Mind Matters: Love is a complex relationship requiring introspection for some couples

Working with couples offers unique challenges not present in individual therapy. One challenge noted by Imago therapists resulted in a book by Harville Hendrix, his latest, published two years ago and co-authored with his wife Helen La Kelly Hunt. Its title says it all: Receiving Love: Transform Your Relationship by Letting Yourself Be Loved. Anyone experiencing marital problems will benefit from the wisdom of this book.

It is true that difficulty accepting love presents problems in marriage. We all want to be loved. Isn't it natural to accept it? Not necessarily. We know this from reactions we see in couples. Often therapy progresses well, both parties try to hear and meet the other's needs and actually succeed. That's when they get stuck.

A husband might be faithfully helping with the kids so he and his wife can have more time together as she requested. He feels positive and hopeful. His wife is quiet and in the therapist's office. He is stunned when she complains that although he is more helpful, she still has to give him specific instructions every night. He should be able to figure it out, not count on her, she says.

This is one of hundreds of examples of spouses who cannot give their mates credit for loving behaviors because they don't feel worthy of receiving love. So they sabotage the relationship in some way.

Sometimes both partners cannot receive love. In other situations one has more difficulty than the other. It can be extremely frustrating for a truly loving husband or wife to have their loving behavior thrown back at them. Often they just give up in total discouragement.

Why do people find it hard to accept love? The underlying reason is they reject parts of themselves. This is unconscious behavior based on painful experiences in their family, resulting from childhood decisions to always "play it safe." In other words, keeping an emotional distance, or holding love at bay, would theoretically guarantee safety in a relationship.

We all received messages from the way our parents treated us that told us parts of ourselves were, rightly or wrongly, unacceptable to them. We internalized these messages, making them our own beliefs. These beliefs then became the reason for feeling unworthy of love. We then project those negative aspects of ourselves onto our partners and reject them for loving us.

It's a universal problem and best solved in the context of a committed relationship where we can use our projections to begin a healing process. Hendrix elegantly explains this in his book.

Is there a solution? Yes, and it means looking at what we dislike in our spouses, realizing we really dislike those traits in ourselves. The paradox is that we must then learn to gain understanding and compassion for our spouse. Finally, we can actually love those traits and behaviors we once hated. Amazingly, we will also have grown in ability to love ourselves, and at last can accept love. Because it is a relational issue, our spouse will have also achieved the same goals.

This simplified summary is merely the tip of the iceberg.

The real basis for most marital discord is worthy of deeper investigation by anyone interested in a happier marriage.

Elinor Stanton is a Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner on Marco Island. She has 28 years of experience as a therapist, in private practice and with a large health maintenance organization in Boston. She graduated from Boston College and University of Rochester, and is certified as a clinical specialist by the American Nurses Credentialing Center. She is trained in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing and is a certified Imago Relationship Therapist. Comments and questions are welcome and may be submitted by e-mail to etseven@aol.com or telephone 394-2861.