How a small signal shows the way

For a few weeks now, they have been talking to me about the pain in their relationship. Two people, still young. Each in their own way, they seek safe connection with each other and solid ground under their feet.

Their couples therapy is just like them: still young. I see that they don't yet understand each other's language, perhaps because of that early age, and that they don't yet understand each other's non-verbal signals. As I listen to the stories of both of them, I observe those signals. I see how his attitude changes when he talks about what touches him so much. Also how the timbre of his voice changes when he responds to her story. A sentence comes along, barely audible, that touches me deeply. He lets her finish, looks at her and pauses…I see him swallow before he says, "I can't feel the depth of your pain."

Over the past few conversations, it has become clear that he is looking for safety when things get difficult in their relationship. He flees the situation. Goes upstairs or to the kitchen to get away from her defensive approach.

And that escape hits her exactly where she is in pain and fear. She keeps it hidden under a thick layer of sensible reaction, analysis, compression, structuring, judging and conclusion. And this is where it gets difficult for him. Uncertainty strikes him and he no longer knows how to find his way in. He flees and by doing that unintentionally he triggers her greatest pain: her mother leaving her behind when she is a few months old.

I choose to have an individual conversation with him. It helps him better understand what's going on in their relationship. And when the couple talks to me again, we hear his key phrase "I can't feel the depth of your pain. I'm so sorry."

I feel that I am slowly relaxing, but what remains exciting: how will she react to his vulnerable attitude? She turns to him, makes eye contact and then says, "I wouldn't want you to feel this either."

I let the silence be for a moment. Of course, not everything has been solved yet, but the cold is out of the air because a careful connection has been made, a bridge of care was built. Between his world and hers.