Advice for Couples: Dealing with Boundary Crossing In-Laws

Posted on November 5, 2011 by Lucille

Now that the holiday season is almost here, let’s talk In-laws…

I can’t tell you how many clients come to me with problems related to their parents or parents-in-law.

For instance, one woman felt pressure to go into debt and buy very expensive gifts for her husband’s parents because the parents spent so much money on her children. I told her to stick to her budget and not change her behavior based on someone else’s. I also asked her to have her husband tell his parent’s they didn’t want their children spoiled with such expensive gifts.

Yesterday, I was watching Dr. Phil and there was a woman that had to be the most intrusive and mean person I’ve ever seen on television. I kept thinking it had to be an act. She hated her daughter’s choice of a husband and made sure she told everyone…every 30 seconds.

Dr. Phil threatened to take her off-stage so he could talk to her daughter. He added this great advice:

When there’s trouble in a marriage, it’s your job to handle your people.

In other words, the wife needs to deal with the trouble-makers in her family and set firm boundaries with them, and the husband should to do the same with his family.

Then he told the young woman,

Your people are out of control!

Gretchen Rubin at The Happiness Project just happened to post on this same subject today. Here’s another article I wrote about managing holiday stress.

What advice would you give newlyweds for dealing with boundary-crossing inlaws? What advice would you offer for dealing with holiday stress?

Emotionally Focused Therapy – a successful type of marriage therapy

Posted on July 19, 2011 by Lucille

pooh-and-piglet-holding-hands

I love this cartoon. The caption goes:
“Pooh!” he whispered.
“Yes, Piglet?”
“Nothing,” said Piglet, taking Pooh’s paw. “I just wanted to be sure of you.”

This past year I got some very specialized training in marriage counseling. I continue to take seminars, get supervision and work towards more advanced certification.

Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) is one of the most successful and helpful types of marriage counseling there is. It is based on Attachment Theory. The idea is that young children attach to their caregivers at a very early age. They may attach in a healthy way, or they may be anxiously attached, or avoidant.

Many people believe that the way we learned to attach to our parents (or other caregivers) is how we attach later on with our mates. Ultimately, problems happen in marriage when partners can’t turn towards each other from a vulnerable place to ask for their needs to be met. That’s the concept behind the Piglet/Pooh cartoon. Ultimately partners just want to be sure of each other.

That is a very basic summary, but there is so much more you should know. To check our the website or find a therapist click here. Here is a helpful article on EFT.

*See what research says is the neccessary ingredient for a happy marriage: Click Here

Single Lady Devastation – belonging and self-soothing

Posted on July 13, 2011 by Lucille

This is an amazing video. It shows our need to be included, and it shows the way we get soothing when those needs are not met. Watch how the little boy aches to be part of the “single lady” club and how his mother finally comforts him.

Even from a very young age, being included seems to be “hard-wired” into our nature. Nothing hurts more than rejection. In fact, my friend Becky showed me a recent study that shows the same areas of the brain are affected when we are excluded, as the ones that are affected when we experience physical pain.

I believe God created us to need relationship. Some of us think we can get by with our “pull-yourself-up-from-the-bootstraps” mentality, but try doing that long enough and you’ll realize it’s not very effective. Sure it keeps us safe, but it keeps us alone.

This past year I trained in a model of marriage therapy called Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT). This model was developed by the brilliant Sue Johnson and is based on Attachment Theory, which has as its premise the idea that people need to be attached and attuned to a safe “other.” It is one of the most successful types of marriage therapy available.

When marriages struggle, it’s because people don’t know how to turn towards each other and ask for their needs to be met from a vulnerable place. They don’t know how to say, “I’m scared when you talk to that other woman” or “When you yell at me like that, I feel like I can’t meet your needs. I feel like I’m not a good man.”

Instead couples either pursue or distance — screaming and demanding for their needs to be met, or pulling away in fear of not being enough. This creates a dance that eventually turns into a toxic mis-step. A pursuer may think she told her mate how much she needs him, but she does not do it in a vulnerable way that comes from her core needs (e.g. fear, sadness, longing). And the distancer may think he has told his mate that he’s scared he can’t meet her needs, but all she experiences is him pulling away to his computer.

There are some terrific books if you want to learn more: Hold Me Tight by Sue Johnson, Attachments by Gary Sibcy and Tim Clinton, and How We Love by Milan Yerkovich. Many clinicians believe that the way you learned to attach and get comfort as a child has much to say about how you will connect and get comfort as an adult. So how did you learn to feel safe and get your needs met as a child and how do you do so as an adult?