and in life as unique individuals.
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