Married couple removes nitroglycerine from explosive fighting and injects part mindfulness and part empathy
Henry, a 36-year-old man and Louisa, his 33-year-old wife came to me for marital counseling after a domestic episode in which Henry violently shook his wife and in response wife slapped husband in the face. The incident occurred while both parties were intoxicated. Louisa complains that since couple married two years ago the relationship has been fraught with both physical and verbal aggression and the majority of physical altercations have involved alcohol.
It was made clear that unless Henry and Louisa were committed to sobriety the counseling would not succeed and the relationship would most likely end in divorce. Henry and Louisa agreed with the plan to commit to sobriety and I provided a few safe detoxification options to achieve this goal.
Henry opted to consult with his primary care physician who provided Henry with a prescription for a 2-week course of Librium.
Louisa opted to go cold turkey as she claimed she was only drinking on the weekends though it was recommended that she also follow up with her primary care physician.
Having removed the toxic material nitroglycerine that compounded the explosiveness in the relationship, the focus shifted to the cracks in the marital foundation: (1) Henry's antiquated defense mechanisms including silence and violence and Louisa's extreme reactivity, neediness, agitation and moodiness.
I explored Henry and Louisa's families of origin and discovered that Henry was the victim of chronic verbal and physical abuse by his alcoholic father. Louisa has struggled with a learning disability, ADD and depression and maintains that she always felt inferior to her academically talented and "more attractive" sister. As a result, Louisa has felt not only neglected but also scapegoated by her family.
I introduced the concept of mindfulness to the couple and prescribed some mindfulness exercises beginning with mindful walking or tapping into 5 senses one at a time while on a casual 15-minute walk. Henry and Louisa were explained some of the benefits of a mindfulness practice: 1) to develop patience and 2) increase awareness of warning signs that each are getting agitated, for instance, Henry notices that he makes a fist and wife gets heart palpitations. With this newfound perspective, Henry and Louisa have a little time between trigger and response to make a healthier or rational choice.
Ground rules for disagreements were then established: both parties were required to express feelings using "I statement" rather than blaming the other with "you statement". In addition, both parties have the right to take a break from an argument by calling time out by forming a T with his or her hands with the caveat that the conversation needs to be revisited within 24 hours.
Couple agreed to a weekly check-in as an opportunity to raise concerns from the week that were not addressed but also to provide positive feedback to one another. In order to both remember complaints and/or vent feelings, Henry and Louisa were encouraged to journal.
I challenged couple to be more aware of each other's small victories and more empathic to family of origin wounds, for example, Louisa to not criticize mother-in-law for not protecting Henry from father-in-law's abuse and Henry to be more aware of Louisa's sensitivities to slights.