Note: This is another part of a series adapted from my presentation at the AACC 2018 Mega-National Conference, a lecture given to counselors, pastors, church leaders and people-helpers. For simplicity’s sake, this is general written using feminine terms for the victim and masculine for the dominator/abuser. However, we understand that is not always the case, and the terms can be exchanged.
Couples That Choose to Stay Together: A Plan for Healing
It is common for couples to remain in a relationship even when emotional abuse has been part of the picture. Even when the pressure of staying together is removed, she may still choose to stay for multiple layers of valid reasons. We need to create a road map to help them move toward healing together or, at least, help her detach from the abuse with good boundaries, strong character, and a safety plan to stay well.
Implementing Healthy Communication Models
Healthy communication is essential in any relationship. This plan needs to include models that teach couples to be clear, direct, and speak from their own thinking. By that I mean speak for themselves, not for the other person. Give your spouse the honor of describing their own perceptions, motives, feelings, and goals. It is imperative to communicate without accusations and ascribing motive, because that means a “conclusion” has already been made. They will need to listen, seek understanding, and resolve conflict with collaboration as the goal.
- Make the Unspoken Spoken: Rather than continual guessing and diagnosing, encourage asking more questions.
- Challenge Your Conclusions: Find out what your spouse is trying to say, rather than argue what you think they’re saying.
- Honor Each Other’s Voice: Don’t tell your spouse what they mean, think, feel, or why they did something. Give them the honor of speaking for themselves and insist on the same honor for yourself.
- Avoid Assumptions: Teach them to ask more questions to further understand, rather than fill in the blanks with suspicion, negativity, or one-sided thinking.
Providing a Sense of Direction
The plan should also include a sense of direction. Couples need to determine what they want their marriage to look like.
- Establish a Common Mission: What are they fighting for and against? Help them figure out how to get on the same team, back to back with swords out, facing the enemy together.
- Create a Collaborative Framework: With their input and ownership, define how they structure their own collaborative process in a form they can commit to.
- Support Each Other: How will they have each other’s back? What will they do when there’s a setback? Making “relationship” the goal is crucial.
Ongoing Systems Assistance
Both partners need ongoing support and assistance, specific to what each of them are working through.
- Broadening Treatment Approaches: Many abusive relationships will remain together, so we must broaden our treatment approach. Rather than focusing on solely either the perpetrator or the victim’s issues, keep both of their specific issues in focus. View their marriage as a system or context, and adjusting the approach accordingly.
- Understanding Dysfunctional Patterns: Delve deeper into the dysfunctional and often trauma-informed, maladaptive coping patterns, understanding how her life has been wrapped around him and how he has taken advantage of this with power and control.
Balancing Individual and Couples Work
Healing often involves both individual and couples work.
- Emphasize Individual Work: Since marriage issues are symptoms of root individual issues, greater emphasis on individual work may be needed. Another way to view it is that marriage is the context in which both people are responsible for what they’re bringing to the table to work with. A healthy core sense of self in each individual makes couples work much easier.
- Choosing the Right Counselor: Whether to use the same counselor for couples and individual work is a personal choice that might depend on how much safety each feels they require. A good coach can work effectively with each individual and tie it all together in joint sessions, avoiding re-harming the real victim.
Strength and Redemption
It takes great strength of character to stay, and stay well, in the midst of a less-than-healthy marriage. However, it is an alternative the couples you are working with may choose, and your approach in coaching them can have a huge impact on their success.
