Illustrating how the system heals is best told in the stories of couples who used their therapy to heal each other. The names have been changed to preserve confidentiality.
“How could you be so irresponsible? Do I have to do EVERYTHING?!” Matthew had agreed to take over paying their mortgage, because his pattern of failing to do important tasks for his family had indeed resulted in Cynthia having to do “everything.” The words above were her reaction to his confession that he had once again let her down by forgetting to send in the payment, which endangered their future in their home. His irresponsibility provided the perfect opportunity for Cynthia to live again all the feelings associated with being the oldest child who had to become the “parent” in a chaotic household that was unsafe. Matthew’s historical feelings around being the son of a physician father who constantly belittled him to ensure that Matthew would never outshine him were regularly accessed with a wife whose childhood history compelled her to relive the burden of being alone with all the family responsibilities. As they both took ownership of the feelings they were having in their marital conflicts that had been served up by their intersubjective system and linked those feelings to the shame and sorrow they had carried over from their childhoods, Cynthia stopped taking everything over as her responsibility, and Matthew claimed his adult competence by becoming more dependable.
“How could you do that if you really loved me?!” Carolyn sobbed as she described why she couldn’t stop being angry at her husband for the affair he had succumbed to 20 years prior to their seeking couple treatment. His heartfelt apologies and expressions of being ashamed of himself had not assuaged her rage. Their typical repetitive conflict consisted of her saying over and over again that he couldn’t possibly love her until he fatigued with the accusations and shouted at her, “Okay, you’re right; I don’t love you!”, thus reinforcing the shame they both held inside. In fact, neither of their mothers acted loving. When Brad failed to follow his mother’s instructions to perfect completion, she shouted at him the exact same words Carolyn used at the top of this paragraph. Carolyn’s mother’s disinterest in being a mother had left Carolyn unprotected, as she was sexually assaulted by their next-door neighbor and a teenage babysitter. Her mother doubled down on the hatred of her daughter by inviting the next-door neighbor to Christmas dinner and telling Carolyn to “be nice” to him! As Brad and Carolyn began to see during therapy how their intersubjective system had perfectly reconstructed their childhood experiences of feeling unsafe, unloved and unloving, they hashed through the feelings of abandonment, rage, and shame they had both felt during the affair. They learned to empathize with the victim position they had both been forced to inhabit as children and could then let go of so vividly recreating victimhood in their marriage.
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