Love for a Lifetime. A Guide for Couples

Harville and Helen experienced unsuccessful marriages: their previous relationships were not saved by the birth of children or consultations with psychotherapists. Harville sought to find the answer to the main question: what is the cause of conflicts, crises, and separations of spouses who once loved each other so deeply. He felt that, in addition to external problems, there was some deep-rooted reason, and he wanted to study it comprehensively. Helen supported him in this endeavor. They formed not only a family but also a professional union. As a result of many years of research, they concluded that childhood experiences have a profound influence on relationships with partners. We unconsciously choose partners under the influence of images from the past, etched in the depths of our memory. Therefore, in our partners, negative and positive traits of those who raised us are usually combined. Love is the desire to regain the harmony we felt while in the mother's womb. Confronted with reality, we lose the sense of safety we come into this world with. Every time a parent distances themselves from their child, not noticing, for example, their crying, the child experiences a painful breach of connection with a loved one, and in love, we try to regain that connection. We reproduce the negative experiences of the past, wishing this time to 'come out victorious,' to heal our childhood trauma. However, unconscious expectations are not always met, and ultimately we face problems in family life: spouses relive their childhood issues, now in relationships with partners. Hence the conflicts, crises, and divorces. Harville and Helen offer a way to correct the situation. This is Imago therapy, aimed at improving interaction with a partner. Dialogue plays a key role in it. The ancient brain encodes positive communication experiences with a partner in new connections between brain cells. The more such positive interactions there are, the stronger the new path becomes, while the old and destructive one - which originated in childhood - begins to lose strength (there are fewer messengers flowing between cells) and the ability to interfere in your relationships. As a result, the couple reaches conscious partnership - relationships characterized by mutual support that promote the psychological and spiritual growth of both partners. The book contains a theoretical part (helping to answer the questions: 'What is wrong' and 'Why is this happening') and a practical part - exercises to achieve conscious partnership, where spouses become one whole.