Silence can mean many things. It can mean yes, no, agreement or disagreement. It can imply contentment or dissatisfaction, safety or fear. It can be accompanied by the smile of approval or the scorn of judgment. What do the sounds of silence mean between you and your partner?

As much as people are similar and men and women relate in some gender predictable ways—usually, it is a woman who says, “We need to talk”—couples are unique in the fabric of their relationship. How they speak, love, fight, eat, and watch TV is really specific to them and relationship they share. The meaning and experience of silence in their relationship is reflective of who they are as individuals and how they relate as a “We”:

• “We can go for hours without talking and be perfectly content.”
• “He never talks.”
• “She has no thought that goes unspoken!”
• “When things are bad we stop talking.”

Misinterpretation of Silence

One area that often impedes the growing, healing and resiliency of a couple is the misinterpretation of the silence between them. Whether they are new partners or seasoned lovers, couples have an uncanny notion that they “know” what the other is thinking and feeling, and react accordingly. Unfortunately, this often precludes expanded knowing of their partner because they fail to account for Non-Couples issues, history, induced reactions, and context.

Non-Couples Issues: While there are many “pros” to thinking as a “We,” one of the downsides is to believe that all your partner’s reactions including his or her silence is about you. The difficulty is that once you make that assumption, you are setting yourself and your partner up for stress and confusion. For example: Your partner comes home from work, says hi, and then silently goes through the mail. Worried you ask, “Is everything OK?”

“Fine.” Still worried you ask, “Why are you not talking?”

Now he/she sounds irritated “I don’t feel like talking.”

You move from worry to anger: “I wait for you to come home, and you don’t feel like talking?”

Partner walks into another room.

Remedy: Undoing this type of vicious cycle takes a mutual effort of trust. Try the …

Not knowing if your loved one is alive or dead absent or present, knowing or needing you is painfully traumatic. It is the suffering faced when soldiers are missing in action, thousands of bodies vanished after 9/11, a child is kidnapped, a partner is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, and most recently, it is the anguish facing thousands of Haitians as they search or wait for news of loved ones.

In my work with couples and families after 9/11, their inability to verify the death of loved ones created longing, hopes and often complicated grieving. At the beginning, many held off on funeral services, children refused to believe that Daddy wasn’t coming home, some went to psychics, many had a similar dream –“The doorbell rings and she/he is back – looking like they once did. ‘Where have you been?’ The dreamer is relieved and overjoyed … then wakes.”

It was never easy but most found the resiliency to move forward again. How? How do you cope with unresolved loss?

Pauline Boss, who has worked for years with those whose loss has no finality, identifies this as ‘Ambiguous Loss’ in her 2006 book Loss, Trauma and Resilience: Therapeutic Work with Ambiguous Loss. She underscores that in these cases traumatic loss is intensified by fear, confusion, immobilization and a lack of closure.

Drawing upon Pauline Boss’s valuable contributions, here are some ideas for caring for yourself, your partner and others in the face of such loss:

Connection vs. Closure
In the face of unverified or ambiguous loss, people often feel persistent emotional pain because they can not get closure- there is no known end, no body to bury. An approach that fosters healing is to seek connection instead of closure.

Whereas unresolved traumatic loss often isolates, connection with others who share a similar pain recreates a sense of belonging. For the couple with a missing child, those waiting to hear of lost relatives, those coping with Traumatic Brain Injury of a partner, being with others who have faced such suffering offers a place to bear witness to the …

A long-distance relationship or LDR is typically an intimate relationship that takes place when the partners are separated by a considerable distance. No one is geographically undesirable anymore but many are geographically challenged with the goal of maintaining love at a distance.
There are 115,000 troops in Iraq with an anticipated 34,000 more to be sent as support to Afghanistan. That leaves a lot of Home Fires burning. There’s the man I met on a plane who couldn’t retire or sell his house as planned so he spends half the week in Phoenix and half with his wife in Florida. There are those caught in the cycle of visa regulations; those who need medical treatment far from home and those who stay in different places to accommodate children’s school calendars. In addition, there are the many couples who have “met” online and for whom long distance is the original context of their relationship.
Whether by choice or necessity, long distance relationships bring stress and possibility. Whether you are geographically at a distance from your partner or you feel like you have a long distance relationship with the partner sitting next to you, it is worth asking: What improves love at a distance? What damages it?

Why Are We Doing This?
The reason that a couple is at a distance will affect their expectations, their responses and the impact on their relationship. Did you choose the situation together? Are you dealing with a situation that life put on your path? Are you in a new long-distance on-line relationship with hidden expectations that one or the other will relocate?

Clarification Together of why you are in a LDR , the logistics, the timeline, the feelings and the expectations, eliminates hidden hurt and resentment and opens up the decision making process. Think of it as an on-going process:

“But if you are semi retired – why are you traveling two weeks a month?”
“But you have already been deployed twice – how can we do this again?”

Feeling helpless in the face of increased distance or changed time-lines partners understandably lose the focus and have to blame someone. Too often, they blame each other. …

While recently waiting on line in a crowded store, I overheard a bit of a friendly, flirty conversation between two young cashiers. The young man asked the young woman something. I couldn’t hear her answer, but I did hear his response back,

“Does the way you just said “NO” really mean “YES?”

Good question.

He’s certainly not the only one confused. Anyone who has been in a relationship knows that saying “ NO” or hearing “NO” can be complicated. Regardless of whether the issue is sexual, financial, or food related, there are times when you really don’t want to say “NO”- but you do. There are times when you just can’t say “NO” – so you don’t. There are times when you can’t tolerate his/her “NO” and won’t let it go and there are times when you need the shirt that says “What part of “NO” Don’t You Understand?”

“Does problem solving in a relationship mean that someone is always giving up or giving in?” We hope not!

A couple’s ability to address issues and problems that emerge between them or are thrust upon them by life is an important part of their resiliency and functioning as a couple.
Many couples rally in the face of acute trauma in a way that even surprises them. Some couples report doing fine in day to day decision making until crisis hits. Most couples can look back to some issue that they feel they problem solved in a way that works for both.

What works? What gets in the way? What are the ingredients in effective problem solving as a couple?

As a preface to problem solving as a couple it is worth considering:

Not Everything Should Be Problem Solved Together!
The attempt to problem-solve everything as a couple would be unbearable. Most couples have developed an often unspoken agreement about taking care of their own needs and/or deferring to each other in a way that works most of the time. She handles the food shopping, he cooks. She sets up the social calendar, he researches vacations. If there are kids, she may cover the homework, he does the car pooling, etc. If it works – don’t fix it. If, however, either partner is unhappily compliant or collecting resentments – it doesn’t work.

Respect and Utilize the Similarities and Differences
The best solutions to problems evolve from people who respect each other and capitalize on their similarities and differences. When we speak about individual resiliency, we often consider traits as: intelligence, creativity, social skills, athletic ability, empathy, artistic talents, analytic perspective, attention to details, resourcefulness, persistence, patience, organizational skills, spirituality etc. Couples often find that it is the mix of their similarities and differences that work to their great advantage.

Mini Exercise:
Thinking about you and your partner, take a look at the traits listed above. List those you share and those for which you differ. Now underline those traits (both similar and different) that are very beneficial when pulled together for problem solving.

Process vs. Perfect Solutions
It …

From a couple’s perspective , there is probably no group that offers them as much support as family and no group that at times creates as much stress!

There is ample evidence that one of the most important resources people need in the aftermath of trauma is connection to family and familiar networks of support (Boscarino, J.A., Adams, R. & Figley, C., 2005). If you have ever spent time in the waiting area of an ICU unit or the emergency waiting area of a hospital you understand the way that families rally to be there for each other in times of crisis.

If you have ever crowded into a maternity ward to view a new baby, saved chairs at the Nursery School recital, or flown miles for a sister’s wedding, or a brother’s return from Iraq, then you also know how families come together to support and celebrate each other in times of joy.
Where does the stress come in? Why? Can it be avoided?

A couple’s relationship with the families they share is far more complicated than it looks the day of their wedding – actually it is usually pretty complicated even on that day! Whether a couple has been together 25 years or 2 years, whether or not they have children, there are two other families consciously or unconsciously involved with the family they have created together.

From a family systems perspective (PDF) we are talking about the overlap of three distinct family systems and given the number of reconstituted and blended families, there may even be more systems and dynamics in the picture.

Family as a System

Consider that every family as a system has a defined boundary ( which may be tightly closed or easily opened) predictable patterns, expectations, assigned roles, explicit and implicit rules, codes of behavior, religious beliefs, educational levels, recipes of choice, ethnic roots, rituals and social-economic status.

When a person meets a partner and bonds with them, they choose to open their family system boundary and include another and at the same time to step away from their system to enter a new one. Buoyed by love, desire, differences, similarities, future dreams, …

Given the Tiger Woods situation, there is really no place to go where you don’t hear some version of “She knew, he knew, he knew she knew….” It would seem that whether people are identifying, judging, condemning or condoning, people are interested- maybe even made anxious- by the presence of secrets and lies in relationships. What’s wrong with secrets? Does everyone lie to their partner? How does it happen?

Most marriages and sustaining relationships are characterized by a quality of trust, caring, emotional and physical sharing that is reserved for the partner. Yes, people have treasured friends, family and buddies with whom they share a great deal, but the physical intimacy, the status of confidante, the one with whom they share in a certain “ insider way” is their partner.

Secrets
Dictionary .com defines a secret as something done, made or conducted without the knowledge of others. Something kept from the knowledge of another person. When that person is your spouse or partner – it is important to wonder why.

Secrets after Trauma
Sometimes the secrets that become a wall in a relationship are the sequel to trauma. Whether the result of combat stress, rape, critical incidents for uniformed service members, or childhood abuse, keeping the secret locks one partner in with pain and keeps one partner out. Often associated with feelings of being damaged, guilty, undesirable, burdensome or contaminating, a partner avoids contact and intimacy with the other to hide the secret. The result is a feeling of disconnection and loss by both. As one spouse complained, “There is nothing I could hear that would make me feel worse than the feeling of being left out.”

Separate vs. Secret
One definite way to destroy a relationship and dilute passion and intimacy is to demand constant connection, disclosure and no space away from your partner. Strong couples are usually are made up of independent people who are comfortable being dependent on each other but retain a clear sense of self and identity. In the book Healing Together, we make the point that psychological separation – the capacity to be alone and to understand the partner’s capacity to …

Most relationships do not remain static. Whether intended or not the lives of partners and the life they share inevitably change. Sometimes changes are desired and mutual; sometimes one partner wants to change the other; sometimes a partner’s negative behavior causes changes; and sometimes traumatic events change life as they knew it.

Creating and Handling Change What, how and why a couple creates and handles change is a complicated and important part of the story they share. No one arrives with their partner to a new safe place – no matter what happens – without reflection, communication, adjustment, transition and reconnection.

Here Are Some Thoughts To Guide That Process:

Same Partner – With Changes
If you ask people what they think would improve their relationship – they often have a clear formulation of what their partner could or should do to make things better. Most people really don’t want a new partner. What they want is their own partner –WITH CHANGES!

Changing Your Partner
Apparently the view across the table often seems clearer and in need of more adjustment than the view of self: Why can’t he see the mess and be neater? Why doesn’t she make plans with other couples so you have more of a social life? Why can’t she make more money? Why can’t he be more affectionate?

Is the change that you want in your partner one that he/she knows about, cares about or would benefit from? As G. K. Chesterton says “It isn’t that they can’t see the solution. It is that they can’t see the problem.”

If the change is clearly more important and relevant to you, you may want to do re-define it as a change you want not as change in your partner – less mess, more socializing, more money, more affection. We know that no relationship can stay in the same place with the same patterns if even one partner takes a new and different step. We also know that you have far more control over changing self than changing someone else.

For example, You may describe the situation that you want to change to …

The scene of the accident, the image the IED exploding in Iraq, the feeling of being surrounded by rising water, the wave of dizziness on hearing the diagnosis….Traumatic memories in the form of intrusive images, nightmares and flashbacks are part of the re-experiencing of trauma. Most people have some re-experiencing soon after a traumatic event. For some, intrusive memories abate over time. Others experience such memories months and even years later. For some the flashbacks are so extreme that for moments an awareness of the present is lost as the horror of the past is re-experienced. Traumatic memories are the mind and body’s imprint of an event that is so stressful and threatening to physical and psychological well being that there is no place to put it.

How Are Traumatic Memories Different From Ordinary Memories

Ordinary memory for something that has happened to us is narrative and explicit. It is remembered and told as a coherent story with a beginning, middle and end. If someone asked you about your last vacation, you would recall it and tell it as part of the ongoing story of your life.

Traumatic memories are different. Encoded under flight/flight conditions in those centers of the brain dealing with sensations and emotion, traumatic memories are highly charged intrusive visual images, feelings, and sensations triggered by reminders of the traumatic event. These memories are choppy, disorganized and non-sequential with little change over time.

For example:

After the accident that injured him and his wife, Barry would often flash on the image of the dog that had run onto that road causing him to swerve.

For one firefighter, just crossing the bridge into Manhattan brought with it the choking taste of dust from the desperate digging at ground zero after 9/11.

How Can We Handle Traumatic Memories?
Ultimately, a person who has experienced trauma needs to be able to tell the story of the trauma without reliving it. To do this, the person needs to repeat the fragmented story of trauma in a safe place with a safe person so that he/she can integrate the traumatic memories i.e. fill in the missing pieces, gather the images, identify …

Recently, a foreign correspondent contacted me to ask what thoughts I had about the impact of the 9/11 conspiracy trials on New Yorkers. Her question invited thinking of the specific event of these trials as well as broader issues of recovery from trauma. For me, in addition to the hope that justice can be served in a just way are the issues of bearing witness and resiliency in the face of uncertainty.

Yael Danieli (2009) who has addressed the role of reparative justice for massive trauma, reminds us that while public justice is necessary for healing, true healing must always involve more than legal and political dimensions. Healing and the integration of unthinkable loss take place in all aspects of the individual (physical, emotional, cognitive, spiritual and psychological) and across all the social connections -couple, family, community, national and international – that he or she shares. Much as we have seen with those who have waited years for the trial of the accused when a family member has been murdered, or the courage of a rape victim willing to face a courtroom, seeking public justice, while important, is never easy. Justice served can often re-traumatize and invite more pain. It is part of the process of healing and closure – not the final answer.

Having worked with 9/11 survivors, family members of victims, firefighters, spiritual and mental health caregivers, I would say that for most the reaction to the the trial of the 9/11 conspirators will be personal and complex. The location and meaning of the trial as well as world-wide media coverage interfaces with what has unfolded for them and those they love since 9/11.

For many in New York and throughout the world, the trial of the conspirators and the public witness of accountability promise the possibility of social justice for social injury. For some New Yorkers it feels appropriate that the trial will take place on the soil where so many were killed.

Other have strong feelings against this. The revisiting of 9/11 brings for them a resurgence of the traumatic loss and horror of that day. While they have gone on despite …