August 24, 2010
Coping with Drama in Relationships Is Important
There are no Annual Relationship Awards. Life doesn’t recognize our successes as partners by handing out statues or arranging for audience applause. Happy couples live their lives in the shadow of ubiquity. But so, too, do unhappy couples. We don’t know if the neighbors we hear arguing believe in their relationship or are ready to abandon it.
You may be surprised to learn that happy couples have, according to research, just as many disagreements as unhappy couples. So what makes a couple happier than the next? A good therapist will tell you that how the couple handles the outcome of a conflict says much about its level of happiness. Individual feelings may flare up once in a while without destroying a relationship.
It may be that when our feelings overwhelm us we find our relationships in trouble. It’s not easy to know whether you should seek out couples therapy. Some people may feel threatened by the therapeutic process, but they have no reason to be. Although in couples therapy grievances must be aired, the resolution to grievances is not to lay blame on either partner.
According to some sources on couples counseling, Seattle offers partners many choices in experienced therapists. When couples seek help with their relationships, they’re not trying to find ways to blame each other for all the wrongs committed against them — they are looking for release from what may be called by some “the drama triangle”.
In the drama triangle you play different roles such as victim, rescuer, or persecutor. These roles do not define who we are but rather what choices we are making in a given situation. Why we make those choices depends on what we are feeling. Many couples seeking help often learn that they can work together to step off the drama triangle and into a happier relationship in which occasional disagreements don’t feel so overwhelming.
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