By Sue Schonberg, PhD, ABPP
Romantic relationships can be complex for many reasons. Someone married for 20 years may believe that for most of their marriage, they haven’t felt truly heard or validated. Someone else may fear that after several unsuccessful attempts meeting women on dating sites, they will never meet their life partner and will be alone the rest of their life. Another person may believe that they cannot trust their boyfriend and feel compelled to secretly check his phone or spy on him using social media platforms. And another person may believe that the only way to get their needs met in a relationship is to display anger or use verbal threats and ultimatums. These types of beliefs may create secondary problems and prevent both partners from having their needs met. What are types of thinking and behavior that promote unwanted relationship outcomes and what can you do differently?
Identify unhelpful thinking styles
The individual who felt they haven’t been heard or validated for most of their marriage might have a series of unhelpful automatic thoughts. For example, believing that “My wife SHOULD know that I need to decompress when I come home from work and may not feel like immediately talking,” may give rise to additional automatic thoughts such as: “She doesn’t respect how hard I work all day and doesn’t care that I might be stressed.” This same person might be resorting to mindreading (“She’s known me for so long, how could she not know this?”). The person who has not had success meeting women on dating sites might catastrophize and believe “I’m clearly a loser, no decent woman will want to be with me, and I’ll just have to settle for some really inadequate person if I don’t want to be alone the rest of my life.” The person who is distrusting of their boyfriend may believe “If I don’t keep tabs on him, he’ll likely cheat on me.” This same person may be concluding that if the boyfriend didn’t return their text from earlier in the day, that is evidence which supports this belief. They might also magnify the boyfriend’s behavior, giving it greater weight and importance than is reasonable. And the person who yells and threatens their partner with a breakup may be forecasting low expectations of the other’s ability to change in the absence of leveling threats.
Identify unhelpful behaviors
The individual who needed to decompress after returning home from work may adopt even greater avoidance of his wife as a reflection of his anger and hurt in not feeling heard. The person who was not meeting with success on dating sites may elect to either give up trying to meet someone altogether or choose to remain with someone who is not a good fit. The person who is convinced they need to spy on their boyfriend to protect themselves from cheating and getting hurt will likely at some point get “caught” doing such and elicit anger from him. And the person who resorts to yelling as a means of getting their needs met is likely to foster resentment in their partner.
Evaluate and respond to unhelpful thinking styles and behaviors
Identifying unhelpful automatic thoughts and behaviors is an essential first step. Asking a series of Socratic questions will then allow you to consider whether these thoughts are accurate. What is my supporting evidence for my thought? What is evidence that my thought may be incorrect or partially incorrect? For the individual who maintained his wife “SHOULD” know what he was thinking at the end of the workday, what is he basing his “SHOULD” thinking on? Is he assuming a spouse always knows what is on the mind of the other? Has he explicitly told her such? Is there any evidence to the contrary– that his wife does respect him and does very much care about his feelings? Are there reasons she may feel a sense of urgency to speak the moment he walks in the door? For the person who was having difficulty meeting women on dating sites, might he re-examine whom he is drawn to or what he has written in his profile that might be inadvertently attracting the wrong types of potential partners? Can he reconsider reasons why he might not be a loser, and think of his positive traits? For the person who feels compelled to spy on their boyfriend assuming that he cannot be trusted not to cheat, is there any evidence of actual cheating? Are there alternative reasons why a text might not be immediately returned? If they were to suspend their spying/checking behavior, what do they actually learn? And for the person who believes that yelling and threatening is the only way to be heard, have they ever tested a new belief and behavior such as “Perhaps if I express my needs in an assertive, but not aggressive manner, I could be heard but without creating resentment in the other?”
Examine relationship values
In the healthiest of relationships, compromise is essential. Asking yourself what you value most about this other person can allow you to better compromise on some of the other person’s undesirable behaviors. No relationship is perfect, nor does it need to be to feel content overall.
How has the pandemic brought certain relationship issues to light?
As we all have navigated through this pandemic, some pre-existing anxieties in relationships have resulted in different manifestations of relationship strain. Some of these were due to beliefs involving an increased need to control one’s environment or avoid potentially risky situations more stringently. Heightening one’s awareness of their automatic thoughts and behaviors in this context can help. Reconsidering whether one’s behaviors are problematic and, if so, modifying their actions could also prove helpful.
Relationships are such an integral part of our lives. By utilizing CBT and examining our automatic thoughts and behaviors which might be unhelpful, we can modify these and subsequently attain greater satisfaction and happiness with our significant other.