How to mend a broken heart

An Ottawa psychologist is mapping the way
to healing marital 'injuries,' Joanne Laucius reports.

Ottawa Citizen
Friday, February 14, 2003

A woman is crying on the stairs. She has had crushing news about a medical diagnosis. Her husband comes home, and she chokes out the bad news. She feels alone and wants to be comforted. Instead, he pushes his way upstairs.

The hurt the wife feels is what couples therapy researchers call an "attachment injury."

The wife doesn't know it, but the husband has gone upstairs to his study and is having a cry of his own. But as far as she is concerned, faith has been broken and she vows never to be vulnerable to her husband again.

A group of Ottawa psychologists who research marital relationships say when one partner violates the expectation that they will be there to offer comfort in times of distress, the "injured" partner feels a loss of intimacy and trust.

"It's like a bomb in the middle of a relationship," says Dr. Sue Johnson, a University of Ottawa psychology professor and director of the Ottawa Couple and Family Institute.

About half of attachment injuries are due to infidelities. But to the injured partner, it is the meaning of the infidelity rather than the details that matter.

A short flirtation can be more damaging than a longer one. It all depends on when it happened, how the couple handled it, and whether the unfaithful partner lied about it, says Dr. Johnson, who, with colleagues, is plotting out the map to reconciliation after an attachment injury.

What can shatter a relationship depends on the people and the vulnerabilities involved, she says. For some couples, it can be the news of a serious illness, the death of a child or parent, or a lost job.

In one case, a woman felt her husband did not show concern after she had a miscarriage. In another, a woman buried her pain for 16 years after her husband came home from work to find her overwhelmed with young children. The husband ignored her feelings of frustration and helplessness and made phone calls.

"The expectation that the other person would be there was shattered and could not be repaired," says Dr. Johnson. "The incident affects the risk that the couple is able to take."

Often the offending partner doesn't even remember the incident. Or apologizes and thinks the rift has been healed. But for the injured person, the incident has not been either forgotten or forgiven. And the injury comes very much alive again during therapy, Dr. Johnson said.

"They speak in life-and-death terms. They speak of isolation and abandonment. The injured party would take a stance of never again will they risk becoming vulnerable to the other."

Most -- but not all -- the "injured" people are women.

"I think, in our society, females are more sensitive to issues of abandonment," Dr. Johnson said. "Lots of these could be avoided if the male could hang in and deal with the wife's hurt and disappointment. Usually the man moves to defend himself or really doesn't know how to respond. We teach men to problem-solve, but not to emphasize and comfort."

Men often say they don't know how to "be there" for their wives.

"I ask them how they comfort their kids. And they tell me. They do know how, but they don't apply it to their wives," says Dr. Johnson. "And they're not afraid of their kids' anger and disappointment."

So, how do you heal a broken heart? Dr. Johnson and her colleagues use a model of therapy called Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy she helped originate in Vancouver about 20 years ago.

Usually, everything is fine until the therapist asks one of the members of the couple to take a risk and become vulnerable to the other member. That's when the years of anger and resentment about the injury come tumbling out.

Often, the person responsible for the injury will say brusquely that they have already apologized. But that isn't enough, said Dr. Johnson.

The person who is responsible for the injury has to be able to hear the pain. They have to listen, respond and not minimize the hurt. The injured persons let themselves be comforted. It's like that emotional connection re-writes the whole injury scenario, said Dr. Johnson.

Of course, it's not as simple as that. "We're still mapping the territory. Some couples were never able to resolve it." said Dr. Johnson, who has already written academic papers on attachment injury and is currently at work on a book tentatively titled The Nature of Love.

Of the 24 couples in the Ottawa study, 15 resolved their injuries and reported gains in trust and marital satisfaction. It didn't matter how distressed they were when they first came in, Dr. Johnson said.

The nine couples who didn't resolve their problems reported that their relationship was already distressed when the injuries happened -- and there was more than one previous injury.

"The point is that hurts don't go away," said Dr. Johnson. "They eat away at the foundations of the bond between spouses."

The next research will look at the steps successful couples used to piece together their broken trust.

"This project says that we get them feeling safe enough to really engage in the process -- and if they haven't waited too long and let the distress and injuries build up -- then the process seems to work."

© Copyright 2003 The Ottawa Citizen