Some forms of couple therapy have emphasized the importance of helping couples differentiate–helping them see each other as two separate individuals, instead of succumbing to a type of “twinning” where only alikeness is tolerated. There are certainly benefits to helping couples resist the draw to substitute being alike for being close. However, ignoring the nonconscious “sameness” of intimate partners is also missing an opportunity to make use of the right-brain natural attraction of similars in service of healing.
Our right brains are attracted to mates who already possess the potential ability to have perfect empathy for our inner worlds. I have consistently found in my work with couples that partners have experienced highly similar trauma and have stored highly similar unmetabolized emotions from their childhoods. Some folks attribute this attraction to mirror neurons; some do not. But whatever the mechanism, it definitely exists.
We see this as a natural mechanism designed to be healing, although most people are not aware of this feature. If a couple’s similar experiences that have drawn them to each other are firmly entrenched in the nonconscious, they often arose from significant trauma that both brains are fearful of becoming conscious. In this case, the partners often externally appear as opposites. Their brains have chosen opposite-looking methods for avoiding their highly similar unmetabolized emotions.
For example, perhaps both partners have nonconsciously stored the trauma-generated feeling of shame. One partner might try to be “perfect” in an effort to compulsively avoid experiencing any shame, while the other is compulsively shaming themselves to avoid conscious awareness of the original childhood shamers.
With sufficient curiosity and exploration, the discovery by couples in treatment that they have experienced the same painful feelings in the past is accompanied by awe and relief. The perfect empathy that follows these discoveries is a powerful generator of healing and new levels of intimacy.
Couples who have sufficient conscious awareness of their historical wounds probably know and enjoy their similarities. Often their mutual awareness of common childhood traumas has been a source of understanding and empathy within their relating. However, more often either both partners are unaware or one has some awareness and the completely unaware partner becomes the “identified patient” that both partners can focus on, thus aiding the supposedly aware partner in avoiding their own feelings about the past.
It is quite common for couples whose brains are nonconsciously fearful of their similar unmetabolized feelings to choose mates from opposite-looking families of origin. But no matter the objective external facts about partners’ childhood histories, the nonconscious part of their brains recognizes that their subjective experiences have a quality of “sameness” that is a powerful component of their attraction to each other. This natural mechanism puts partners in the perfect position to be each other’s mutual healers, but only if awareness of their highly similar historical feelings can be tolerated. It is our job as their therapists to help them get there.