It has been said and is being said everywhere, that compatibility determines everything. Listen in to any one session of couples counseling, and you learn that it is not that magic potion. Most people in bad relationship holes are not having that fight over values, but they are having an almighty argument over compatability. They are struggling with miscommunication, misinterpretation, unspoken desire and insensitivity habits so practiced they should win an Oscar. Click here for helpful resources!
Look at this: two individuals at the extremes of the couch. There is a heavy air of, um, We just don’t click with each other. But look again The actual problem is not that one is a fan of jazz and another one is a fan of punk rock. What has betrayed them is the way they manage a cold Tuesday when a workday is over. When a stressor appears, do they turn to one another, or they turn off their phones and direct venom toward one another? That is why couples counseling cuts through the filmy goop.
Counselors focus on the real cycle of intercourse. All those wervy eyebrows, those sighs, those unnatural silences-they are not verdicts, not by any means. Bickering over food? And more often than not, it means something else, like: “Do I matter?” or: “Are you here on my behalf?” Nobody gets excited about forks and plates without any reason.
In other cases, it is sheer emotion that drives conversation and not words. It is not unusual to say, we discuss the same thing numerous times. The counseling is not a piece of eternal repeated hits. It is more of a behind the scenes look of how fear or hope of each one shapes the next thing. Every session is a cold stare at defenses that knot knots of connection, defensiveness, stonewalling, mind reading. It does not ask the question whether he or she is a soulmate but rather, when he or she feels lonely, what do they do to adjust themselves?
The story of them being compatible? This is a window dressing. It is not the situation where two become one, but rather, emotional safety, trust, and patterns-these would be the true stitches in the patchwork. The little epiphanies usually come in between shared tissues, regarding a sigh and then the realization, I would not have thought that you still cared about that. The counseling of couples is a highlight of the dance-not whether the two of you both like to dance the Tango but how you tread around one another when there is a shift in music. That is what drags the relationships out of the gutter and that makes every minute spent on the couch worth its weight in gold.