Is Your Relationship as Frozen as Your Yard?
Sue Johnson, the founder of Emotionally Focused Therapy whose work has transformed and inspired my own talks about the 3 Demon Dialogues that shut down couple’s ability to manage connection with flexibility. Here’s my super over simplified explanation of her years of research.
Find the Bad Guy– the blame and criticism conversation that leaves little room for solution.
The Protest Polka– the demand/withdraw dance where each partner pursues in a way that guarantees getting shut down. (My favorite-Into the Marriage Vortex)
Freeze and Flee- the one where no one is dancing anymore. 
Since the White Witch has turned Minnesota into Narnia where it is always winter but never Christmas I’ll focus on Freeze and Flee.
Are there things in your marriage you just never talk about? Are there fights you used to have that you won’t even try anymore?
Freeze and Flee happens when couples are tired of fighting, or fighting doesn’t help, or fighting is too scary, or fighting is just more trouble that it is worth. Just suck it up. Don’t rock the boat.
I don’t see this dance too often in marriage counseling because when people stop pursuing each other who is going to call the therapist? Or if we are working on things, I don’t even know we aren’t talking about something…until we trip over it.
In the Bold North, Freeze and Flee is connected to our heritage. We can do frozen for months. We are a stoic people who don’t see any reason to get all worked up about stuff. We are great at sucking it up and making things “work”.
The problem in marriage is that we can’t wait for spring to come. The frozen aspects of our relationship become glaciers…frozen forever.
If we stop talking about money, because the money talk always sucks, we can’t talk about taking a vacation or getting new carpeting or planning for the kids college expenses. We have to ignore feeling insecure or disrespected or unappreciated.
If we stop talking about parenting because we just don’t think our partner is hearing us anyway, we can’t talk about how the kids are feeling or tackling bad habits or the emotional tone of our home. We can’t talk about our fears or ask for more support or admit we aren’t sure we’re doing things right.
If we stop talking about sex because it is just too uncomfortable, we stop reaching out to each other, we stop playing or teasing or flirting or touching. We can’t talk about our need for connection or our hurt feelings or worries about the security of our relationship.
If we stop talking about your drinking or my temper or your depression or my “friend” at work because it just gets trapped in denial and defensiveness then we stop talking about us. We stop talking about trust. We stop sharing anything personal. We stop reaching out. Our hidden doubts go underground and push us apart.
Frozen pieces become tumors. Frozen pieces grow. Frozen pieces become limitations. Frozen pieces lead to frozen relationships. Frozen pieces impact the environment of our families.
Ready to be Bold? It takes a ton of courage to talk about what cannot be talked about. It takes a huge commitment to your partner and your family to ask to do something we cannot image doing.
If you feel like your relationship is the tundra and you’re ready for something to change, if you are willing to risk that even if it doesn’t work, even if it means a fight, anything would be better than continuing to suffer in silence here are a few ideas.
- Ask for help. Let me help you get a therapist. I usually end with this one but honestly it is really hard to make this kind of change alone. You have likely already used up all your skills and look where you are now. You didn’t stop talking for no reason and making things different is a huge undertaking. Invite your partner to join you in therapy but don’t let their fears stop you. But please, see a marriage counselor…even if you go alone.
- Write a letter. Tell your partner how much you care, how deep your commitment is and what you are afraid of. Take responsibility for your neglect of the relationship and how it got so far from what you wanted. Ask them to step back into the conversation.
- Call a meeting. Meetings are goal directed, time limited, limited focus, mostly low emotionality. “I want to try talking about money for 30 minutes on Saturday at Caribou. Can we try figuring out our household budget?”
- Stop stepping over it. Call it like it is. You don’t need a conversation but you can make statements.
- I wish we could talk about money without arguing.
- I hate that we can’t figure out how to support each other’s parenting.
- I am so frustrated that we have no way to talk about sex in a healthy way.
- I am worried that your drinking, your temper, your depression, your behavior is hurting our relationship and our family.