The Love Breakthrough

"I'm right; you're wrong." "You never check in with me first." "You ignore me in public." News flash: These ordinary little annoyances are potentially ruinous for 80 percent of couples. Is there any way to stop the downward spiral? Couples therapist Brent Atkinson, PhD, argues yes, but first you'll have to do the one thing that's hardest for you...

"Somebody please get me out of here!" Grace had to

 

 check to be sure that she hadn't actually blurted

 

 the words out loud.

 

 She'd come to this wedding reception as a favor to

 

 her husband, Adam, whose friend from high school

 

 was getting married. Adam was sitting at the main

 

 table, laughing and having a great time, while

 

 Grace was stuck listening to a

 

 plump, middle-aged woman chatter about her

 

 poodle. Grace thought, "This is the last place on

 

 earth I want to be right  now." She looked

 

 repeatedly in Adam's direction. Finally

 

 catching his eye, she motioned for him to come

 

 over. But  Adam shook his head and mouthed

 

"I can't!" Bullshit,thought Grace. She'd already

 

 seen other members of the wedding party leave the

 

 table to talk to their families. "This is so typical,"

 

 she thought. "He drags me here, then

 

 abandons me."  After what seemed like an eternity,

 

 the dancing began.  Grace's irritation yielded to a

 

sense of anticipation as Adam smiled and began

 

 walking toward her. But he  never made it

 

 across the room. He was intercepted by three

 

 friends who insisted that he go outside with them

 

 to smoke cigars. Adam held up one finger,

 

 signaling to Grace that he'd be there in a

 

 minute. Before she could register a protest, Adam

 

 

 disappeared out the door. Grace sat and stewed,

 

 planning what she would say to him when he

 

 returned. Ten minutes passed, then 20. After a half

 

 hour, she walked out of the reception, got in their

 

 car, and went home. Adam eventually 

 

returned and searched for Grace. It dawned on him

 

 that she  had left. He called her cell phone, but she

 

 didn't pick up. He shook his head, muttered "What

 

 a baby!" and then went back to the party.

 

 At 4  o'clock in the morning, Adam slipped into

 

 the bedroom, grateful that Grace was sound

 

asleep. His eyes popped open at 9 a.m. to the sound

 

of the coffee grinder. "Uh-oh," he thought. "It's time

 

 to face the music." He  crept behind his wife and

 

 gave her a hug. She endured it silently until he

 

 gave up and released her. Playing dumb,

 

 Adam asked, "Why did you leave last night? I was

 

looking for you." Grace rolled her eyes and replied,

 

 "Yeah, you were looking really hard, weren't you?"

 

 Her sarcasm let Adam know he was in the

 

 doghouse—a place he was all too familiar with.

Adam was still reeling from the abrupt change he'd

 

 seen in Grace since they'd gotten married three

 

 years before. Her independence was one of the

 

 things he had found most attractive about her, but

 

 as soon as they said "I do," she morphed into a

 

 demanding, controlling nag who constantly

 

 required his attention—or so it seemed to him.

 

 Adam let out  an exasperated sigh and backed

 

 away, thinking, "Here we go again." They didn't

 

 speak for the remainder of the day or the

 

 following morning. In fact, when they came in for

 

 their therapy session three days later, they still

 

 hadn't spoken. Most people believe that certain

 

 ways of behaving in relationships are correct and

 

 others are incorrect. This is true

 

 to some degree. We would probably all agree that

 

 physically assaulting one's partner is wrong. But

 

 marriage researchers have found that the vast

 

 majority of things couples argue about involve

 

 areas in which there is no evidence that one

 

partner's standards are better or "healthier" than

 

 the other's. Take selfishness—most of us think it's

 

 bad for relationships.

 

 The problem is that there are so many potentially

 

 legitimate yardsticks for measuring piggishness,

 

 and we tend to use our own,not our partner's.

 

 Grace believed that Adam's behavior at the reception was selfish—he was thinking only

 

 of himself. But Adam believed that Grace was the

 

 one who acted badly. He wouldn't dream of

 

 restricting her desire to be with her friends.

In my office, I explained to Grace that if she wanted

 

 to believe that Adam's actions were wrong, she had

 

 every right to. But in  doing so, she'd be putting

 

 herself in the company of those

 

who are destined to fail in their relationships. The

 

choice was  hers. I wouldn't try to stop her. But I

 

could and did tell her that evidence from studies

 

 spearheaded by John Gottman at the University of

 

 Washington suggests that if Adam and

 

Grace continue with their critical attitudes toward

 

 each other the chances of their marriage surviving

 

 over the long haul are less than 20 percent.

I also explained that Adam's responses weren't any

 

 more effective than Grace's. He had made it clear

 

that he thought Grace was overreacting and that

 

 her expectations were out of  line,but Adam needed

 

 to know that beliefs like this are

 

highly predictive of divorce. Partners who succeed

 

 in their relationships recognize that conflicts are

 

 not usually about  right or wrong, they're about

 

 legitimately different  expectations. I told Adam it

 

 was important he recognize that  Grace's needs at

 

 the reception were just as legitimate as his.

I could see them struggling with this information.

 

 To Grace, dropping the idea that Adam was wrong

 

 would be like letting him off the hook. If he wasn't

 

 the bad guy, did she really have a right to be upset?

It's natural to feel agitated when your expectations

 

 are ignored, I explained, and she had every right to

 

 insist that Adam take her feelings into account.

 

 But Adam would be  more able to do this if she

 

 could give up the idea that he did something wrong

 

 and instead explain to him how she felt. Once

 

 Grace realized her critical attitude was working

 

against her, she saw the value in not blaming

 

 Adam. Instead she confessed that she felt

 

 unimportant to him and was afraid he cared more

 

 about his friends than her. This was a bold move

 

 on Grace's part, leaving her vulnerable. She braced

 

 herself for his response. But Adam's eyes softened

 

 immediately, and he  offered an unsolicited

 

 apology, assuring her that he would try to be more

 

 sensitive to her feelings. I wasn't surprised. I've

 

 spent 20 years as a marriage counselor,

 

 witnessing the profound rewards partners like

 

 Grace and Adam reap once they've adjusted their

 

 attitudes  toward each other. The way our brains

 

 are wired, the most effective way to solicit

 

 understanding and cooperation is not by

 

 attempting to prove oneself right at the other's

 

 expense.  It's by exposing vulnerability. This is a

 

 difficult adjustment for anyone to make when

 

 feeling threatened, but in relationships where an

 

 emotional bond exists, evidence suggests that our

 

 brains are set up to respond to vulnerability

 

 with empathy.

A week later, Adam and Grace sat sullenly on my

 

 couch. The day before, Grace had decided to

 

 surprise Adam by showing up at his office to take

 

 him out to lunch. Adam wasn't as pleased as Grace

 

 anticipated because he'd already planned a

 

 working lunch with a colleague who was helping

 

 him with a  project. Reluctantly, he broke his plans

 

 and went out with Grace, but she was incensed by

 

 his attitude. What happened here? The couple had

 

 experienced firsthand the enormous benefits of

 

 abandoning critical judgments of  each other, yet

 

 less than seven days later, they were locked

 

 into the same defensive attitudes that had created

 

 the impasse at the reception. Grace and Adam

 

 aren't unique. I've spent years patting myself on

 

 the back after helping couples experience

 

 heartfelt changes during therapy sessions, only to

 

 watch them show up the next week as miserable as

 

 ever. Whyo people so easily forget the lessons they

 

 pick up? Recent neuroscience studies suggest that

 

 new insights often don't last because they aren't

 

 integrated into the brain states that become active

 

 when the insights are most necessary. Findinz a

 

 new way of thinking when we are calm doesn't

 

 necessarily transfer to moments when we're upset.

 

 When we  feel threatened, our brains automatically kick in to modes

 

designed for self-protection—not relationship bliss.

 

 During studies dating back to the 1950s involving

 

 electrical stimulation of the brain, researchers

 

 were able to see the moods, desires, and concerns

 

 of patients change dramatically. For example,

 

 upon stimulation of a specific region of the brain, a

 

 patient in a study conducted by Robert Heath at

 

Tulane University threatened to kill the physician

 

 nearest him at the time. In a similar experiment,

 

 the patient couldn't explain why he was so sure

 

 he'd been wronged only a few moments earlier. He

 

 knew the electrical stimulation had made him feel

 

 angry, but when the self-protective mode in his

 

 brain was electrically activated, he trusted his

 

 perceptions more than logic. Neuroscientist Joseph

 

 LeDoux at the Center for Neural Science at New York University has identified the neural

 

 mechanisms that help explain how this happens.

 

 Relying mostly on findings from studies on

 

 animals, LeDoux discovered that emotion has a

 

 privileged position of influence in the brain. His

 

 studies suggest that our brains are set up so that

 

 self-protective emotions can hijack the conscious

 

 mind  for periods of time, driving us to act in ways

 

 that we may later regret. Although Grace left the

 

 previous therapy session armed with new

 

 knowledge about how to bring out the best in

 

 Adam, when he balked at going to lunch with her,

 

 Grace was seized by an impulse to criticize him.

 

 She couldn't apply the new way of thinking she'd

 

 learned the previous week because she was in an

 

 operating mode that was programmed for self-

 

protection—not mutual understanding. When she

 

 questioned Adam's priorities, his walls went up

 

 immediately. Frtunately, our brains are not only

 

 equipped for self- protection; we're also wired for

 

 love. Neuroscientist Jaak Panksepp and his

 

 colleagues at Bowling Green State University have

 

 found neural pathways for four specialized

 

 social brain states that produce feelings that draw

 

 us closer to those we love: One state produces a

 

 feeling of vulnerability and a longing for emotional

 

 contact, a second produces feelings of tenderness

 

 and urges to care for others, a third produces the

 

 urge for spontaneous and playful social contact,

 

 and a fourth activates sexual desire. While it's

 

 possible to engage in caring actions without the

 

 activation of these mood tates, such actions often

 

 feel fake, lacking the heartfelt quality that gives

 

 them meaning. Caring acts are simply that:

 

acts. When relationships are going well, the intimacy states are

naturally active—and the feelings they produce are

 

contagious. When one person is feeling sad, tender,

 

 playful, or lustful, it's easy for the other to feel

 

 something similar. For example, Panksepp has

 

 found that distress cries of young animals

 

 automatically activate the caretaking circuits of

 

nearby adult animals. UCLA researcher Marco

 

 Iacoboni believes that this may be because of

 

 "mirror neurons" recently discovered in various

 

 areas of the brain. Mirror neurons allow us to feel

 

 what another person is experiencing. This is why

 

 we cry at the movies when we sense the emotions

 

of the characters, even though we don't know them.

 

 Mirror neurons help our brains re-create the

 

 feelings inside ourselves, allowing us to be

 

 powerfully affected by others.

In our first session, when I helped Grace move from

 

 her critical stance to a more vulnerable place, I

 

 had bet on Adam's mirror neurons, and I wasn't

 

 disappointed. When she disclosed that she was

 

 feeling unimportant, Adam's brain automatically

 

 responded with tenderness. unseling can help clients like Grace and Adam develop the

 

 ability to shift from critical and defensive postures to more

 

unguarded internal states. Nearly all neuroscience

 

researchers agree on one thing: The mechanism

 

 through which the brain acquires new habits is

 

 repetition. One of the  most enduring concepts in

 

 the field of neuroscience is Hebb's law, which

 

 states that when brain processes occur together

 

over and over again, the connections between

 

 neurons involved are strengthened, so these

 

 processes are more likely to occur in conjunction

 

 in the future. I knew that if Grace and  Adam could

 

 think differently while they were angered, and if

 

 they could do this enough times, the new thought

 

 processes would begin spontaneously every time they became annoyed

 

with each other, and they'd stand a chance of

 

 eliminating their knee-jerk reactions. Rehearsing

 

 new thoughts alone would not do the trick. They'd

 

 have to practice new ways of  thinking under game

 

 conditions—that is, when they were actually

 

 furious. he problem was that when Grace and

 

 Adam fought, they seemed completely unable to

 

 avoid their usual interactions unless I was there to

 

 help them. Near the end of our second session,

 

 Adam remarked, "I wish we could take you home

 

with us!" I replied, "Maybe you can." I made Adam

 

 and Grace each an audiotape that they promised to

 

 listen to every time they found themselves ready to

 

 smack the other upside the head. This isn't

 

 unusual; the way our brains work means most

 

 of us require outside input when we're enraged.

 

 Prerecorded audiotapes are a great way to get an

 

 unbiased perspective exactly when we need it.

 

 

Try it: Let's go to the audiotape  

Grace first used her audiotape just three days later.

 

 Without 

 

 to watch Monday Night Football at a friend's

 

 house. When he called Grace to tell her, she was

 

 miffed but shrugged it off. As the evening wore on

 

, though, she was flooded by thoughts like "He was

 

single so long that he doesn't know how to be in a

 

relationship" and "This man is an emotional

 

moron!" She decided that maybe it would be a good

 

 idea to listen to the tape I'd made for her: "Grace, if

 

 you're listening to this, you're probably feeling

 

 that Adam has been inattentive or selfish in some

 

 way. It probably feels like he's ignoring

 

 your wishes. I'm making this tape because I want

 

 him to be as concerned about your needs as he is

 

 his own, and I won't be satisfied until he is." My

 

 words helped Grace relax somewhat, although she

 

 still felt angry. "Grace, remember in our last

 

session how I was talking to you about the fact that

 

 96 percent of the time, the likelihood that a

 

 person's partner will care about how she or he

 

 feels depends on the attitude that she or he has in

 

 the beginning moments of the conversation?

 

 Your attitude can have a powerful effect on Adam,

 

 even if he has a bad attitude to begin with. Right

 

 now you probably feel that Adam's actions or

 

 thinking is wrong, or out of  line in some way. If

 

 you enter the conversation with this attitude,

 

 you can kiss the chances of getting Adam to care

 

 about how you feel goodbye."  This statement

 

 infuriated Grace, and she turned the tape off.

 

But after a few minutes, she decided to go back to

 

 it. "Grace, is it possible that if the roles were

 

 reversed, Adam wouldn't be as mad at you?" She

 

 had to admit that Adam wouldn't be

 

bothered if she made plans without contacting him.

At 11 o'clock, Adam's car rolled into the garage.

 

 Grace took a deep breath and waited for him to

 

 come inside. As he walked through the door, he

 

 looked apprehensive. Grace began, "Adam, I don't

 

 like it when you make plans without talking to

 

 me first." Adam protested, "But we didn't have any

 

 plans!"  Grace felt a surge of irritation but caught

 

 herself, and relaxed. "Look, Adam, I'm not saying

 

 it was wrong for you to do that. I know you

 

 probably wouldn't have been irritated with me if I

 

made plans without consulting you. I just think

 

 we're different on this type of thing." In a strange

 

 way, Grace said, she felt powerful as she uttered

 

 these words. For a moment, Adam seemed

 

 confused. This was not the Grace he knew. After a

 

 moment of silence, his demeanor shifted, and he

 

 said  softly, "I could easily have called before I

 

 committed to the game. I just didn't think about it.

 

 I'm sorry. I really don't mind checking with you at

 

 all." n our next session, Grace relayed these events

 

 to me with a well-deserved sense of pride. She was

 

 beginning to understand how much the fate of her

 

 relationship was in her  own hands. As the weeks

 

 passed, Grace was still frustrated when Adam

 

 seemed inattentive to her desires, but she used

 

the tape every time, and her attitude began

 

 changing more easily. Three weeks later, she

 

 reported that she actually began hearing my

 

 words in her head without using the tape.

This signaled that her brain was being rewired for

 

more flexibility, and she was no longer driven by

 

 the dictates of her automatic judgmental thoughts.

 

 Meanwhile, on Adam's tape,  I encouraged him to

 

 avoid his tendency to discredit Grace's

 

expectations just because they were different from

 

 his, and to  look for the legitimate needs that drove

 

 her reactions. The disarming of Adam and Grace's

 

 self-protective states was  only the first part of

 

 their therapy, but it opened the way for them to

 

 become honest with each other about their needs

 

 and  fears. Once the critical judgments ceased,

 

 Adam was able to  disclose his terror of the kind of

 

 suffocating dependency he'd experienced as a child

 

 from his emotionally needy mother.

 

Sensing his discomfort, Grace was able to assure

 

 Adam that she would respect his need for

 

 autonomy. Ironically, this made Adam want more

 

 connectedness with Grace. In turn, Grace was able

 

 to describe the feelings of insignificance she'd

 

 experienced growing up as the youngest child in a

 

 large family. This helped Adam understand her

 

 panic when he seemed inattentive. He was relieved

 

 to find that Grace didn't want him to take care of

 

 her; she simply needed him to check in more.

Their relationship improved because they learned

 

 perhaps the most important lesson that the brain

 

 sciences have given us: Our moods and attitudes

 

 play a more powerful role in influencing our

 

 partners than the persuasiveness of our

 

arguments. Grace found that she could get the

 

 understanding and caring she needed from Adam

 

 not by trying to prove him wrong but rather by

 

 shifting to an unguarded place and honestly

 

 expressing her needs and fears. Adam discovered

 

 that when he tried convincing Grace that her

 

 criticisms were unwarranted, the self-protective

 

 mechanisms in her brain rejected his influence.

 

 But when he listened to the feelings that drove

 

 Grace's reaction, her internal wall came down.

Grace and Adam aren't unique. People often

 

 struggle mightily to influence each other's

 

 behavior, only to fail because they don't

 

 understand that their own critical attitudes and

 

 moods are triggering their partner's natural

 

 defenses. Couples must retrain lifelong

 

 neuroemotional habits in much the same way

 

 athletic or musical ability is honed through intense

 

 training and practice. Lasting change requires

 

 new impulses—ones that are formed only by

 

 making the same internal shifts over and over.

 

If  anything is clear to me from new understanding

 

 of the brain, it's that we will never succeed in

 

 outmuscling emotional states with the power of

 

 rationality.

 

 My experience tells me that when partners are

 

 approached with compassion rather than cool

 

 logic or blazing argument, internal states will

 

 usually shift in ways that create the

 

 possibility for real intimacy. Our brains, after all,

 

 are wired  for love.

consulting her,Adam made arrangements

 

Disagreements resurfacing? Just press "play."

 

It's often difficult for my clients to maintain the

 

 gains we've made in our sessions once they leave

 

 my office. Giving them audiotapes to listen to in

 

 stressful times helps them shift from

 

 defensive or critical modes to the open and

 

 vulnerable states that are essential for connecting

 

 with the people they love.

 

 This is an idea you can use at home. Make a tape to

 

 remind  yourself of things you need to hear but

 

 don't usually think of  when you're upset. The next

 

 time you start to feel anger toward your partner,

 

 listen to these prerecorded reminders.

 

 

 Here are some questions that might be useful to

 

 ask yourself  on the tape:

1. Is it possible that your partner didn't understand exactly

 

 what you wanted?

2. Could your partner be stressed about other

 

 things, or have a lot on his mind?

3. Is this issue more important to your partner

 

 than you realize?

4. Is it possible that your partner doesn't have all

 

 the facts that you have?

5. Are you reading between the lines things that

 

 your partner doesn't intend to be saying?

6. Are your partner's actions driven by a deeper

 

 need that's legitimate and important to him?

7. Is your partner afraid he's going to lose

 

 something crucial if he does things the way you

 

 want?

8. Would your partner be as angry as you are if the

 

 roles were reversed?

9. Is it possible that this situation is about

 

 legitimately different needs or expectations?

10. Keeping in mind that 96 percent of the time the

 

 likelihood that your partner will respond in a

 

 positive or negative way depends on the attitude

 

 that you have in the beginning moments of a

 

 conversation, how would you like to open this

 

 discussion with your partner?