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June 2019

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Impact of Negative Interactional Patterns

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 Learn to communicate for connection

All couples fall into negative patterns as they interact and face the daily challenges of life including raising children, job concerns, financial issues, illness and chronic health issues. While we imagine couples in newly developing relationships experiencing joy and passion in the early states, negative interactional patterns may be recognizable in premarital couples. If not addressed early, they may become more established throughout the early stages of marriage. Emotional disconnection, communication problems and damaging marital conflict are leading factors for future marital distress and those who ultimately divorce.

Additionally, high conflict between marital partners has been shown to negatively affect children and their future relationships. Most concerning is that childhood neglect and maltreatment is associated with multiple issues such as mental, emotional, social, and physical health problems in adulthood.  These concerning results have led researchers to elevate childhood maltreatment to be a threat to public health.

Typical patterns in distressed couples are destructive arguing (attacking, blaming, hostile criticism, and contempt), that effect not only the couple, but also the family in general.  Over time, these negative interactional patterns undermine emotional safety in the couple relationship and erode love, sexual attraction and intimacy, trust, and overall couple commitment.

The Building A Lasting Connection® workshop offers powerful tools to enable couples to navigate the challenges of their committed relationship. Attendees are guided through exercises and interactional activities to help them learn how to find emotional safety and clarity in the communication process and learn how to navigate through conflict in a collaborative manner.  They learn how to incorporate a healthy view of physical intimacy and sexual relations and explore the many barriers to a healthy sexual relationship within the marital partnership.  Finally, couples and individuals learn about the importance of uncovering and integrating goals and visions of their future together and develop new couple and family rituals and traditions.  This education program for committed couples has the potential to ultimately contribute to relative long-term marital satisfaction and lessen the risk of divorce.

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What Makes Building A Lasting Connection® Workshop Relevant Today?

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Of particular concern is the prevalence of divorce among married and committed couples, and studies show that as many as 50% of couples marrying for the first time ultimately divorce. Relationship education has been identified as a preventative tool to assist couples in navigating through the challenges of marriage, however there are relatively few comprehensive programs currently available. Programs targeted toward newly committed couples have been shown to be generally effective in predicting immediate, short-term improvement, but these programs focus primarily on behavioral skills such as couple communication as opposed to adult attachment style.

The Building A Lasting Connection® workshop is a relationship education program with a focus on the foundational principles of attachment with the added benefits of experiential learning. The workshop teaches the importance of adult attachment and the essential role of attachment and safe emotional connection to sustain relationship development and health among committed couples.

One of the most essential aspects of this attachment-based experiential program is to facilitate and build on the initial bonding process through a deeper understanding of attachment, the importance of authenticity and emotional connection and increased recognition of how unrepaired miscommunications can lead to lack of emotional safety resulting in the creation of emotional distance or heightened conflict, and to enhance the couples’ ability to achieve greater relationship satisfaction across their years of marriage.