Скачать или смотреть Disappointments and loss during corona – Couples Coping 7

Two therapists in conversation reflect on how loss and disappointment trigger attachment behaviours and escalate the cycle of conflict between partners. We use our understanding of attachment patterns to highlight coping mechanisms, describing how the couple, when vulnerable, can polarise between preoccupied/pursuer and avoidant/withdrawer roles, between an overwhelmed, anxious, angry, critical and complaining amplifier and a dismissive minimiser whose lonely feelings are completely masked. We reflect on how disappointment impacts on a couple’s ability for closeness and connection, care-giving and care-seeking patterns.
We explore the difficult behaviours evoked during any couple crisis but in particular during the corona virus. These interactions create a vicious cycle so that behaviours evoked in the preoccupied partner (protests, clinging, helplessness) are provoking to the more avoidant partner - and vice versa. We reflect on how the avoidant partner can be driven by denial and be drawn to behave in ways which are devaluing, dismissive and controlling and how this can trigger and provoke the ambivalent preoccupied spouse.


The couple find themselves in a polarised pattern with one unable to restrain themselves and the other unable to step forward or know how they feel. Neither is able to attune and respond to the other and their needs. The avoidant partner, whilst able to offer instrumental care when their partner is grieving loss or disappointment, will often withdraw when emotional care is needed. This partner might remove themselves, withhold or pull back whilst the preoccupied partner might protest and amplify their feelings resorting to testing their partner. The preoccupied person might express health concerns, complain or threaten to leave the relationship when really the real issue is that they are in distress and really mean ‘come and find me’. These patterns can settle into a chronic perpetuation of roles - on the one hand, the dismissive, competent adult and on the other hand the incompetent, clinging and helpless child. Sadly this repetition does not resolve the burden of pain that each is feeling.

We point towards resolution: finding a pause button and taking time out. We’re hoping that the couple can recognise that they are in a familiar polarising pattern and see that one is ‘too much’ and the other ‘too little’. This would require the avoidant tuning into their feelings, and the preoccupied holding onto their feelings. If partners can find self-compassion and tolerance for themselves and for each other, they will find a way forward.

In summary , we reflect on the attachment relationship between husband and wife or between civil partners and how this bond is impacted by lockdown for corona virus. We illustrate how hidden vulnerable feelings can drive rows and conflict, often with a critical pattern in one partner and a stonewalling pattern in the other. We hope that the video helps couples who are struggling with Covid-19 and the challenges it brings.