Even Marriages Need to Revisit the Fundamentals

“We Don’t Feel Connected”

This is one of the most common reasons that I hear for couples looking for a therapist. It usually goes hand-in-hand with the statement that communication could be better. One of the first things I ask about at this point is what the couple has tried up to that point in order to address that concern. There are almost always other means that they have tried to regain a sense of connection. Obviously, though, something isn’t quite clicking into place.

The go-to Responses

At this point in the initial visit, I typically hear a range of answers that sound like this:

“We try to make more time together.”

“We are scheduling at least one date night a week.”

“We are scheduling sex.”

“We tried to get away for the weekend.”

Now, I want to pause right here to acknowledge the effort that these couples are putting in. This is especially true when they keep trying these things in the face of not achieving the feelings that they are trying to. It is an extremely frustrating experience, and it takes resolve to continue trying when it feels like the wheels are spinning.

Let’s take a moment to look at the few quotations above. What each of them has in common is that they entail a removal from moment-to-moment life. Each of them is a way of carving out time to spend focusing on one another. These are absolutely fantastic efforts to put into a relationship, however there is an even more fundamental step before dates or getaways will have the lasting, sustaining effect that they are meant to.

Back to the Basics

One of the things that couples have an easy time recognizing (but a hard time embodying) is that their lives together happens continuously. Any moment that you spend in each other’s presence is an opportunity to build up or chip away at a relationship, and it can be difficult to pinpoint what is going on until you learn how to make it happen. And this brings us to the main topic of this post:

Bids for Connection

A bid for connection (or a connection bid) is a brief, spontaneous interaction that is meant to provide a status update on the dynamic within the relationship. Before we get into what these look like, it is worth going over what makes it difficult to identify what is contributing to feelings of disconnection.

The human brain has to make some sacrifices in order to tend to all of its functions throughout the day. One of those sacrifices is the ability to pay attention to and recall every moment in the day. Some things, then, have to exist in the background while still contributing to our overall sense of how the day has gone.

Bringing this back to connection bids, these tend to happen so frequently that they begin to fade into the background. However, this does not suggest that they do not play an absolutely crucial role in how we perceive our relationships. On the contrary, they build up and build up even though our attention is often elsewhere. When we try to express the source of our disconnected feelings, then, it often comes out as a specific example or two of missed connection bids. By consequence, it can often feel invalid to point at one or two instances that feel so significant.

Successful Bids

If connection bids are so important, then, how do we make them successful?

First, we have to know what we’re looking for. In the moment, bids can seem very small in significance. It can be a squeeze on the shoulder or hand while walking past, a wink or a smile across the room, or sharing a funny video or meme from the internet. None of these interactions necessitate a longer back-and-forth. However, they go a long way in establishing the mood and status between two people.

After the first person reaches out in one of these small ways, the person who does not initiate the interaction holds the key to whether or not the bid is successful. Just like the initiation, the response can be quite small as well. A smile and a wink back, a return squeeze of the hand, or an acknowledgement of the humor from the video. All of these responses indicate a willingness to extend one’s self back toward the other rather than giving the cold shoulder or scolding the interruption. Every time an exchange like this is successful, it goes into a mental bank that exists deep inside of us to provide the reassurance that makes us feel comfortable and secure. A large bank of unsuccessful bids makes us questioning and anxious.

Reestablishing a pattern of successful connection bids is one of the most important steps in maintaining a sense of togetherness in a relationship. While it might sound simple, try not to feel discouraged that it can still be difficult.

How to Know When it's Time to get Marriage Counseling

Lingering Stigma Around Therapy

There isn’t an area of mental health where no work needs to be done to reduce social stigma. While it can sometimes feel to a counselor that progress has been made over the last few decades (and it has), it is always worth checking that creeping sense of complacence in the matter.

Marriage counseling seems to be one of the most pressing areas where this is true. Maybe you’ve noticed that the divorce rate has actually dropped in recent years, which might look encouraging at first. However, closer inspection shows us that the marriage rate is also falling in tandem. No matter what the cause, it is at least clear that one of the most central institutions to our society is in decline.

On a much more anecdotal note, I work in a building with a handful of general practice attorneys. More and more, it seems that the cases coming in are all divorce filings. Perhaps some of these marriages truly were destined for failure regardless of any intervention. If not, though, would it not at least have been worth reaching out for help if it were available? If so, it might also be true that the perceived embarrassment surrounding the idea of getting marriage counseling deterred some of those couples from reaching out.

So, When Do I know that I should Reach Out?

Let me respond to this question with another set of questions. When is the right time to get a physical? When is the right time to go to the gym, or to get a physical trainer? When is the right time to take up music lessons or to take a class that interests you?

Presumably, you would take music lessons before you book your first show, you would get a physical before you fell ill, and you would go to the gym before your muscles atrophy. It seems, though, that marriage counseling is often the final tool to prove a willingness of effort before calling it quits.

This is not to say that more severe cases are absolutely hopeless, but early intervention clearly produces the highest chance of success. So instead of thinking of marriage counseling as a badge of shame that suggests your marriage is failing, we can use it as a way to strengthen a marriage that simply has areas to improve upon. At the end of the day, this is the purpose of marriage work. To restrengthen a marriage to its peak.

After all, life already has so many obstacles and unknowns. You don’t have to let marriage be the one that you struggle through without a helping hand from the outside.