ABSTRACT
Husband: I tried to kiss you this morning, and you rejected me. Wife: I had my mouth full of peanut butter at the time. I said, hold on, I’m busy. Husband: So, I’m less important than peanut butter.
A professional couple in their late 40s came to the marital and family clinic in a large urban hospital. Paul and Elsa had been married for 20 years. They had two children approaching adolescence. At their assessment, they appeared to be a relatively sophisticated couple. He spoke in very intellectual terms with reasoned arguments and long digressions, while she wept. They stated the problem in terms of lack of intimacy. Elsa stated that Paul was a “stranger” to her and that she had given up trying to be close because she could “never do anything right, no matter what I try.” Paul said that for him the relationship was in the “deep freeze.” He was aware that he “pushed” for closeness, which was very much missing for him in the relationship-although he was also aware that he was a “workaholic” who spent most of his life deeply involved in his projects. Elsa stated that she felt continually analyzed and criticized and now avoided Paul by almost any
means possible. Paul suggested that he was basically angry because she had “never turned up for this relationship.” This couple’s interaction followed a classic pursue/attack and withdraw/avoid pattern, with Paul being the pursuer and Elsa being the withdrawer. The couple were still relatively committed to the relationship, although each of them spoke of the possibility that it would end if things did not improve. Paul suggested that he might leave to find a more responsive partner, while Elsa spoke of leaving to avoid Paul’s “constant criticism.” At the beginning of therapy, the couple scored 82 on the Dyadic Adjustment Scale (Spanier, 1976). A score of approximately 100 is the cutoff point for marital distress on this commonly used measure; a score of 70 is typical of divorcing couples.
