Manchester Psychotherapy

Counselling in Manchester

Is Your Partner A God?

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Do you treat your partner like they are a god?  Most people think they are very far from this but it’s amazing how we give our partners supernatural powers and god like talents.  Here’s an example from my own life – the other day, after dealing with stresses and strains of normal life I felt like having a bit of pampering from my partner.  I needed a hug and a bit of looking after.  Did it happen? Nope!  Did I feel angry about her failing to take care of me?  You bet!  The problem here was that I had made my partner into a god.  I had credited her with the god like power of omniscience – the ability to know exactly what I needed without me having to tell her.  Alas, her human form was unable to match up to my high expectations and the tension in the room began to build as she continued not to be able to read my mind!

There are lots of ways in which we believe our partners are like gods and they all lead to tension and conflict in our relationships.  In this article I am going to list the most common ways in which we do this and suggest an alternative way of treating your partner.

Omniscience, mentioned above is a very common belief in relationships and the solution is simple; ask for what you want!  If Ihad asked my partner for a hug and a cup of tea the chances of me getting them would have increased dramatically.

Omnipotence – this is the god like power of your partner being able to meet all of your needs and “make” you feel happy.  Er – it’s not going to happen.  You are in charge of your feelings and no one can “make” you feel anything.  It’s likely that your partner may be resistant to meeting some of your needs too.  Your needs are probably your partners areas for growth so giving you these things will be a challenge.  One partners need for constant companionship is beautifully balanced by their partners need for space and solitude (I see this time after time when delivering couples counselling in Manchester).  The result is often conflict.  In a conscious relationship these needs can be discussed and both partners can learn to accommodate their partners needs.

Omnipresence– this is the belief that your partner is only on this planet to be with you and has no life beyond you.  Again, prepare to be disappointed (as we often are).  It’s healthy to develop separate hobbiess and interests and different groups of friends within a relationship.  Like all things, the key is balance.  Doing things together is also important, but as the song says “If you love somebody – set them free”.

Obligation and Expectation.  This is the belief that your partner said they would look after you so they owe it to you and jolly well better deliver!  Unfortunately, however much your partner loves you, there are going to be times when they can’t or don’t want to look after you or meet your needs.  Relax – you’re an adult, you can look after yourself now.   Sit with the pain you may feel in not having all of your needs met and ask for what you want.

Fusion.  This is the belief that you and your partner want the same things.  We often beef this up a bit and believe that we know what’s best for both ourselves and our partner.  The antidote – listen with gentle ears to your partner and put yourself in their place.  Assume nothing, discuss much.  Imago Relationship Dialogue is a great way to do this.

So, there we have it – those god like powers we give to our partners and sometimes take for ourselves can only really lead to conflict, so come down from that ethereal plane and realise that we are all human and are likely to get it wrong, mess it up and we can still do this and stay in love.

What do you think?  Do you have a Zeus at home?  Is your partner more of a Buddha?  Please comment on your god like ideas below!

Imago Relationship Therapy – Validation

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gay affirmative therapy in ManchesterThis is the fifth article in a series of posts I am writing about the Imago dialogue process. The Imago dialogue process is the core of Imago relationship therapy. It is the trunk of the Imago tree! I use Imago Relationship Therapy for counselling couples in Manchester because it works. If you are prepared to put in the effort to do things differently then Imago dialogue can give you a fantastic framework to connect with your partner instead of slipping into argument.

As a quick recap, I have already talked about the roles each partner takes in the dialogue process. One is the receiver and the other the sender. This means that one partner gets to talk and the other listens carefully using mirroring. The sender sends thoughts and feelings in chunks to the receiver and the receiver mirrors these back carefully checking that the mirroring is accurate with “did I get you?”. The receiver is then invited to say more with “is there more?”

Once the sender has finished talking about a topic then the receiver will summarize what (s)he heard endeavoring to capture the essence of what they heard. You can read more about any of those stages by checking out the relevant article.

The next stage of the process is validation. This may sound like

“you make sense, and what makes sense is…….”

A variation of this may be “I understand that you …given that….”. Let’s have a look at why validation is important in a relationship.

Go back to your childhood and think about how many times you were invalidated as you grew up. Since training in Imago Relationship therapy how I validate my own children has come into my awareness very clearly and I have a great example of what happens to kids on an almost daily basis. Let me set the scene. I’m at home on a winter’s day, the heating is blasting out and I’m feeling rather toasty warm. My five year old daughter turns round to me and says “Daddy, I’m going to put my jumper on, I’m cold”. My brain starts to work and parent mode clicks in. My thought process lines up the next sentence that I need to send to my daughter. I’m warm, in fact I’m rather hot so she must be hot too – it’s obvious, she has got how she feels completely wrong! The sentence is all lined up….”you’re not cold, you’re hot and so you’re not putting your jumper on”.

Fortunately I’m now more aware of validation and I’m starting to realise that I am me and other people are other people. This means that it’s perfectly possible for my daughter to be cold when I am hot…go figure! I say “Ok darling if that’s what you want to do” and she is validated. This all happens in a tenth of a second and it shows how we naturally dismiss the feelings of our children and were dismissed by our parents when we were kids.

We also do this with our partners. Your partner is annoyed when you have the TV on loudly? How can they be, that’s how you like the TV so they must like it too! Your partner hates the dishes piling up around the kitchen? Impossible! You like it just fine!! I’m sure you’re getting the drift.

We are separate from our partners and so when they are expressing their feelings in the dialogue process about something they don’t like then by validating it you are recognizing that their frustration is legitimate and makes perfect sense.

It’s worth mentioning at this point that when we validate our partner it is not the same as agreeing with them. It’s about sending the message to them that they see the world differently from you and you get why they see it as they do.

If you want to read the original book, Getting the Love You Want: A Guide for Couples by Harville Hendrix, just click on the link to be taken to Amazon.

Imago Relationship Therapy – The Receiver

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couples therapy in didsburyWhen couples come for marriage counselling with me they are often struck by how different Imago Dialogue is to the way we normally speak to our partner. In this series of articles I intend to take each part of the Imago dialogue process and explain why it’s done in this way and how it can transform your relationship. Before I start the articles I want to acknowledge both Harville Hendrix, the founder of Imago Relationship Therapy and my trainer Sophie Slade, who has provided me with many of the metaphors that are included in these articles. Thanks to both of them for such brilliance.

What is Imago Dialogue?

Imago dialogue is a different way of communicating with your partner. It involves three steps and two roles. In this article I will talk about the role of the receiver.

The Receiver.

One of the great metaphors in Imago is that of the two Islands. Imagine that you are on one Island and your partner is on another. There are no mobile phones, no computers with skype, no way to communicate with each other apart from that rowing boat you see pulled up on the beach (perish the thought eh!!). If you want to talk to your partner then you have to get in your boat and row over to their Island.

Now their Island looks very different to yours. They see things from a different perspective and they have had different experiences to you. It’s your job when you are over on their island to fully understand how things look for them. We call this role in the dialogue the receiver. The receiver is the one who is doing the listening.

As the receiver you are paying attention completely to what the sender is saying. The aim is for you to be really curious. What’s it like on their island? How do they see things?

What’s the reason for doing dialogue this way?

Think about how we usually communicate with our partner. We assume so much. We assume they see things just like we do and often that we know what they are thinking and feeling. We also assume that we know why they are doing things and often that they are doing it in that way just to annoy us, right?!

The dialogue process takes us away from that position. It allows us to separate ourselves from our partner. You are you and they are themselves – different and equally valid. Immediately this gives us permission to be ourselves and takes a huge amount of pressure off the relationship. You no longer have to expend energy attempting to understand why your partner has made their decisions and how you can get them to make a different one. They made the decision they made because they thought it was the best one at the time and they are not you!!

As the receiver your job is just to mirror, validate and empathise (more about these steps in future posts). You are completely over on your partner’s island so it’s all about them and not about you. This gives you permission to concentrate fully on them and not have to sit there trying to work out how you are going to respond. Once more this frees you up to be present for your partner in a completely new way.

There are great advantages for the sender too. The sender will have everything they say mirrored by the receiver and will be able to tell if their partner is listening carefully. This cuts out any chance that you end up in that place where one partner says “I’ve been telling you how I feel but you’ve not heard a word I’m saying!” – (more on the sender in this post)

Don’t Panic!

As the receiver you may well have feelings that come up for you whilst you are listening to your partner speak. You may feel angry about what your partner is saying and feel the need to answer back or defend yourself – so here’s an opportunity for growth! To be able to sit with your feelings and not react is a great skill indeed. John Gottman names defensiveness as one of the four horsemen of divorce. If you can learn that you are not going to die if you don’t give your partner a gob full back when they say something you don’t like then you are one step closer to a conscious relationship.

You can also be aware that you will not stay as the receiver forever. Once the sender has finished sending then it’s your turn to send. You can have your opportunity to express your thoughts and feelings to your partner in a safe, measured way, avoiding all of the other horsemen which have the potential to trample all over your other half!

Want to read the book?  Getting the Love You Want: A Guide for Couples by Harville Hendrix explains Imago Relationship Therapy in full – relationship changing stuff!