The Spiritual Fitness ManualChikamu

Marriage, Emotionally Shutting Down - Part 2

By George Faller, LMFT, Lieutenant, FDNY (RET) 

Learning to repair is crucial to maintaining a secure relationship. However, repair is unlikely if partners cannot shift the level of their communication from the content and triggers (sex, money, kids, etc.) to the underlying attachment emotions (longing to connect/fear of disconnection). Focusing on the content while ignoring the emotions guarantees that the most crucial part of the message is missed. 

A pursuing wife, concentrating on her partner’s failure, is leaving out the essential ingredient: her own vulnerability and feelings of rejection. A withdrawn husband trying to escape the helplessness and feelings of failure resulting from fighting also closes the door to potential healing and closeness. Neither shares their deeper insecurities, all they show is their defensiveness and reactivity. Protection breeds further protection, and each partner gets lost in an endless loop of blame and denial. To become doers of the repair work, partners must learn how to plug into their emotions and share these softer feelings. 

Emotions are just a signal from the body to pay attention; something good or bad is going to happen. Emotions tell us the problem and also the solution. If we are afraid, we need safety; sad, we need comfort; angry, we need to be understood; alone, we need connection; rejected, we need to be accepted; and if we are feeling unloved, we need to be loved. It is unwise to disregard the signals.

Although professional success requires “going up” into our head to fix things while emphasizing emotional suppression and performance, relational success seems to work the opposite; success comes from going down to our heart and sharing our emotional struggles. Listening to our emotions reveals our needs. Risking letting your partner into your needs is the surest path to either rejection or transformation.

Protection against disappointment by not risking provides immediate defense from rejection but also guarantees the needs go unmet. True connection comes by supporting each other in the broken places. As long as there is only room in our relationships for “getting it right,” then so much of our true selves are relegated to the darkness. The hope of all relationships, including our relationship with God, isn’t based on merit but on grace. To bring our whole being into the light of another, especially our vulnerabilities, is God’s blueprint for eternal existence.