Healing Your Marriage Bond

You Were Born To Love.

Nature built you to attach deeply to another person; that’s why healing your marriage bond is so important. When your marriage or relationship is in distress, it affects everything. It’s hard to focus, it’s hard to sleep, and life feels more difficult. When you get upset, it’s harder to calm down. Things feel more overwhelming, and scarier when your marriage bond and secure attachment are disrupted.

That’s not just true for you — it’s true for everyone. 

Research has shown that, just like babies and small children, adults have very real needs for secure attachment to their “irreplaceable other.” When these marriage bonds or attachment bonds are threatened, adults are impacted physically: blood pressure goes up, respiration patterns change, sleep is disrupted, and you don’t function as well mentally and physically.

This isn’t just true if you’re fighting. It’s true anytime you’re feeling disconnected…shut out…or unloved.

Attachment Theory and Secure Attachment

The presence of a secure connection is soothing. It strengthens us. It also makes us feel more able to cope with challenges and stressful situations.

Dr. Susan Johnson, the founder of Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (which research has shown to be the most effective kind of couples counseling), recently conducted a fascinating new study. She was able to demonstrate — actually measure — not just the power that love and secure attachment has on us physically, but how effective marriage counseling can repair those bonds.

She showed how people perceive the world emotionally and physically as a safer, more manageable place when they feel securely attached to their number one person. Most importantly, she demonstrated the healing power of marriage counseling through attachment-focused marriage counseling.

Watch Dr. Johnson’s video “Soothing The Threatened Brain,” and see the physical power of secure love: