Is It Safe?: Safety and Marriage Counseling
“Is it safe?”
This is the refraining question of the 70s classic Marathon Man. Dustin Hoffman hears the question repeatedly as the villain—a dentist—drills into healthy teeth in order to extract information.
While not as sinister, this is the same question married couples deal with as they approach therapy. A lack of safety is experienced by most couples in the beginning of marriage therapy. The problem is, without safety, a marriage cannot become healthy. Safety is required in order to engage in the work that needs to be done to heal the marriage. The long-term health of a marriage is not typically dependent on the “issues” that the couple struggles with (finances, children, etc.). Rather, it is the safety within the relationship. We’re not just talking about physical safety, although that is certainly a component. What we are talking about is relational safety.
Threats to relational safety
Threats to relational safety typically take two forms: esteem (worth) and/or attachment (connectedness). Individuals who experience personal threats to esteem typically express concern about how they are perceived. For example, when a partner shares marital struggles with a friend, the other partner who struggles in the area of esteem or worth will often be concerned about how that friend will now perceive them.
Meanwhile, attachment threats relate to concerns about the safety of the relationship itself. The partner whose lack of safety resides in the area of attachment will view conflicts in the marriage as threats to the survival of the relationship itself.
For each individual, the struggles of esteem and attachment have their origins in childhood relationships. Those underpinnings are too detailed to discuss here. While it is important to understand the relational origins of those wounds and work to bring healing to them, the history is not necessary to access what the threat to the individual is. The perceived threat can be seen in how each person responds to conflict in the here and now as was described above.
Beginning the process of increasing safety
In order to increase safety, ultimately each partner needs to increase their understanding of their partner’s needs, improve their response to their needs, and increase safety to increase their partner’s vulnerability. The willingness to be vulnerable and genuine is key to working through issues in marriage. It is also crucial for both partners to realize the role they play in the development of safety in the relationship. This sensitivity to the emotional needs of the other is much more important to long-term health in the relationship than any one “issue” that we might deal with as couples.
