Are you one up or one down?

As I mentioned last time, Terry Real, a family therapist and lecturer, has some interesting ideas about men and women in heterosexual relationships. In his book How Can I Get Through To You?, he talks about closing the intimacy gap between men and women. He’s a robust kind of therapist who cheerfully states that he takes sides, and he tends to make sweeping statements about men and women, observing that men in relationship take a ‘one up’ role, while women are in ‘one down’ mode. In my experience I have found the reality to be more nuanced than that – in some relationships the dynamic fluctuates, so that sometimes one partner is ‘one up’ and sometimes they’re ‘one down’. And indeed I worked with one couple where the woman was very definitely ‘one up’ at all times. Having said that, I have seen many couples where the man does tend to be ‘one up’, and I think it’s useful anyway to consider the inevitable impact that the ‘one up/one down’ dynamic has on a relationship, regardless of gender.

In Real’s experience he has found that these are the typical male/female positions:

Many men …

• are raised to be competitive and to perform, which makes them disconnect from their feelings and gives them a sense that they have to be brave and strong at all times
• assess their value by their achievements
• are unhappy with their partner’s unhappiness
• are on the receiving end of their partner’s unhappiness and get used to waiting for the storm to pass
• find it difficult to cope when the going gets tough – they struggle to express how they feel, and they don’t get help
• take the option to run away from difficult relationships/family life
• feel they have to be invulnerable, working hard, performing well, and that this precludes love and connection
• are uncomfortable with the idea of intimacy – it arouses fear and mistrust in them, which leads to shame, and then rage, and the need to be ‘one up’
• blame their partner if the relationship is struggling

Many women …

• derive a sense of themselves through connecting to others
• are taught to accommodate, and their anger, frustration and sense of injustice at this spills out at certain times
• choose silence over conflict or separation, but feel resentful
• operate in ‘one down’ mode so as not to provoke their male partner, and quietly seethe about their role
• blame themselves for difficulties in the relationship

So far, so dispiriting. And while many men and women wouldn’t recognise themselves in those bulleted lists, if any of it resonates with you, or if you feel that your relationship suffers from ‘one up/one down’ syndrome, here are some ways forward.

• Women have to express their needs calmly but firmly (Real encourages them to ‘talk softly but carry a big stick’). Men have to listen, and see what they can do about meeting their partner’s needs. I would go further and suggest that once there is more of a sense of two people ‘being with’ each other rather than in ‘one up’ and ‘one down’ mode, men can also be encouraged to say what they need, and women can listen, and respond
• ‘What can I do to help you give me more of what I’d like?’ – I believe that this is an important question for both partners, as it models the fact that we can only control our own actions. It also underlines that we’re in a loop in relationship – we do something, our partner responds, we react and so on
• Identify your bottom lines, and calmly stick to them: ‘I won’t tolerate …’
• Accept the flaws in your relationship, regretting what is lacking without resorting to blame
• Accept the other’s point of view even if you don’t agree with it. This becomes easier once you know that your perspective will be similarly accepted
• Listen carefully and look for a response that furthers repair. As Real says to clients: ‘You can be right or you can be married. What’s more important to you?’
• Try to keep control when you get that whoosh of fear, shame or anger
• Develop your negotiating skills: with an invitation (‘Would you like to …?’), a request (‘Would you do … for me?’) or a demand (this is your bottom line again: ‘I can’t accept you shouting at me’)
• Try to find your adult mode, keep calm, and make sure your comments are moderate even if your partner is being immoderate
• Recognise that the following will not help your relationship: control (constantly trying to change your partner to suit your agenda), revenge (trying to hurt your partner so they actually get how much they’ve hurt you) and resignation (acting as though you accept something when really you’re resenting it).

Essentially Real is wanting to ‘bring men in from the cold’. He wants to help them to leave behind the relentless pressure to perform and to achieve, and to risk connecting with their partner, making themselves vulnerable. It’s to be hoped that they then see that the two are not mutually exclusive, and that if both partners feel connected and appreciated, all kinds of issues can be solved together.

Fathers, men and boys

It’s Father’s Day. And the end of Men’s Health Week. And after the flurry of interesting debate in the media this week about men, I wanted to add a few words of my own.

I’ve had the privilege of working with quite a few men during my years as a counsellor. They have often started out rather nervous and reluctant, and have sometimes been ‘sent’ to counselling by work, or a partner, or a friend. My job, as with any client, is to put them at their ease, almost to give them permission to be there, taking the first steps towards exploring whatever is troubling them. It is then extremely rewarding to see them begin to talk, even though they’ll often criticise themselves for ‘not knowing how to put it’ or ‘not being very good at explaining’. For some men, it’s totally unfamiliar to speak openly and honestly, to own how scared or angry or sad they may be feeling, without having to try to cover it up and be big and strong. And once they start, they realise they can find the words, in actual fact they’re perfectly able to let me know what’s going on for them, indeed they turn out to be pretty good at it.

In Steve Biddulph’s thought-provoking book Manhood, he states that men and boys account for:

90% of convicted acts of violence

90% of behavioural problems at school

80% of children with learning difficulties

90% of prison inmates

70% of the unemployed

And as if that wasn’t stark enough, men and boys take their own lives three times more often than women, and twice as many men kill themselves as die in car accidents. Furthermore, he believes that men suffer from loneliness, compulsive competition and emotional timidity.

If you’re a man reading this, before your heart sinks right down to your boots, all is not lost – Biddulph offers plenty of advice about how to turn things around. It’s worth reading the book, but I’ll give a snapshot of the steps he offers here. You can start by fixing things with your father, i.e. finding out about his past, getting into dialogue with him and engaging with him. If you’re in a relationship, try to meet your partner as an equal, by standing up for what’s true for you, rather than either keeping the peace or being a bully. If sex isn’t working, try to talk about what’s going wrong rather than simply putting up with it. Engage actively with your children – set up fun physical games with them, but also be calm and firm when it’s required. Nurture your friendships with other men – don’t compete with one another, but offer affection and support. Try to find work that you believe in, and when you retire, don’t retire from life – become an elder, as Biddulph puts it, and stay involved.

One thing that has struck me since I’ve been working with couples is how often both partners will trace the start of their difficulties to the birth of their first child. I have long felt that much more attention should be paid to fathers at this time. It’s understandable that the focus tends to be on the mother, and that focus needs to be there, but fathers could do with support too, if they’re going to be able to provide mother and baby with the nurturing they require in the early weeks. If the labour has been difficult, maybe even traumatic, the father may have witnessed some fairly terrifying events, while the mother in the throes of labour may not have been as acutely aware of what was going on. Somehow the father has to process all of that while trying to support his partner and learning to look after a new baby. He can feel pushed out, excluded from his relationship with his partner, ill at ease with the baby, and he may not know where to take any of these feelings. It’s so crucial that the couple can share the joys and the frustrations that becoming parents will bring, and perhaps a bit of awareness in advance of what some of those frustrations might be would help. Having a look at this page from the National Childbirth Trust, for example, could be a start: http://www.nct.org.uk/parenting/dad’s-view-changing-relationships.

Not all men are fathers, of course. There’s an interesting short film made by Samaritans here http://www.samaritans.org/news/interviews-men-2012, stopping men in the street and asking how they handle difficult times in their lives. One man comments on the gulf between 'what they think they should be and what they actually are', and another observes that some men think that 'if you cry you can't climb Everest - but actually you can do both'. Of course there are many men who don’t have a problem with expressing their feelings, but most of the men interviewed here talk about how difficult it can be. There are plenty of women who find sharing their innermost thoughts unappealing as well, but it does seem as though more of them tend to seek counselling, and perhaps to talk to other people when the chips are down.

Paul Brook in his Dippyman blog http://dippyman.wordpress.com/2013/06/12/depression-and-men-lets-not-be-strong-silent-types/ gives eloquent voice to the perils of ‘manning up’, and it makes me wonder why should men always feel they have to be strong? Where do they learn that? How can we change the way we all are, so that men don’t have to fear that admitting to feeling sad or scared or tired or low or angry is weak and humiliating? How can we all help the men and boys we know to believe that it’s okay to talk about how they feel, to cry when they need to, and to own their doubts and uncertainties? It’s a big subject, and one for my next blog. Terry Real, a family therapist and lecturer, has some helpful advice about ‘bringing men in from the cold’ that I’ll share with you next time …

Taking the plunge

Why would I decide to spend an hour a week going over difficult stuff with a stranger? It would be so embarrassing – what will he/she think about me droning on about all my ‘issues’? Aren’t there more fun ways to spend my hard-earned money? Do I really want to stir things up when life’s hard enough already? She/he won’t understand me anyway – no-one ever does. I should just pull myself together and get on with it. There are loads of people who have more serious problems than I do – and they all seem to manage fine.

It’s a big step to start counselling. You’ll probably be weighing up some of the thoughts above. You’ve probably got to the point in your life where something isn’t working, and you’re wondering if things could be different, but actually taking the plunge to contact a therapist feels pretty scary.

You could start by finding out a bit more about the many different types of therapy that are available. Would you prefer a time-limited approach, or might you like to embark on some sessions and see where they take you? Do you want to see someone more than once a week, or might it be enough to talk to someone on the phone? Would you respond best to being given strategies and tools? Would you like to share your feelings and see what patterns and themes can be uncovered?

Counselling Directory offers a summary of different kinds of therapy here http://www.counselling-directory.org.uk/counselling.html and by reading this you’ll get a sense of what you think will work best for you. Once you have more of an idea of what type of therapy you’re looking for, you can find the counsellors in your area on websites such as Counselling Directory. Some therapists have links to their websites, where you can read more about their approach. You might want to give some of them a call and see if they sound like the kind of person you’d be able to work with.

You may be nervous at the beginning – you don’t know what to expect. Share your fears with your counsellor. Explain that there’s part of you that wants to sit there, and another part that would rather be almost anywhere else. Ask your counsellor about the process, tell them that you’re uncertain about what might happen, and see if they can reassure you about how the sessions will evolve. Their training and experience will help them to make you feel as comfortable as possible, and by understanding as much as they can about where you’re coming from, they’ll be able to tailor their approach to your needs. And don’t forget that you’re in control all along – you can stop the sessions whenever you like.

Once you start working together, you will develop a relationship with your counsellor, and this will vary according to their style. Some counsellors are more directive than others, some will offer specific strategies or techniques, and some will gently draw your attention to recurring themes they have noticed. What you should find with any counsellor is that they will listen carefully to what you have to say, and from their responses you will have the feeling that they are ‘getting’ you, doing their very best to understand exactly how things are for you. This process can be enormously powerful – for some people it’s the first time in their lives that they’re sitting with someone who wants to know more about how they feel about things. It may be difficult at first to trust the counsellor, to share painful thoughts and feelings, but a good therapeutic experience will allow you to open up gradually, to take things at your own pace. And this is how I feel counselling works – you have a chance to explore your needs and desires in a safe place, and your counsellor helps you to find a way forward that makes sense for you. 

How to increase connection with your partner

Hold Me Tight, one of the many useful books on couples therapy I’ve read, is written by Dr Sue Johnson, a leading proponent of EFCT (Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy). She believes that the way to enhance, or save, a relationship is to re-establish a secure emotional attachment and preserve the bond between you, and her book offers a wealth of practical and emotional guidance on how to increase connection with your partner.

Johnson believes that we’re much more dependent on our partners these days, now that we live more in social isolation, and may not have our extended families nearby. When we feel secure in our relationship, we are less angry, more empowered, more able to be curious and open. If we begin to feel that our partner is unavailable or unresponsive, we react with fear, and in most cases we either become demanding and clingy, or we withdraw.

Seven conversations
Johnson teaches couples to have what she calls ARE (Accessibility, Responsiveness, Engagement) conversations, which are all about checking out whether your can reach your partner, and whether you can rely on them to respond to you emotionally. She identifies seven ARE conversations which can transform how a couple engage with each other. When I see a couple, I’ll be looking out for the negative cycles they get into, and Johnson’s first four conversations aim to help the couple limit these spirals. The fifth and sixth conversations focus on increasing emotional bonding, and the seventh shows couples how to sustain and build on their connection.

Limiting negative spirals

1 Demon Dialogues

Couples are encouraged to stay in the present and notice the circle of criticism they’re engaged in. The theme is probably one of the following:

Find the bad guy. They blame each other. Feeling angry and fearful, they attack before they can be attacked.

Protest polka. Couples get into a dance in which A reaches out and B steps back. Johnson points out the dance, and helps the couple to recognise it.

Freeze and flee. Both A and B step back, feeling numb and distant from the other. This usually occurs after some time has been devoted to finding the bad guy, and the protest polka.

2 Raw Spots

This refers to the wounds we feel when we’ve felt abandoned or criticised. They will often come from things that have happened to us in our past, and may be compounded by our current relationship, and crises in our lives. We need to acknowledge and soothe each other’s raw spots. We can tell a raw spot has been activated if the emotional tone of a conversation suddenly changes, and we feel like we, or our partner, may have reacted out of proportion. It’s as though an alarm goes off. Our body responds, putting us in survival mode, our intellect tries to work out what’s happening (am I safe?), and we react … If we’re angry, we may approach and fight, if we’re ashamed, we withdraw and hide, if we’re afraid, we flee or freeze or attack, and if we’re sad, we grieve and let go. Johnson encourages us to find and acknowledge the source of our raw spots, and to be open with our partner about our vulnerabilities.

3 Rocky Moment

This is about realising that your partner’s negative reactions, especially during conflict, may well be a desperate attempt to deal with their attachment fears. Johnson urges couples to de-escalate conflict to create emotional safety together. She suggests we stop the right/wrong game, and begin sentences with We rather than I/You. It’s important for us to stop blaming the other, to take responsibility for our own feelings and to ask our partner about theirs.

4 Hold Me Tight

What am I most afraid of?

Try to order, distil and share your experience so that it’s not so scary.

What do I most need from you?

Tell your partner. Be honest. Be able to know that you long for connection, and that you fear losing your partner. You want reassurance and comfort, and that’s okay.

Emotional connection reduces stress hormones like cortisol, and Johnson believes that each time a couple creates a moment of real connection, the bond between them grows.

Increased emotional bonding

5 Forgiving Injuries

Being hurt by those we rely on to protect us makes the trauma particularly hard to handle.

If one partner feels abandoned, they may try to ignore or bury the injury, but it doesn’t go away. Johnson stresses that these injuries have to be confronted and processed together through a healing conversation designed to promote forgiveness and reintroduce trust.

If A has hurt B, B expresses the pain they’ve felt, and A acknowledges the pain and their part in it. A expresses regret and remorse for the hurt caused. B asks for what they need to get over the hurt and pain. Together A and B create a new story that captures the injuring event, and describes how they confronted the trauma together and healed it.

6 Bonding – Sex and Touch

Sex is often the first casualty if a relationship is faltering. It’s worth noting that touch both arouses and soothes – it’s about both sex and attachment. The couple may be having sealed-off sex, which is all about the act, performance, prowess and has little feeling. They may be having solace sex, which is based on anxiety, a desperate attempt to feel close. Johnson helps couples to get to synchrony sex, when they’re in physical and emotional harmony, able to ask for what they want, both sexually and in the relationship in general. They can soothe and comfort one another.

Going forward

7 Keeping Love Alive

Johnson advocates regular ARE conversations. Couples need to agree how to get out of the dangerous areas that lead to demon dialogues, and to celebrate moments of connection when they occur. She suggests they create rituals around parting and being reunited, and share their dreams with one another, while forming a new model of being together. It’s helpful to separate attachment issues from practical problems that need to be resolved so that the practical stuff can be
discussed without attachment needs getting in the way.

It seems to me that Hold Me Tight offers a sound structure to help couples find, and keep, emotional connection. I use some of Johnson’s ideas in my couples work, and I have seen how they can help. With a bit of understanding and insight, we can ensure that our relationships mutually nurture and nourish us, rather than causing us pain. Her quote from Leonard Cohen says it all:

Dance me to your beauty

with a burning violin

Dance me through the panic

till I’m gathered safely in

Lift me like an olive branch

and be my homeward dove

Dance me to the end of love