A Marriage In Crisis: Why Things Go Bad

Alexandra and Robert met and fell in love. Their passion was red-hot; their friendship unbreakable. They called themselves soulmates. Neither could do wrong and whatever problems or difficulties that might have been hovering in the distance—neither wished to know about them. A wedding and a long, happy life together were planned. Anything else was unimaginable.

Five years later, Alexandra and Robert sought marriage counseling. The conflict had taken over their marriage as each struggled with the shortcomings of the other. They were considering divorce. Both were unhappy, but they were also confused. Where had their love gone? Why were they now enemies who were angry and triggered by each other?

Love relationships can behave like coins. Heads—you love and hope. Tails—you dread the other, believing he or she will hurt you or disappoint you. When a relationship starts seriously to falter, it’s as if the “relationship coin” is flipping. The love that was once dominant goes underground as the dread emerges and rises to the surface.

Like an actual coin that has two sides, a relationship also has two parts: love and dread. Although one or the other is always out of sight, both are present. Like most couples, Alexandra and Robert were blind to their dread at the start of the relationship. They were in the grip of the thrill and delight of their love and neither wanted to break the spell. After the relationship “flipped,” the partners struggled to find their love and their capacity for hopefulness. But, because each “side of the coin” holds the couple in its grip—it can blind the partner to the other side of the coin.

This is the painful truth about relationships. Like the coin, both sides, or potentials, are present at the start. We choose partners who hold the “side” or “potential” to delight and thrill us and fulfill our deepest dreams, but the same partner also holds the “potential” to hurt and injure us, to disappoint and anger us. The “potentials” we are talking about—to delight, thrill and love—and also to injure and to disappoint—these potentials mimic the same specific patterns of love and disappointment provided by our original caregivers.

In other words, the way in which the original caregiver loved us and also fell short sets the framework for love and romance in adulthood. Our “ideal” romantic partner inevitably echoes—mirrors—the specific, core patterns of relating and responsiveness attributable to our original caregivers. The one who fits the romantic bill not only embodies our original caregivers’ potential for attunement, but equally embodies their potential to fail to be attuned, and therefore, to retraumatize or re-disappoint. As I’ve emphasized here, like a coin, the potential for both failure and fulfillment are very much present at the outset of the romance. Importantly, these potentials are not just for a generic form of attunement or disappointment. Each partner holds the embedded potential for repeating the historically accurate attunements and disappointments originally meted out by the parental figures of the other partner during their childhood.

Why does the coin flip from love to dread? This is the challenging question—the presiding question in every marriage counseling treatment. More often than not, it’s a matter of too many painful similarities between a partner and a disappointing parent or childhood circumstance. Or, too many injuries or disappointments occurring in the marriage. These can weaken the ties and undermine the loving bond. Enough disappointments can flip the “relationship coin.”

By the time a couple presents for marriage counseling, often the “relationship coin” has been flipped for a while. The partners are confused about where their love went. They’re also angry and hurt. Good marriage counseling can begin the healing process. It can walk the couple in crisis back from the brink, helping them to understand their individual disappointments and their expectations and behaviors in the marriage. Together, the couple and the clinician explore the dynamic between the partners, working to understand exactly why the relationship “flipped” and working to build a more integrated and mutually satisfying partnership.