Equal Couples

Kirstee Williams, M.S., is a doctoral student in Marriage and Family Therapy at Loma Linda University in Southern California. She is part of a clinical research group that focuses on how to work with gender, power, and cultural issues in couple therapy.  Kirstee is particularly skilled in working with the emotional process between intimate partners and is currently conducting an analysis of infidelity treatment models to determine to what extent they may reproduce gender stereotypes (early conclusions suggest that they do, but that is a topic for another day).  Here Kirstee describes what she is learning about working with vulnerability in distressed relationships.  

 As a family therapist interested in inequality in couple relationships, I have been surprised by how subtle equality processes are. Our clinical research group uses a model of equality that focuses on mutual accommodation, power, vulnerability, and attunement.  As my eyes have been opened to these aspects of equality, many forms of unequal relating are easy to spot. For example, it now obvious to me how important mutual vulnerability is.  I have come to see facilitating male vulnerability within the couple interaction as a particularly important achievement in most successful couple therapy.

 Yet, the subtly of the equality process that follows male vulnerability becomes complicated. Most therapists would move toward helping the female respond in equally vulnerable ways in that moment. Although female vulnerability is just as significant as male vulnerability for equal relating over the long term, it is important to note that societal process have created different “starting places” for gender. A man’s willingness to be vulnerable (and take in other emotional experiences) may spark what has traditionally been considered to be “less vulnerable” emotions such as anger from females. Gender stereotypes tend to suggest that women should not be angry, or should have to keep the peace by privileging male experience over their own, often losing their “honest” voice in the process. Thus when a couple is transiting to more equal relating through a male’s willingness to be vulnerable, honest emotionality (including anger) from the female in response to his vulnerability may be the first sign of equality in the couple interaction and the first step toward more honest, sincere connection. I am learning how important it is to make space for this expression and help male partners accept and take in her experience.

 For example, I was working with a couple who had been coming for reunification after the husband had left the relationship for several months. He desperately wanted the relationship to work and was very interested in learning all he could about what it meant to be “relational.” His wife also wanted the relationship to work and was terrified to challenge him for fear that he would leave again. As a result, she tended to be extremely supportive and accommodating of his efforts. Throughout the weeks and months that followed we worked on many aspects of relationalty, but one particular aspect seemed to hold the energy to move the relationship forward—his vulnerability. As I coached him in becoming more vulnerable I could feel his wife responding differently to him. In session I explored this dynamic, and asked the husband to invite his wife to share what her increasing anger was about. She responded, “For the first time he is safe enough to be honest with.” Then she turned to him and said, “your leaving was devastating, I am very angry that you could disregard me and our relationship like you did.” The husband responded by nodding his head and acknowledging her right to be angry, actively staying in the vulnerable position in that moment. He then moved toward her to apologize again for his actions. For the first time since his leaving this couple had a sincere connection regarding the “incident.” 

 If I had expected this wife to meet her husband with the same amount of vulnerability he was displaying in that moment she would never have shared honestly what her experience of anger was. Several weeks later the husband commented in session, “I fall more in love with her every day, she has an energy there to get excited about.”

 Posted by Kirstee Williams

As I was reading about the intentional way Marc and Amy Vachon  create their own relationship (see my previous post), I was struck by their conscious resistance to falling into predetermined gender patterns.  I’m not sure we’re used to thinking of equality as resistance, but it really is.  Resistance is necessary in the face of established power dynamics that do not necessarily serve the needs and interests of individual couples.

Just today a student was describing a couple that he interviewed for a research study.  The husband said that he put family before his work.  But by default he ends up focusing more on his work than on what is important to his wife.  This happens because he does not intentionally focus on her and the old patterns take over.  To live by his ideals, he needs to intentionally resist old gender norms that invite her to focus on him, but not him to focus on her.   It takes small acts of resistance every day–at least until new patterns become ingrained.

Let’s hear it for resistance!!  How do you resist? What are your acts of resistance?