Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:07] Speaker B: We're doing a podcast video today on fights in a. In a couple or relationship counseling. And we have Ender Doyle with us, who is a mental health social worker and works quite a lot in couples counseling space. So welcome, Ender.
[00:00:25] Speaker A: Thanks, Stuart. Good to be here.
[00:00:27] Speaker B: Yeah. So fighting in a relationship, I'm wondering, you know, a couple walks in, you can feel the tension in the room. You kind of notice the. The anxiety or the, the yuckiness already. What, what's that like for you?
[00:00:42] Speaker A: Well, for me personally, it's commonly the space I work in and, and, and I love my work. So strange as it may seem to people outside of this space, it's a space I feel strange, strangely comfortable in.
So I can, I can sit with that. But what I'm feeling in. In that is a lot of pain. That's the first thing I'm tuning into.
As you say, a couple sits down and you can just feel the tension and perhaps the animosity and resentment.
But what I'm feeling, because I'm outside of that, is two people who are probably in a great deal of pain.
And I'm thinking in the back of my mind that sooner or later we got to get to the pain underneath. The rage, the anger, the hurt, the resentment. You know, frequently what we'll end up, start talking about is not what we finish talking about. Frequently, what people are fighting about in relationships is not what the fight is really about. I think part of them knows that. A lot of the time people will say, I'll say, so give me an example. What kind of things do you fight about? And the most common answer to that, sure, there may be specific things like an infidelity or something that's never been processed, some deep wounding like that that we have to go to sooner or later.
But a common answer will also be, oh, it's embarrassing. It's just stupid stuff. You know, that's a really common answer. But they have somehow gotten locked into this dynamic that they can't get out of. And so they've done what I think is a smart move and brought in a third person into the system to change the system.
And we can do that. Yeah.
So what. What I'm hoping for at some stage during the. The passage of the first session is that some of the anger and hurt can melt, and at least there can come an openness, just even a possibility of being open to seeing this person again, the person they were before all of this happened. You know, the person we were attracted to or the person I was with in the first two or three years of my relationship or whatever it may be.
[00:02:58] Speaker B: Yeah, I, I often get a few giggles from couples when they, when they say we fought about the rubbish or taking out the bins or, you know, you didn't do the dishes last night or, or just really, you know, silly stuff. But obviously it's, it's not about the bins. Right? Like there's, there's other stuff going on there.
[00:03:18] Speaker A: That's right. It's, for example, it, it's, it could be about feeling seen, heard. It could be about power. It could be like sort of buried power dynamics in the relationship that we don't like to admit to. We don't like to admit that we're in a power play with our partners, but very often there are power dynamics going on. And me not leaving the bins out could be my way of saying, you don't get to control me.
And I may or may not be aware of that when I'm doing it. You know, when, when fights are getting ugly, when people are yelling at each other, really attacking people, each other, say using name calling, maybe yelling in front of kids.
Sometimes I ask, like, it seems like an overly simple question, but you know, if I'm speaking to a parent who's yelling at their partner in front of their two year old, now no parent thinks that's a good ide.
So I might ask the question, so why do you do it?
And the answer usually is some form of because I don't know what else to do.
It's that simple. I don't know what else to do. So that's where I come in with a list of alternatives. The problem is who is doing the yelling? What person are you when you're doing the yelling? If I met you, then who am I talking to?
You know, because I, I fully subscribe to the idea that we have parts and at different times these parts become very active and they're almost like entire personalities and we may or may not know that we're in them, but even if we do, we can't always get out of them. I mean, I'm sure you've had the, the experience and I've had the experience of being in a fight, realizing I'm shape on shaky ground, realizing I'm being unreasonable. I can't quite get myself out of it. You know, and this is something that I think I said before. Most of these situations I've been in something like, I've been an active participant in a lot of these behaviors in the past. I've Learned a lot of these things the hard way. But what I'm saying is, I want to know, who are you when you're in that zone, when you're yelling at your partner or behaving in ways that you're really not proud of? Because you're not the same person necessarily, who's sitting in front of me in therapy. You know, that person is fairly reasonable and open generally. So what's happening? What's triggering you into this other Persona that you don't really need, and that's not serving you.
Forget about the harm to your partner. That. That's a serious issue. But how's it serving you? Because it's certainly not getting your needs met.
[00:05:59] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:05:59] Speaker A: I can guarantee you that if you're at your partner with a finger pointed at their head like a weapon, I can guarantee you you are not getting your need. What is your need is you're not succeeding in getting it met. I can tell you that. Yeah.
[00:06:13] Speaker B: And often in that kind of high intensity, you're also not feeling heard. Like you. You've gone past that threshold of, you know, too. Too far, too angry. Yeah.
[00:06:24] Speaker A: I'd say you're not feeling heard. And not only that, but you're actively preventing your partner from hearing you.
If you can find nothing good about your partner's position, they can find nothing good about yours.
I would say as a sort of mantra to get into your head, to feel understood, give understanding. You don't have to understand the whole picture. You know what I mean? Let's say you fully believe your partner's being selfish and disrespectful. Let's say you believe that, okay. You can still find an understandable part because we've all been selfish and disrespectful. If we're honest to some degree, we all have, or at least we've all felt the urge to be. And maybe we've pulled ourselves back. But if we can't be honest and say, yeah, that's in me as a human being, you know, then really, you got to get to that is what I'm saying. You got to accept that your partner is a bundle of insecurities and flaws, and they're struggling to do their best a lot like you are.
So look for the understandable part, even if you disagree with the whole behavior. Can I give you another classic mistake that couples make is they go from the specific. So you said the bins and the dishes. Great examples.
So let's say you're my partner, Stuart. You didn't leave the bins out again. Stuart, I came home. You've been working at home all day. I've been out slaving away for 10 hours and the breakfast dishes are still there. Okay, so that's the specific, right? So I can have a problem with that and we can talk about that. Fine. But what I then will tend to do is go up the ladder. I go. This is because Stuart doesn't care about me at all. He never has cared about me, actually, now that I think about it. Okay, now we've gone up a whole other level. And now let's go up another level. This is because Stuart is a really bad person, you know, but like, you're nodding. I mean, don't you recognize that? Aren't we all capable of that?
[00:08:29] Speaker B: And it's so quick to get there when, when you haven't given it a chance. Example after example after example of softening that and understanding and, and, and tackling it together.
[00:08:42] Speaker A: It's so quick to get there. And it's happening unconsciously. We're not deliberately doing it. If we stepped back from it, we'd say, oh yeah, there's a problem with that logic. You know, the fact that someone doesn't leave the bins out doesn't mean they're a terrible person. There are a hundred other possibilities here.
We know that when we're in our sort of right mind, when we're in our, you could call it our healthy adult or our wise mind. Okay? But a lot of the work in getting out of habitual fighting is starting to inhabit and grow the healthy adult part of ourselves and starting to see these sort of maladaptive children that we have inside ourselves. Starting to become conscious of them, starting to see how quickly we get triggered into being them. Starting to see how detrimental their behaviors are, how they no longer serve us. Perhaps they served us when we were 10 years old, you know, our fight and flight sort of. Perhaps then they were adaptive. But as a 30 year old, 40 year old, 50 year old, they've become maladaptive. But they don't change, they stay the same. But we can evolve. We can evolve and grow and learn new habits. Yeah.
[00:09:51] Speaker B: So it sounds quite important then to understand the mess in those fights. What, what are both parties bring to make that fight messy? And what are, what are the messy parts? What, so yelling and screaming? Yeah, any, any other messy bits that, that you notice.
[00:10:10] Speaker A: Really common dynamic is one person retreats and withdraws and becomes completely unavailable. Like I, I'm in my invisible cave. I've got like a thick, thick perspex you can see me, but I might as well be a ghost. You can't touch me. You know, again, an adaptive part that was probably very useful to that person early in their life, but it's become automatic and they do it. They're in it before they know it. They're not doing it necessarily. Del.
These are old hardwired parts, you know.
So then what happens to the other person? Let's say a person, to use the classic sort of attachment terminology, anxiously attached, you know, panic that they're wired differently. We need to realize that we're wired differently. The other person finds this intolerable. The person behind, they're sort of perspex dome. If you imagine it like that, things, I'm not doing any harm. I'm not aggravating this. I'm sitting here minding my own business. But to another person, that's extremely triggering. I can't get to you. I start to panic again. My maladaptive child thinks, if I can't connect, I'm lost.
So you're going to see panicked ratcheting up of behaviors, more and more desperate. And then that person starts to look like the problem. But in reality, the person who's doing nothing has to realize through couples therapy that actually their lack of moves and lack of efforts to connect, engage and reassure and soothe their partner is part of the problem and part of this dance that I talk about, that we have a responsibility to regulate each other. We are a system. And, you know, I have a responsibility to try to regulate my partner's emotions and feelings just as they have to me, you know, and then I. When a couple's working well, I can be having a good day and do that for my partner. When I'm having a down day, they can do it for me and may have more flexibility and allowance for me not to be at my best, for me to be the maladaptive child, you know, and kind of go, that's okay. And as a human being, he's obviously got stuff going on. It mightn't be all about me. Give him some space, you know what I mean? And talk about it when we're ready, you know? Yeah.
[00:12:33] Speaker B: What do you think kind of helps a couple build the awareness of the mess in the heat of the moment? So, you know, things are bubbling, things are escalating. What are some things that you talk through to help them hit that pause button and take a break or start that regulation? What. What helps couples think about that in the moment?
[00:12:57] Speaker A: One of the things that's essential is that couples learn to get out of fight and flight mode and that that really operates on a physical level. If we can slow down our breath, our heart rate will start to slow, blood pressure will drop a little, stress hormones, adrenaline, cortisol, stop pumping quite as much, and we can start to, literally, our range of focus becomes broader. So it becomes possible to get into that wise mind part of ourselves. So we actively do exercises in couples therapy to de. Escalate ourselves physically. And it's remarkable what can be achieved in three minutes. It's remarkable. I do it time and time again with people, you know, just slowing down, the breath settling down, stop trying to fix anything for three minutes, settle down, connect with your body, connect with the feelings in your body, get to know them.
After three minutes, so many people go, oh, and you can hear. Voices are different, tone is different after three minutes, you know, which, by the way, tone is crucial in this.
There's a phrase in couples therapy, tone trumps content.
So it's not necessarily what I'm saying. Like you mentioned the bins. I can say, stuart, hey, look, I've noticed the bins again. I had to do them again. And I thought we agreed that's different from Stuart, the bins again, really, you know, I'm saying the same thing. I'm upset about the bins because we've talked about this and I'm not feeling heard tone, Trump's content.
So you'll get a lot of people in fights sort of talking about, I did not say that. What I said was this. I'm like, I don't really care about what your objective, your idea of objective truth is. It's not that important. I want to know about the feelings you can say to someone, oh, are you wearing that? Or are you wearing that? You know, all I said was, are you wearing that? But in one way it comes across as a criticism and a put down in another way, it's just curious.
So I would try to teach couples to, to regulate themselves and regulate each other, to soothe themselves and soothe each other.
I would say to couples, to anybody, if you're, if you have a habitual response of going all guns blazing, being aggressive, being offensive, being disrespectful, we can stop that now. I'm saying make a conscious decision, a conscious decision today.
No more disrespectful words or deeds. No more. I'm accountable for that. This is about who I want to be. This is about my side of the street. Yeah, they may or may not respond, but this is about my side of the street. I'm going to go to bed at night feeling that I've lived respectfully in my relationship. Okay.
So part of doing that is learning how to physically decompress. And then the mind will slow down, the emotions will slow down a little, but take as long as it takes.
You know, if you're on the point of letting rip at your partner, if you are a couple who fight a lot, walk away, stop, breathe yourself down, walk around the block. If you need to put cold water on your face, whatever you need to do, listen to some music, listen to podcasts, whatever it is, write it down. If it's an important conversation that you're really bothered about, I strongly recommend writing down your thoughts, your feelings, why you're bothered, and what would help prepare, you know, you would do it for your work, so why not do it with your partner, you know?
Yeah, so they're just some of the things about learning to get yourself into out of fight or flight and into healthy, adult, wise mind, or so I'm.
[00:16:46] Speaker B: Hearing two things, and one is both partners need to take a sense of responsibility for owning their side of the street and actually doing that. You know, that down regulation, that slowdown. But the other thing I think, too, is if one partner or both partners see the other partner doing that, actively seeing that happen in front of them, that shows buy in, doesn't it? That shows, okay, they actually care. They're actually reinvesting in a different way here. And it's not about being right. It's actually about how do we work through this.
[00:17:23] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, well said. It's not about being right.
So we need to change what winning looks like.
It's like, do you want to be. Do you want to be right or do you want to be in a relationship?
Or you could rephrase, say, do you want to be right or do you want to be wise?
So what does winning look like? I'm like, I asked couples this. Nobody has ever answered this. I've asked this cup, this question to 100 couples. So who wins in these arguments?
Who wins? Nobody wins. It's always been the answer. Nobody wins. Okay, so let's change what winning looks like.
What I'm talking about, there is connection, intimacy, getting back to being an intimate, connected team. Getting back to us rather than you against me. Yeah, that's what winning looks like. Winning does not mean that what I said was right and I'm a better person than you. I mean, that. That's. That's a really crazy dynamic is we get into. No, no, I'M the better person, you're the worst person. You know? And again, when a cup. When you can get a couple to step outside and look at that drama that's going on, they can laugh about it, the ridiculousness of it, because actually, when they're in their right mind, it doesn't mean anything to them to be a better person than their partner. They don't want to be.
[00:18:47] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:18:47] Speaker A: But when they're in their automatic maladaptive child, it seems to be all that matters. But that the child part doesn't really care about intimacy. It cares about safety and defense. You know, the wise adult part cares about connection and intimacy and needs it. So winning looks like connection, winning looks like intimacy, winning looks like repair, you know, and not being vindicated in some way as being. Right. Yeah.
[00:19:15] Speaker B: So, yeah. Moving then from this kind of messy, yucky fight to something that, you know, still might have tension as part of it or tricky emotions to talk through. How do you then build that hearing space or that. That safety to talk about some of that heavy stuff?
[00:19:36] Speaker A: Ender, I think, and I've had this experience myself as a client in couples therapy. This was quite a long time ago. I went with my partner. I remember driving to this couples therapist and driving in silence because we couldn't speak to each other anymore.
This was a long time ago, before I studied all these techniques and so on. But we came out of that session and we were able to. We were able to talk. We were able to talk freely as to at least as two old friends, if not even a couple.
That was the difference. I think all that I really got from that was when my partner spoke with the therapist. I could hear her in a way that I couldn't hear her when she was speaking to me.
When you're stepping back and. And she's voicing her pain to this therapist and she's crying her tears now, I can see it because it's not aimed at me, so I don't need to have a wall up, you know, so I've had that experience personally. It was a very moving, deep experience.
We didn't stay together, but we're still friends 20 years later.
And I like to give that to people. So. So to answer your question, how do. How do people start to get to hear each other? Sometimes it's via me hearing them.
[00:20:57] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:20:58] Speaker A: They witness me hearing them. They witness my genuine response to their pain, the pain they're suffering that they can see. Ender is moved by this person's pain because when I'm working with couples I'm in it, Stuart. You know, I am affected. I'm okay with that. I'm feeling it. I need to feel it. This is information to me. So they're witnessing my affect in relation to their partner's distress, and they can hear it because it's not aimed at them for that five or ten minutes. So sometimes I'll speak to one person just about their experience, because I need to know about it. But I also need their partner to be able to witness it from a safe space, you know, where they're not under attack, where they're not on trial, you know, And I try to do that for both parties. And it's a very simple, powerful thing.
[00:21:48] Speaker B: Yeah. So really, it's not about agreeing or. Or maybe even fixing the thing. It's more about that understanding and hearing the. The emotions underneath anger, potentially, or. Or what's really going on underneath.
[00:22:05] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, you're so right.
In fact, often the thing can't be fixed. It's in the past.
Let's take something like infidelity, some. Some form of disloyalty that's caused great hurt. But frequently, couples who come to see me have not been able to process that it could have happened three years ago. And now they're fighting about the dishes and the timekeeping and who cleaned the bathroom.
And those fights are not going to stop until the hurt that happened three years ago is actually processed to be forgiven. I would say if you want to be forgiven, your partner needs to feel that you really get it, that you get the hurt that you caused, that you at least understand it. You've got to. As closely as one person can feel another's pain, you know, as closely as we can. But you got to get close. If I've hurt my partner, let's say three years ago, 10 years ago, it doesn't matter. And that hurt went deep. We're not going to fully be able to integrate that and move on from it until my partner feels that I get what I did. It's not that I have to be in the doghouse for the rest of my life. I need to understand the pain that resulted from my behaviors. You know, so often there is processing of old resentments, and often they're quite buried. They may not come up until the second, third, fourth session. You know, often couples are not even fully aware that that's what's driving current anger. As I say, so much of our behavior is unconscious. It's not available to us. We just feel ourselves, you know, trapped or unloved or angry. Or irritable or anxious or unsafe. But we can't always join the dots as to why that is. Yeah. So, yeah, feeling understood is huge. Sure, we can't go back and erase the past, but enormous benefits from being able to process it in the present, learn from it.
[00:24:12] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:24:13] Speaker A: And feel understood.
[00:24:14] Speaker B: Okay. I'm wondering if that stuckness continues. So you try to build that understanding, that safety around feeling, feeling emotions, being vulnerable, those kind of things. And, you know, kind of session after session after session, There's a real difference of values or, or, or breaking point. What. What do you do there?
[00:24:33] Speaker A: Yeah, so, so that's, that's when you're really getting to a point, where should this couple stay together? You know, and I say to couples, I, I'm a couple's therapist, but my job is not to keep couples together. That's not my job description. I think sometimes that's an assumption that a couple come in, they're in great pain, and my immediate reaction is, okay, how can I make this okay and keep this couple together?
I mean, can I really assume that that's the right thing for all concerned? Yeah, of course not. Of course I can't assume that. So I don't.
I would like to think that my experience enables me to see possibilities for a couple, you know, to stay together and rebuild and reconstruct a new, healthy relationship. But that might not necessarily be the best option for both people.
As I say, speaking of growth, people may be growing at different paces or in different directions. If one person is committed to personal growth and another is committed to staying the same, we've got problem. That's a serious problem, you know, because you're going to outgrow your partner. You know, if there's so really it comes down to willingness. I think, Stuart, if your partner is really willing to kind of go, oh, yeah, I have been this, I have been that. It's not helpful. I can see how that's not going to get me the relationship want, but it's not who I want to be. Okay. We can do anything with that. We can work with that.
[00:26:02] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:26:02] Speaker A: If a partner is saying, well, it's too bad because this is who I am. You know, this is just who I am. I've always been like this.
My parents were like this. My grandparents were like this. Okay. I don't know, like, if your partner is really interested in growing and evolving as a human and having a really deep, intimate, exciting, evolving relationship, well, then maybe your partner needs to look elsewhere. So, you know, I'm open to the Idea that not every couple who sees me is going to stay together.
Sometimes people come and it just feels it's too late. And they'll say that if we'd come three years ago, maybe, but it's too late. But even in that situation, there's a lot to be learned, you know, because if we don't learn it, what are we going to do? We're going to bring it into our next relationship, you know, so there's a lot to be learned. And I'd love to think that people can salvage friendship and connection out of what was an intimate partnership, you know, I'd love to think that they can end wiser rather than more bitter, you know, and frequently there are children involved in my work. So these people are going to be relating to each other for, let's say another 15 or 20 years, whether they like it or not. So let's do the best for all concerned. Yeah, sometimes the best for all concerned is some kind of separation or co parenting or, you know, but particularly if one person is simply not willing to come to the table. If one person is simply not willing to be respectful. For example, if one person, let's say, has a problem with drug or alcohol dependence and they're simply not willing to do anything about it, okay, we might not be able to go very far. That becomes a wall. Yeah. But I feel if people are willing to do something about their issues, anything's possible.
[00:28:00] Speaker B: Let's pretend there is a listener or of you watching this right now who's quite apprehensive about, you know, digging into those fights with a counsellor or asking or encouraging their partner to come along with them to couples counseling, what would you say to them?
[00:28:19] Speaker A: Well, first thing that comes to mind is you can always come individually. And with a lot of couples I see, I see them as individuals also.
So if fights are getting particularly toxic, which sadly is sometimes the case with clients, I see, I would very much want to see people individually. And that's quite normal. So it doesn't have to be a big deal to book an individual session. It's really common that I'll do it for multiple reasons. Like let's say one person has old trauma. We could just work on that for a couple of sessions. But I continue working with the couple in parallel. So if I got a sense of that, I would try to orchestrate that that person will come to see me individually just so they'd feel more free to speak about concerns or fears.
If it's the case that someone is just their partner is Just really intransigent and immovable. But let's say it's not like they're a threat. It's not like we're talking about ordering or going over the line into family violence. Say if it's that kind of case and you've tried everything, all the things I've spoken about and more, because we've only scratched the surface, then my sort of approach to that would be, okay, what you're going to do is you're going to stop doing business as usual. So we're going to stop maybe eating together, planning our weekends together, seeing other couples together. I'm going to stop basically playing happy families. This is not done in a spirit of retribution or punishment. And that's really important because it won't work. This is done in a spirit of. I'm resigned to this. This is what I'm going to do. I'm going to eat alone, you know, just basically live separately. I'm not going to play happy families until. Not until you do my bidding. That's not the end, but until you at least come to the table for the conversation. So. So that's, let's say in a less extreme extreme, but not too extreme, going beyond that.
There's a risk in partnerships that we, we move over the line where somebody is genuinely unsafe or potentially unsafe, or where. Where power is being used to dominate and control and win arguments or shut arguments down.
Now, if you're getting into that space again, I would love you to come and speak to me individually and generally. Where we're probably going with that is helplines like 1-800-Respect Orange Door Family Relationships Advice Line and potentially going to the local police station. It's not about pressing charges, but major police stations, for example, where we live, they have a family violence specialist officer where you can go in and at least have a conversation like, what do you see here? You know, because they're doing this day in, day out, they can often see where this goes before you can. And then of course, I want to know about your supports. Who? Friends, family? Do you have good supports? Who are you talking to? What are they saying?
If you're telling me that you've got really good, close circle of friends and all of your friends, every time you've nearly broken up with this person, they've seemed really happy about it.
You know, we got to start trying to listen to that because our friends don't want to see us. They're not our friends. If they just want to see us breaking up just for the fun of it. Or something. If our close friends and family, who we trust, would be more than happy to see us separating from this person, we've got to start asking what part of it is in me is keeping me here, you know, and I'd really want to explore that with a person, because, you know, nobody wants to see people trapped in relationships where they feel subjected to bullying or fear or coercion.
So that's where we do have to go sometimes. Yeah. And there are protections out there to. It's simply about equating the balance of power. You know, for. For me, if one person is far too powerful and they're abusing it, well, then I want to put strategies and protections in place to even out that power balance, to stop people being bullied or coerced.
[00:32:33] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And I guess we're talking about a real scale here of isolation. So, you know, general couples that. That fight generally feel isolated. I don't feel heard. I feel disconnected right up to the. The other extreme of isolation, because you can't actually talk about how bad it is. You can't actually express to even your partner about the. The depths of. Of pain there, because it might blow things up.
[00:33:00] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just become too hard to talk about. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But it can be talked about. And this. This clinic is called Safe Place Therapy, and I think it lives up to that. It's a very safe space to come in and take your time, however long it takes to get the words out. Sometimes I have people coming in, sitting down, and they can't speak. They can't speak. Just being here is overwhelming because they've been containing it for so long.
But we get there. We get there in a very compassionate, gentle, understanding kind of way. And I don't force the pace. I don't force the pace. It's very important in situations like that that you respect people's process.
You know, you can share your experience, your point of view, you can support, but you also have to respect people's process. Yeah.
[00:33:59] Speaker B: So if you're watching this or listening to this right now and you are feeling that sense of isolation or. Or that all that heaviness based on your relationship or how you're feeling about how things are. Trav. Traveling, please reach out to our team. Even if it's an initial conversation or even, as Ender said, an individual counseling session first, please don't leave it.
Thank you for your time, Ender, and really pleasure.
[00:34:27] Speaker A: Thanks a lot, Stuart.
[00:34:28] Speaker B: Awesome. Take care.
