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How to earn a Happy Marriage!
The Inner Couple model:
The hidden script that runs your marriage or couple relationship
By Dr Jim Byrne, Doctor of Counselling, and Couples Therapist
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28th March 2023
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Introduction
Question: Why is your marriage or couple relationship such a source of unhappiness and suffering?
– Because you – the conscious you – are NOT the driver of your relationship.
Question: Then who is the driver?
– The ‘Inner Child’ part of you. Based on your childhood observations of your parents’ marriage.
– That is to say, a childish part of you – aged about 7-10 years – operating from the basement of your mind – is making all the decisions about how to think, feel and act in your marriage or couple relationship!
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Anne Teachworth, an American Gestalt therapist, emphasises the fact that we learn what a relationship is by watching our mother and father relating to each other, when we are very young.
By watching your mother and father relating to each other, when you were an infant, and up to the age of ten years, you formed an Inner Couple image, or model, as a guide to action in your adult life.
Whatever you saw your mother and father doing with and to each other, in the first ten years of your life, became your non-conscious wiring for your relationship knowledge/skills/attitudes.
– What did you see going on between your parents when you were up to ten years of age? How did they get along? Was there much conflict? Did they act in a loving and kind manner with each other?
Do not make the mistake of saying: “But my parents get along fine now!” Now is not what matters!
Your ‘Inner Couple’ Model has nothing to do with your Present Time Parents. This process is all about your Childhood Time Parents. What they were like with each other, or how you interpreted their thoughts, feelings and actions, when you were very young.
That is the core of your Inner Couple Model!
When we are young children, we decide that one of our parents (our favourite) will be our role-model for How to Be an Adult. This is our Adult Role Model.
– Did you prefer your mum or your dad?
The other parent then becomes our Mate Model; or the image we will non-consciously pursue in seeking a (romantic, marriage) mate when we grow up.
You can test this idea for yourself like this:
In your current (or most recent) adult couple relationship, do you, or did you, often find yourself acting as if you were copying the words or actions of one of your parents?
If so, which one?
Mother or father?
The answers to these questions should tell you who your inner Adult Role Model is. (And thus, your Inner Mate Model must be somebody just like the other parent).
In your current (or most recent) adult couple relationship, do you, or did you, tend to relate to your partner as if they were your Inner Mate Model.
According to Anne Teachworth, you will always seek to find a perfect match, in your adult relationships, to fit your Inner Couple. That is to say, unless and until you can re-wire yourself with an Improved or Reformed Inner Couple model, you will keep replicating your parent’s marriage (as perceived by you when you were very young!) – And I can help you to do that rewiring work!
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Let me add two points:
– Firstly: I have had lots of clients who “married their mother” (symbolically), for their first significant relationship; but then switched to “marrying their father”, for their second significant relationship. Only to finally switch to “marrying Not-My-Mother” – (or “Not-My-Father”) – for a later relationship. And there is no freedom in any of those “moves”.
– Secondly: As Anne Teachworth herself recognizes, sometimes a client will operate with their partner as if the client is a young child, wanting something from a reluctant parent!
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How to reform your Inner Couple Model
It seems we can never transcend having a Couple Relationship Template – a “schema” – or “model” – in our heads. But we can update or rewire that template, schema or model, so we will be attracted to a “more viable” partner for a more loving relationship. In the process, we can learn to relate very differently to our current partner; and that could make the difference between having a happy marriage or an unhappy marriage.
I can help you with this developmental process.
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So how can you re-wire yourself for an Improved Inner Couple?
There are two stages to this process:
Stage 1: Collect all the relevant data that you need in order to think your way through to what would need to change in your Inner Couple, to produce a better relationship for you in your adult life. (I can guide you through this process).
Stage 2: Make an appointment to see me (Jim) for two to five sessions, at which we will:
Firstly:
Rehearse and practice the processes you need to do – using Gestalt Chairwork – to rewire your relationship with your mum and dad, or main carers; and also to rewrite their relationship, so it can be a better model for you to follow in your own adult, romantic or sex-love relationship. (to find out more about Chairwork, please go here: https://psychcentral.com/health/empty-chair-technique
– The first session is, then, a rehearsal and preparation.
Secondly:
– The second (and possibly third, fourth and fifth sessions, or more) is about resolving the following issues:
- What I got from my mum, which I did not want.
- What I did not get from my mum, which I definitely felt I needed.
- What I got from my dad, which I did not want.
- What I did not get from my dad, which I definitely felt I needed.
- And then, how I wanted (and now need) my childhood parents to relate to each other, (for examples: as good, loving and kind relationship role models! As non-squabblers! As present and attentive partners! Etc.)
- And finally, I will support you in role playing being your Improved Mum Role Model, and Improved Dad Role Model.
Part 6 above, where you get your “improved parents” relating to each other in a loving and kind manner, is then audio recorded by you, so you can listen back to this conversation, every night (or day) for weeks and weeks following the session, to get this new Inner Couple Model hardwired into the emotional basement of your mind!
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So, first, gather together the relevant information:
– I will send you a set of five areas in which you need to collect relevant information; and we will use your answers to those questions to form and refine the agenda for the sessions during which we will do the Gestalt chair-work* on your childhood relationships with your parents.
(* Gestalt chair-work is believed to be one of the most powerful therapeutic interventions available in the world of counselling and psychotherapy! On the surface in looks like “role playing” being yourself, your mum and your dad, while moving back and forth between three chairs – [one chair representing each person in the role play])
– Sometimes this process takes two or three sessions; and sometimes it takes five or six; depending on how many issues you have to resolve with your childhood parents, and between your childhood parents.
Special offer on fees:
From 28th March for a few weeks, I am offering the following reduced fees to new clients:
Brief Package: Two or three sessions of Reforming Your Inner Couple Model, for a total fee of £240.00 (provided the fee is paid in advance of the first meeting; and you only have two or three issues on each of your five lists).
Extended Package. Five or six sessions of Reforming Your Inner Couple Model, for a total fee of £480.00 (provided the fee is paid in advance of the first meeting; and you have no more than five or six issues on each of your five lists)
The reason for the difference in the two fees options is that the number of issues on your lists of issues to be resolved affects how long it takes to get all this work done. (For example, with a recent client, who had 5-7 issues on each of his five lists, it took one sixty-minute session for each of his five lists!)
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The chairwork that we will do – which is just like psychological role play – may well bring up feelings of grief, sadness, anger, and so on, which were never fully felt in childhood. But this is a good thing – speaking therapeutically!
This is your chance to complete some incomplete emotional experiences from childhood, which allows them to disappear into the background of your life. (When you have incomplete psychological experiences rattling around in your subconscious mind, that will lead to all kinds of social-emotional problems in the present!)
And one of the major outputs which you will gain from this Inner Couple process is this:
– You will audio record the part of the process where you get your childhood parents (in your mind; your imagination) to agree to relate to each in a more loving and kind manner, so they become better role models for you – (that is, for the grown-up you).
– You take that audio recording away from the session with you, and that becomes the basis for rewiring our Inner Couple, as explained next…
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Special offer on fees:
From 28th March for a few weeks, I am offering the following reduced fees to new clients:
- Brief Package: Two or three sessions of Reforming Your Inner Couple Model, for a total fee of £240.00 (provided the fee is paid in advance of the first meeting; and you only have two or three issues on each of your five lists).
- Extended Package: Five or six sessions of Reforming Your Inner Couple Model, for a total fee of £480.00 (provided the fee is paid in advance of the first meeting; and you have no more than five or six issues on each of your five lists)
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Next, you should listen back to that audio-recorded dialogue between your New, Improved Inner Couple, every night for 30, 60 or 90 nights, or a whole year if necessary(!), until you are confident that this new relationship programming has gone deeply into your subconscious mind. (This is a form of self-hypnosis or autogenic training and therapy. And, as Paul McKenna said, “Repetition is the mother of success”, when it comes to self-hypnosis or re-programming).
You will know how well this process – of listening to your audio recording every day or night – has worked by the way you find yourself relating to your current partner, or a new partner.
If you are disappointed by the way you relate to them, then go back to listening to the New Inner Couple dialogue, for another 30, 60, or 90 nights; until you are happy that you have over-written your old Inner Couple Model, and now have an emotionally intelligent, caring, respectful and responsible New Inner Couple running your romantic life!
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If you do this work, you will get the kind of loving, caring, enjoyable and happy relationship that you desire!
Special offer on fees:
From 28th March for a few weeks, I am offering the following reduced fees to new clients:
- Brief Package: Two or three sessions of Reforming Your Inner Couple Model, for a total fee of £240.00 (provided the fee is paid in advance of the first meeting; and you only have two or three issues on each of your five lists).
- Extended Package: Five or six sessions of Reforming Your Inner Couple Model, for a total fee of £480.00 (provided the fee is paid in advance of the first meeting; and you have no more than five or six issues on each of your five lists)
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Best wishes for a happy relationship.
Jim
Dr Jim Byrne
Doctor of Counselling
ABC Coaching and Counselling Services,
Email: Dr Jim’s Email Address
Telephone: 01422 843 629 (inside the UK)
Or: 44 1422 843 629 (outside the UK)
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Copyright © Jim Byrne, 2023
Page created on 28th March 2023
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ABC Counselling and Psychotherapy, Hebden Bridge 