Couples Counseling – Page 6 – One Life Only Counseling Services

Goals of Counseling: What is it all about anyway?

by Nathan Chua

I remember a person who shared with me that she had been with her therapist for several years. She felt it helped her in terms of managing her anxieties and anger issues. She went on to share that she needed her weekly sessions to get some relief from all the emotional struggles that go on during the week. This type of counseling is called supportive counseling which certainly has its place in the field. In my graduate studies, I can certainly attest to the fact that I used to do this type of work in dealing with my test cases to begin my training in listening or counseling skills. With this person who shared her experience though, the weekly sessions have become a psychological crutch, just like taking a break from her cares for at least an hour a week. *

Counseling work is more than just being supportive. The goal is more about having clients learn, as experientially as possible, skills that can be brought to their everyday lives. The counseling room becomes the lab where these skills are introduced and tested.

I don’t really mean to be simplistic here but I thought the title can help us focus on knowing what goes on inside the work I do and its ultimate goals. If we come up with something that would make it simpler and more understandable, then we would have done a better job in assisting people in appreciating what all these working sessions are for.

If you wish to change the way things are in your relationship with your partner, then you need to try different things. In ACT or Acceptance and Commitment Therapy linggo, we call that expanding behavioral repertoire. It is also referred to as flexibility skills. If you start a conversation with your spouse with a criticism or a “You” statement every time, you are more than likely to get defensiveness in return. And so on and on you go with the circular arguments that often lead you to ultimately just avoid each other or get into a massive shouting match.

Unfortunately, we are the creatures who think that we can do the same things over and over again and come up with the results we want, even if the evidence clearly shows the contrary. We like to follow rules and rule-following becomes the dominant reinforcer of our behaviors, and not the actual contingencies that show up. We can see this if we break down the process of how people get hooked to the slot machine or some form of gambling addiction. Although it is true that there is a one in a billion chance that you might hit pay dirt, the addicted person is not aware of the consequences happening as they continue this obsessive behavior.

Taken in these terms, we in this helping profession are after you getting out of your comfort zones. Comfort zones are places where we want to end up that give us the short term feel-good moments. Being able to analyze your spouse and find out what’s wrong with them, can give you that sense of accomplishment that you know something they don’t. Getting that high in front of a slot machine when you win a small pot can be intensely rewarding at the moment. However, the long term consequences eventually show up. You no longer become the spouse you want to be. The more you criticize your partner, the more they snap back. Slowly eating away at the relationship you once thought will go smoothly through the years. The more you gamble, the more you end up piling up debts and spending countless hours unable to do anything else that could have otherwise been spent more productively and meaningfully.

I’d like to borrow a phrase from a book to help you, my readers, understand how counseling works. The work is about being comfortable with the uncomfortable. Maybe it’s time you tried another approach to your spouse, even if it feels embarrassing or extremely “so not you.” Maybe you need to sit with those urges to gamble and find out what really is behind the pull towards the addiction so that you can find alternatives to spend all that energy on. To paraphrase a well-known ACT therapist, Kirk Strosahl, maybe there’s something more important here than what you feel.

If you are like the person I discussed in the first paragraph of this post, then be wary. That’s because the counseling work is making you feel comfortable! If you start to do things that are uncomfortable with the help of your counselor, then you might be on the road to being comfortable with being uncomfortable. That’s also when you know that your work with your counselor is worth all that time and energy. Maybe you’re on to trying something different that moves you towards what I regularly use in my discussions with my clients: being the person you want to be, and living the life you want to live.

*The example here is an amalgam of different cases that do not refer to any person in reality.

Coming to An Acceptance of Your Partner or Loved One

by Nathan Chua

One of the things that our minds are really good at doing is judging. Our minds have developed this highly useful skill for the ultimate survival of our species that has very few qualities which can protect it from external threats. We don’t have large sharp teeth or claws and are said to be a species that has the longest gestation period among all creatures.

You might be curious to know how judgment can play any part in our survival, let alone the survival of a whole species. Isn’t it that we use judgment more to describe the ways we behave towards others? We are not used to using the term in light of its impact on our evolutionary history. Let’s do this little exercise to see how. If our minds didn’t know how to judge between a threat and a non-threat, we would be like the fish that get caught twice or more times by a fishing hook. Our minds are there to create rules that keep us out of harm’s way. If you see a line attached to a bait, that’s not dinner being presented to you, but you becoming somebody else’s dinner. Don’t cross the street without looking side to side. Stay indoors when your experience tells you that this is the time of the year when the weather can be harsh. This rule-following ability is what sets us apart from other species and gives us an edge of tremendous effect on who dominates the planet.

Unfortunately, this talent is double-edged. It can be useful to judge between a lion and a puppy but not when we use it to judge our internal processes. If our minds weren’t able to tell that the moving thing in front of us is a hungry lion, we could be its next prey! The mind applies the same rule to our feelings and thoughts, because the mind does what it does. Our difficult thoughts and feelings that naturally come by because of the life situations we face, are equated as bad, as in hungry lion-bad!

Couples and families often come to a judgment of their loved ones. Unfortunately, such judgments often get in the way of the loving relationships each party wishes to develop. One way of stepping out of these judgments is to consider your differences as they are and not as defects. Here’s one way to be more aware of this. Imagine if you had a loved one (either a romantic partner or a family member) who has suffered from a childhood impairment, let’s say, he or she is half-blind or has an injury that makes it difficult for them to walk at a normal pace. Would you demand that he or she be able to walk and do stuff as fast as you do? Probably not! You would most likely make adjustments to accommodate your loved one’s condition.

Given this, you and I can be more conscious of what our minds say are defects and begin to view them as conditions or differences around which we have to work. We can recognize our tendencies to see our loved ones as defective and therefore more like problems to solve rather than human beings who have learned a different way to tie a shoelace so to speak.

Another way of putting this into a clearer perspective is to notice the difference between describing a movie and judging it. A descriptive statement would be to say that the movie is an hour and 40 minutes long. While an evaluative statement would be that the movie was too long or too boring. Why don’t you try this at home? You can then experiment with a loved one that you have long judged to be defective. Just like a narrator for Nat Geo, see if you can objectively describe how your partner or child or parent behaves and say to yourself, “This is someone special who I would much rather choose to love with all his or her different behaviors that I have come to accept in the service of a truly honest and loving person that I wish to be in this and every moment.” That, my friends, is the key, not to feeling good, but to living well in spite of what your mind says are judgments to be made. It is up to you to look at those judgments and say, I choose not to run away from or struggle with my difficult experiences in dealing with this important person in my life, and to accept them above all. Be my guest and see peace arrive in your life.

Getting Married to be Happy?

by Nathan Chua

Of course we do, that’s all there is to expect in married life, right? For those of us who have gotten married, I bet there’s plenty of thought of “living happily ever after,” especially in those moments when it was actually about to happen. Pretty much up to the time leading up to the wedding, everything spelled h-a-p-p-y. Pick any random year into a marriage, and we are likely to find about half of that on the brink of separation, because either one or both of the parties are bone-tired of having to suffer through the other’s insufferable ways.

We often get caught up in these all or nothing moments in our minds, where we believe that within our unhappiness, we can never have happiness. One or the other has to go. But here’s a good example to prove that this may not be necessarily so. Look back at those moments when you and your future spouse were just minutes away from exchanging vows. If I may so boldly predict, I am quite sure you had moments when thoughts like, “Am I making the biggest mistake of my life here?” were right there coming from the back of your head in the middle of your own wedding ceremony! He’s so clumsy he keeps stepping on my train! She’s turned from angel to t-rex in months! Further still, pick up any major decision you’ve made in your lifetime and tell me you never had thoughts about whether your choice was right or disastrously wrong, and I would be the first to congratulate you for being that rare master of your own mind.

Part of what can help your marriage is if you understand how your mind works that makes being married such a disappointment. We often get carried away with thoughts that we can’t have both positive and negative emotions at the same time inside us. Well, think about your dog or pet. How many times has your mind told you getting that dog is a big mistake and yet you still love him to death? So with the dog it goes, “I love him and sometimes I think getting him was such a big mistake.” There you go, both positive and negative emotions all in one situation.

Getting married to be happy is how our use of language tricks us into going to an extreme. The reality is more like getting married is meant to find purpose and meaning in your union, and many times it won’t be, just happy. Playing to win a championship game isn’t just about being happy, it is hard! Raising kids is not bound to be happy all the time, in fact it is the most challenging task for even the most notable names in history who have done seemingly harder and more exceptional deeds outside of raising a child! Why? Because the fact that it is hard and not very easy makes it challenging and fulfilling at the same time. The same is true with marriage. Your partner can sometimes be lovable and be challenging to live with. Learning how to accept this is something couples often have difficulty finding room for, because the mind suggests we can only have room for one.

Sometimes the best things in life are hard and painful, which is precisely what makes a life more purposeful and meaningful. We humans love solving problems even when it’s not always fun to do, or not always the happy thing to do. Come out of yourself and notice how your mind works; I bet you’ll see great wisdom.

Why do we end up fighting over my requests for change?

by Nathan Chua

You will never be like our friend Joe. He knows how to make Valentine’s day special for his wife. I clean your closet for you and you never even try! I need you to change or else I will never be happy in this relationship. I have done so much for this relationship so why can’t you do the same for me?

These are just some examples of how couples end up escalating their fights. They end up not just fighting about the issue at hand, but also the way they fight about it. In the following article I will be writing about a few common requests that couples make that usually backfire. Here is a short list of some of these ineffective petitions for change that couples use:

Did you notice how sweet Joe is to his wife? Why can’t you be more like that?

The problem with this type of request is that it immediately makes your partner defensive. Your partner, just like everyone else will then make comparisons to other people who are less thoughtful to their partners than him or herself. We all have the ability to make both upward and downward comparisons. Comparisons usually make way for even more comparisons that will defend your partner’s position and invalidate yours.

After all of the work I have done to keep this household clean, you can’t even pick up after yourself! When will you learn not to dump the dirty dishes in the sink and leave them there for hours?

The problem with this demand is that you turn your partner’s differences into defects. It may not take you much to clean up, but it can take quite a bit of effort for your partner. What may seem easy and logical for you, may not be as evident to your partner.

There are quite a few more of these, but I will now turn to ways in which you can make your requests more likely to be granted. Please note that I don’t claim certainty here. But at least these types of requests will be less likely to compound the issues by turning your fights into fights about the way you fight. You might be surprised at its simplicity.

Make simple requests for no other reasons but for the fact that such changes will make you happy! Most, if not all of us, go into a pair-bonding relationship for the simple reason that we want to make our partners happy. It gives us pleasure to know that we have done something that makes our partners smile.

In some cases though, you may find it hard to talk about these requests for change without ending up in a major altercation. In such instances, you might have to be a bit more creative. Do something different in the way you make your requests, like handwriting an open letter or sending an email.

If all else fails, there are a few things that have less to do with how your partner is, but more to do with how you are in the relationship. One is being able to accept the fact that in all relationships, there are bound to be inequalities. Your partner will be unpleasantly surprised if you suddenly demand for something that was never there in the first place. Secondly, come to terms with the fact that change is bound to happen in any relationship. In fact, keeping things as they are will take more effort than accepting that change will happen over time. To use a metaphor, keeping a car or house in its original state is much harder than accepting the fact that they will eventually break down in certain areas.

Finally, the only thing that I can guarantee will make changes in your relationship, is a change in yourself. Do what your partner has been asking for. Do it without asking anything in return. Give your partner an incentive to do what you’ve been requesting for. Be kinder, sweeter, and show your partner that you have come to accept many of the differences that he or she brings into the relationship.

Attempts to change your partner by sheer force of command usually backfires. You can only influence change not demand it to happen in order for it to happen. If you change, there is a greater likelihood that your partner will notice how much you have come to accept him or her, and thus show changes too. It’s just up to you to be more mindful of the changes you see in your partner and appreciate your partner’s efforts. As humans we all harbor aspirations of becoming the best person we want to be, most especially in this one special relationship that is like no other. Your partner is no exception.

Are you alone this Valentine?

by Nathan Chua

I have a feeling you would say that this blog post may not be worth your time. Why? Because how many times have you read articles that tell you to weigh the pros and cons of being alone in this time made exclusively for couples. Well, this article will either amuse you or disappoint you. I am not here to talk about the usual good and bad of being single and alone on Valentine’s day. That battle in your mind will go on until the day you lose consciousness (well, for good, knock on wood). It will never end. It’s sort of like an old marriage joke I heard once from a clergyman, “Marriage is like flies on a screen door. Those who are out want in and those who are in want out!”

Well, that’s the mind for you! Sorry to sound trite, but your mind will always convince you that the grass is greener on the other side. It is a nonstop judgment machine!

So here’s the deal with being alone this Valentine’s day. You can either give up your search for a lover, or you can keep doing what you are doing now (rationalizing why you shouldn’t or why you should be extra picky, or why you should anyway), or you can give it a go! I know your mind will start barking off reasons for you to not even try. It’s going to be one out of a hundred chances that I get to meet someone interesting. It will be exhausting! Boring! Painful! I will just get rejected more times than I can bear.

You can either follow what your mind tells you to do or step back a little and say what is dating done in the service of? Is there a part of you that wants to be loving and caring to that one special person? If your answer is yes, notice the verbs I use here! It is about being loving and caring. It is not just about marrying the right person, or having a long term commitment. What’s the difference? The former is something you can do endlessly until the end of your last breath, while the latter are goals you make that tell you you’re partly on your way to be the former! Get it?

See if we focus on our goals, we set ourselves up for disappointment…whether we succeed or not. Why so? That doesn’t seem fair! Let’s see how goals work in our lives. Goals are mostly end points in a process of pursuing something we want out of our lives. If you fail to meet those goals, then you end up disappointed. If you succeed in achieving your goals, how long does the satisfaction last? Have you ever noticed that any new goals you achieve are instantly followed by a lack of satisfaction and an urge to pursue even more goals? (Ever wondered why some of the richest billionaires end up doing something else besides what they had been doing so well for decades?) So whether you achieve goals or not, you end up disappointed or at least unsatisfied. Remember your mind is a judgment machine!

So think of dating as part of your magic carpet ride! It will be scary at times for sure, but it will likely be worth it if you know what the activity done is in the service of. Think of a child who plays games like hide and seek! Isn’t that scary and anxiety-causing? But we still played the game for the sake of a more fun childhood! That was when we hardly knew the rules that our minds gave us! You shouldn’t feel this or that, or think this or that! At least that’s what the adults around us said! So the secret is to see your moves from a child’s eyes. This is going to be horrifying at times, but alive! Just like a movie! There will be challenging times, but that’s what makes a movie a movie worth watching, isn’t it?

So get in touch with the child in you and enjoy the ride. This is just part of your journey of being or becoming more like the loving you you’ve always wanted to be! Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! (and that includes the lonely ones!)

How to prevent fights from escalating in your relationship

by Nathan Chua

Since I began to sense some dissatisfaction over the counseling approaches I have been using for the first nine years of my practice, I went in earnest to find better and more modern approaches to working with couples. It didn’t take long for me to listen to a podcast from a couple of psychologists from Oxford University, raving about the efficacy of mindfulness to psychological well-being.

Most of the approaches I had tried before for couples, were rules-based. These rules made sense and they didn’t take a genius to understand how these rules can work. Unfortunately, the drawback of this approach is that couples would then tend to use such rules to bash one another.

How do I now translate the mindfulness approach to dealing with couples? Do I have my couple sit in front of me for 10 minutes and meditate? It turns out there is a way to counsel couples to become more mindful in their relationships.

Mindfulness allows couples to de-escalate fights, prevent fights, and recover more easily from their fights. Most couples end up separating because their negative interactions have become hard to tolerate. As a result, these negative exchanges can lead to a lessening of positive interactions that contribute to the couples’ opting to end the relationship.

Dr. Christensen, Doss, and Jacobson have come up with a memory aid for couples to remember. This helps couples take a more mindful approach to de-escalating fights. The mnemonic is START:

“Stop what you are doing for the moment.” Pause to notice what is going on at the moment. Notice if this is something familiar that you and your partner have gone through countless times in the past.

“Take a deep breath.” This focus on the breath and being able to breathe in and out of the body part that feels tension in this exchange, can get you off the automatic reactions that lead to escalation.

“Attend to what is going on with you emotionally in the moment.” One skill you will learn in mindfulness is to be able to identify or label the emotion that you are feeling. Couples tend to more easily show a hard emotion over a soft hidden emotion.

“Reveal your emotional state to your partner.” Once you have identified the deeper emotion, you may now be more open to tell your partner about these vulnerabilities that have remained hidden for so long.

“Take an interest in what is going on emotionally with your partner.” If you can be in touch with your feelings without defense, you can be more open to understanding your partner’s feelings as well.

I hope this short blog post will help you and your partner become more equipped when disagreements arise. Committing to act on these skills is your key to developing a better relationship.

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Interview with Chinkee Tan and Christine Bersola-Babao on MagBadyet Tayo about financial conflicts in relationships, October 23, 2023

Nathaniel Chua is a member of an international organization called the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science (ACBS). He became chair of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Special Interest Group (DEI-SIG) of ACBS; the first Non-North American to do so.

Nathaniel Chua has a Master’s Degree in Counseling and continues to learn more of the most cutting-edge approaches to working with the human condition.

Below is Nathaniel Chua’s first virtual talk held on November 17, 2023 in front of an international group of therapists from Low or Middle Income Countries (LMIC). He is the first from the Philippines to do this:

What is One Life Only Counseling about?

You can be assured that your information with be kept completely confidential.

You will be respected regardless of your religion, gender preference, ethnicity, economic status, and even your personal lifestyle and values. We are LGBTQIA+ friendly!

Your counselor will not impose their values and beliefs on you.

We use a scientific model of counseling that has precision, depth, and scope. Below are bullet points to let you understand better what we mean by this:

By precision we mean that our approach to counseling tells you how these mechanisms of change work. It is not enough to say that a sense of self-awareness is what creates changes in people’s behavior. Our approach tells us how self-awareness works as one step within a set of processes that can lead to lasting change.
Depth means the approach we use does not conflict with other theories and models of therapy. In fact, many other approaches can be used as forms of treatment towards greater psychological flexibility. Our approach for instance does not conflict with findings in the area of attachment theory, gestalt therapy, psychodynamic therapy to just raise a few examples. It cuts across other levels of analyses.
Finally, by scope we mean that our approach comes from the discovery of the smallest set of processes that cuts across multiple mental health concerns from anxiety and depression to personality disorders to psychosis, etc. It is a transdiagnostic approach that seeks to understand what many of the symptoms or syndromes come down to, so these processes can be targeted to address many, if not all of the disorders listed in different diagnostic systems.

We are also probably the only counseling service in the Philippines that follows a certain philosophy of science with certain a priori assumptions about human nature. With this in mind, we offer a holistic consistent approach to life’s challenges that is a-ontological, monistic, and pragmatic.
Furthermore, ineffective behaviors are addressed by their classes and functions, therefore making our model of therapy parsimonious and much easier to apply to daily living. Most of our clients are empowered to use the skills they learn in therapy to apply to a multitude of challenging situations without having to rush to a therapist to address specific concerns. If you remember Einstein, everything can be explained by one simple equation, E = mc squared! In other words, we do our best to be ACT-Consistent or as some other experts would call it, we practice, ACT Fidelity!

The approach we use is also one that is endorsed by the World Health Organization as an effective psychological tool for coping with any kind of life crises! It can be described as a kind of psychological vaccine that has been found to be effective in improving and promoting mental resilience in the face of many, if not all kinds of life challenges.

Here’s a paraphrase from Dr. Steven C. Hayes in my interview with him on April 5th, 2022:

“Here’s what the World Health Organization, the best public health and scientific group in the world says about this protocol, this extensively tested protocol is helpful for anyone who is stressed, for any reason, in any circumstance.”

Since 2019, we have been very excited to offer this type of a radically different approach to therapy that is not just about relieving symptoms, but also about helping people towards creating lives imbued with meaning and purpose.

Here’s a video about what makes One Life Only Counseling Services different:

You can read the written version of this video through this link: https://www.onelifeonly.net/about/what-makes-one-life-only-counseling-services-different/

Here is a recent interview for an article on Philstar Life featuring Nathaniel Chua and a legal practitioner about marital sexual consent:

https://philstarlife.com/news-and-views/928796-consent-rape-marriage-explainer

Recent certificate given to Nathan Chua for presenting a talk about couple’s therapy in front an international audience of therapists from Low or Middle Income Country (LMIC). He is the first and so far the only one from the Philippines to accomplish this.

Interview with Julius Babao and Christine Bersola Babao, October 25, 2023

Interview with Dr. Steven C. Hayes, the developer of ACT, April 5, 2022

Interview with Dr. Andrew Christensen May 14, 2022

Guest resource person with Boy Abunda on his show The Bottomline

One of several TV appearances on Sakto with Marc Logan and Amy Perez

July 2024 interview on Kapuso Mo Jessica Soho about jealousy and anger

Here a video of Nathan Chua’s appearance on a “Dapat Alam Mo” Episode:

Here’s a solo interview of Nathan Chua with an ACT Matrix Expert and Counselor from the United States, Jacob Martinez:

How couples go from, “aisle, altar, hymn” to “I’ll alter him (her)!”

by Nathan Chua

If you are like most people who are frustrated with their partners’ incorrigible ways, here’s an option you might want to consider. What if you and your partner can become more objective in the way you view each other’s peculiarities? What if these defects were just your differences? What if you view your differences more from your past perspective of why you two clicked in the first place?

Of course, this is always as we say, easier said than done. That person you thought had all the complementary qualities you wish you yourself had, has now turned into a nuisance. You fell in love with him because he was always cool, calm, and collected. He was never frazzled by any of the crises you had to deal with in your months or years of dating. Unfortunately, you realize that these same qualities when displayed in certain situations, are not the source of solace and comfort you wish they would be. They now come across as snooty or insensitive, dismissive of how you feel about your current problems at work or at home. You now complain and criticize, and your partner is flabbergasted. He thinks it’s unfair for you to come up with new standards of how he should be. Isn’t it that you loved me with all these qualities before? Why do you want to change me completely all of a sudden?

Now, I have gone through so many approaches to couples counseling in my years of working with distressed couples and have found this so far to be the most intriguing of all and probably can turn out to be the most effective. I call it the, Why Of Course You Do Therapy! Why? Because I realized that these are the very words I would be mentioning quite often in my work with couples! Given the circumstances and given your histories, you will react in certain ways that are quite predictable and understandable.

The problem starts when each of the parties in the relationship begin to demand, criticize, show annoyance, and reject attempts at connection or reconciliation. What were qualities that each of you accepted early in your relationship, are now irritants that turn you into adversaries. Your partner becomes a project to change. As mentioned earlier, your partner will feel rather betrayed if what he or she thought were things you were willing to accept, have now become unacceptable. The differences that you had once accepted have now turned into defects that can make or break the relationship.

The key is that through acceptance, your partner may in turn notice how much harder you are working to come to terms with what can be difficult to change. The irony in psychology is that unless we learn to accept things as they are, then change can happen. As the words of the great Carl Rogers remind us, “”The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I change.” This works well with couples too! The more your partner senses that he or she is accepted, then they feel more motivated to change. Why so? It’s the paradox of the human mind, the paradox of being human!

Of Wounds and Arrows: How Couples Conflicts Can Win Closeness

by Nathan Chua

It can be bewildering for some of us to think about conflicts as opportunities for closeness. How can these instances of excruciating feelings of anger, hurt, and aggravation turn into lovey-dovey moments? The key is not in what you fight about or why you fight, but in how.

The problem begins with a slow but inevitable part of being around someone for a significant period of time. It’s an unnoticeable slide that couples take as they begin to get off the stars in their eyes to a more realistic view of their partners. Slowly, differences emerge from the shadows as if they were never there when they first met. Unfortunately, this begins a cycle of conflicts that not only produces conflicts about conflicts but also the conflicts that they create out of discussing such conflicts. In other words, it not only becomes a fight about differences but also a fight about the way they fight.

This kind of relating can either produce feelings of helplessness and a surrender to a comfort zone that doesn’t increase closeness and retains the status quo, or lead to the eventual end of the couple’s relationship. Either one of the couple walks out believing that there is no hope for the relationship. At times, couples will just stay with unfulfilling relationships that not only gets in the way of a meaningful relationship, but also hamper their capacities to leave their kids a lasting image of a healthier way to deal with the conflicts that they will eventually have with others of their generation. After all, as some experts put it, the best couples make the best parents. No amount of parenting skills learned through self-help books and workshops can replace what children see in their parents when they’re fighting.

If couples can take time to record their fights and listen and analyze what one said that led to the other saying something more hurtful, someone with an understanding of how fights escalate will recognize that most of their remarks focus on what the other person is doing wrong, doing too much of, or not doing enough of. Alas, couples become caught up lawyering for themselves in the arguments. Left unchecked, this exchange becomes an unwinnable war between the couple.

A group of experts have come up with an easy to remember slogan that couples can take to their disagreements. To paraphrase, “Focus on the wound, not the arrows.” This means that in order to stop the vicious cycle of arguments, couples would need to come from a more vulnerable spot. Instead of criticizing the partner for something they evaluate as wrong or defective in their partner, he or she can open up with softer emotions that describe how some behaviors of the partner affect them.

For instance, instead of saying, “You never keep your word about coming home in time for dinner,” an aggrieved partner can say, “I feel lonely having to have dinner alone and neglected when I don’t get an update if you’re coming home for dinner on time or not.”

From this standpoint, the offending partner will tend to be more open to listening than being focused more of being on the defensive. Defensiveness is usually the second step towards escalation and unless you’re with a partner who’s as calm as the Dalai Lama, a criticism or sharp rebuke will usually be met by an equally strong defense.

Sharing vulnerabilities usually stops the attack-defend cycle. A vulnerable partner can be met with more compassion and empathy. This is when a couple can experience a closeness and connection that they have long missed since their early days of dating. It may be scary and our minds will come up with all sorts of reasons not to be vulnerable, but for as long as there are no physical or threatening verbal attacks involved, it is well worth the try. Eventually, you will see that conflicts lead to a closeness that has been absent for so long.