Recovering Couples

My last blog entry (March 8, 2009) gave an overview of the findings from the Family Recovery Project; research aimed at understanding long-term couple and family recovery processes. I was a doctoral student in 2000 and began work on one component of the Family Recovery Project, the “Couples Focus Group”, comprised of reovering couples who had successfully weathered at least five years of recovery, and were happy in their relationship. While this research involved couples with established long-term recovery, I believe that couple recovery should be addressed right at the start of recovery. Implications for couples newly in recovery suggest several important considerations. Arguably, there is a place to integrate couple recovery within the context of individual recovery, even in the early part of recovery. Beginning to integrate new ways of being with each other early in recovery is better than later in recovery and I believe would create better outcomes down the line than if the couple postponed dealing with their relationship only after years of individual recovery. 

The focus group had met for over five years, once a month for two hours, basically talking about their experiences in recovery, but from the couples’s perspectives. There were two follow up meetings after the group ended. The group discussions were audiotaped and my task was to code and analyze the data to understand what happens in the couple relationship after starting recovery. This was a remarkable opportunity to learn from the couples themselves about what works and what doesn’t work in managing recovery from the couple perspective. The couples expressed in the first group that this was really the first opportunity they had to tell their story as a couple in recovery, not just as an individual in recovery.

The task of making sense of the 106 hours of audiotaped recordings began with creating “codes”, themes that captured ideas or concepts relevant in some way to questions of:

• What do the participants feel is/was important to their couple recovery?
• What changes took place over time in their relationship? 
• What problems did they experience in their relationship and what helped to work on these problems?
• How did these couples differ from couples in early recovery?

I used “Grounded Theory”, a systematic approach  to coding the interactions leading to a process of eliminating themes that don’t hold up, developing themes that do and establishing relationships between themes that unfold into the bigger picture of what is happening. The results from this research provide a theory of long-term couple recovery processes. This research has been ongoing through the Center for Couples In Recovery at the Mental Research Institute and can be summarized this way: The overall picture is that successful long-term couple recovery is a process involving three components of relationship development with changes in these areas taking place over time; less emphasis on individual recovery and more emphasis and focus on the relationship; increasing awareness of the impact that the family of origin has had on his/her own model for how to be in a relationship, now seeking to change the dysfunctional patterns they have learned; and the ability to manage both individual and couple recoveries.

1. More specifically, “Shifting” is the process that occurs when individual recoveries have stabilized and the couple now wants to focus on the relationship. Individuals continue to attend programs like AA and Al-Anon, but there is an increasing need to reconnect with the partner. The supports from outside the relationship have been important and now there is an interest in developing the relationship that essentially has been put on hold in service of strengthening individual recovery
2. “Intergenerational Reworking” refers to partners coming to grips with the impact of their own upbringing and what they bring to their current relationship as a result. Dr. John Gottman would refer to this as the “Internal Working Model”, which simply means we learn how to be in relationships from the people who raise us. Sometimes what we learn isn’t so healthy or helpful
3. “Attending” is the ability for partners to manage closeness, attending to the partner’s needs but not at the cost of one’s own growth or recovery or acting in codependent ways. Boundaries seem clearer and roles and rules of how to be with each other allow for continued couple growth as well as individual growth.

Unhealthy patterns of interaction learned from the family of origin need to be replaced with healthy ones and this is where Dr. John Gottman’s research is so useful; we know what works and doesn’t work in relationships (see www.gottmantherapist.wordpress.com for my blog on relationships).  Finally, learning to care for self doesn’t have to mean putting the relationship on hold for five years. I believe there are ways to address relationship issues without sacrificing individual recovery. This is an ongoing research effort, and how to move through these components is something we need to learn more about. So hold on to the idea: “More will be revealed”.          

Joe wondered if he could ever be a good husband, he didn’t have much of a model in his own family. His father drank every night and fell asleep on the couch, his mother withdrew in angry desperation from her husband, and ultimately from the kids. Anna was angry with her partner, but she didn’t have a clue how to handle that anger. Her mother always told her to “Let things go, don’t make things worse”. Anna’s father was alcoholic who would go into rages; her mother did her best to protect her kids from his anger. Leo’s mother and father both were alcoholic. Family events like dinners, celebrations, birthdays, and vacations would always start off well with laughter and hugs, but would inevitably end up in disaster after both parents would over drink and begin picking on each other and the kids. Leo found himself always feeling anxious at dinner time; he avoided conflict and found himself withdrawing from his wife when she seemed upset.

Joe, Anna, and Leo struggle not knowing what “normal is” in their couple and family relationships. Since beginning recovery with their spouses, each of the couples have been working on establishing new ways of being with other and have begun to make progress. Dr. John Gottman’s research on relationships is a helpful blue print, not for the question of what is normal, but rather, what works in relationships. We know that couples that stay together and are happy are more positive with each other, manage conflict in a gentle way, and basically treat their partner like a good friend. What does it take to do that when you have a difficult family history as your only model of relationship?

My research with recovering couples who have learned to make changes in their relationships have incorporated two important steps in their relationships: 1. Identify unhealthy patterns of relating in their own family of origin that have seeped into their current relationships 2. Disidentify with that pattern, realizing that they actually have choices in how they interact. This last process is “shedding” the past unhealthy patterns, but it happens only after recognizing it. 

All of this takes time, a willingness to look at and talk about family history, and a willingness to try new behaviors with your partner. Healthy couple recovery is an ongoing process, there is no final stage or destination per say, it’s more like continuing to work on the things that bring you closer and help you manage differences. That is what we learned from Gottman’s research - good relationships are a work in progress. We will continue to explore how couples have made significant changes in their relationships, shedding the past and creating new ways of being together.