Secure Uncoupling: A Proposed Theory of Belonging After Divorce

by Joy A. Dryer, PhD

PACT Certified Clinician, PACT Faculty

This article by Dr. Dryer is excerpted from Chapter 11 (pp. 96–106) in Belonging Through a Psychoanalytic Lens (2021) (1st Ed.), edited by Rebecca Coleman Curtis. Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group. 

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing there is a field.
I’ll meet you there.

~ from “Great Wagon” by Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi (1207-1273) 

INTRODUCTION

For decades I have worked with couples before and after they divorced. Post-divorce, some hate each other’s guts. Others figure out how to get along better than before. I was perplexed by the difference. What can clinicians do to promote this better outcome?

This contrast can be framed by the theme of belonging. You can belong in love, or belong out of love — but still in a relationship, now uncoupled. This is the theory of secure uncoupling I propose in this chapter.

While the couple may no longer belong to one another, as when married or in a long-term relationship, they can still belong to a joint effort by which they work together in an intersubjective space. A safe, even creative space. Rumi’s field. No rightdoing or wrongdoing. Just open field.

The goal is to develop a shared space that transcends the individuality of either person — not yours or mine, but a shared neutral space. This is prerequisite for a secure functioning relationship.

CONTEXT: A POST-DIVORCE CONTRAST

Two couples highlight the difference. Brian and Betty developed a state of secure uncoupledness. Jack and Jill did not.

Jack and Jill

“Get outa my face. There you go exaggerating again.  Blaming me! I did NOT say he could NOT get the Auto Theft video. Damn! You’re always maligning me to the kids!” Jack’s voice is low and gravely. His eyes squint darts toward Jill.

Jill’s pointy pupils glare back. “You lie. You don’t try to talk to me. It takes days before you answer my texts. Every day he nags me….” 

I stop them: “What’s happening now?” Back to defensive mode fight or flight … Actually, just fight. They’re in kill - or be killed mode. I refocus on process. I remind them, “You’re both in ‘amygdala highjack.’ You need to feel safe enough to negotiate any content that’s meaningful to you both.”

Two years divorced, Jack and Jill remain in "doer or done-to” mode (Benjamin, 2018). Because of their instant reactivity, moving rapidly into amygdala hijack, their frontal lobes are offline, and they cannot access self or co-regulatory capacities. Thus, they remain in rupture stance without repair. 

In contrast, Brian and Betty have learned PACT principles so they can team up and collaborate. They have “earned" their sense of safety and security so they negotiate, conflict resolve, and repair ruptures.

Brian and Betty

“How shall we plan Brenda’s party after the graduation ceremony?” Betty pulled out her spiral notebook and favorite multi-colored pen.  

“Don’t get all obsessive on me now,” Brian offers a little wink at her.  

Betty squirms, laughs a little, “Ok. I just wanna get the details planned before I leave for my workshop.” 

“Oh. What are your dates on that?? Brian taps Betty’s workshop dates into his phone. “And also, I’d like to keep the costs down …  We need to talk to Brenda first.…

Once divorced, Brian and Betty found a healthy way to fall out of love, and develop a state of secure uncoupledness. By meeting in Rumi’s field, they created a third space to connect with a shared purpose. Jack & Jill never created a safe space to try.

So we ask: How does a divorced couple get to that shared space? How do individuals earn security via attachment repair when they are no longer married? How do they develop trust and security with one another when they are now uncoupled? 

Through the lens of belonging, this chapter’s proposed theory of secure uncoupling applies PACT’s principles of secure functioning in relationship to partners who are now out of their romantic coupling. 

THEORY: ROOTS OF SECURE UNCOUPLING

This theory of secure uncoupling is rooted in four foundational modes of thinking: attachment theory embedded in psychoanalysis, intersubjectivity, social constructionism, and neuroscience. These threads weave explicitly and implicitly in and out of clinical material.

Attachment Theory Embedded in Psychoanalysis

Modern attachment theorists and contemporary psychoanalysts believe that intrapsychic, internal processes determine the discrepancies between actual and psychic reality. Freud (1926b) taught us that our anxiety sounded the alarm to such dangers, internal or external. The fundamental danger of losing the object, real or perceived, theoretically connects attachment and psychoanalytic thinking. Thus, the interpersonal aspects of both theories connect the misattunements and failures of adult caretakers to resulting characterological and relatedness problems we see in their children. 

More specifically, current research takes a developmental view that how people respond in relationships in general is moderated by how they regulate their emotions as well as their attachment style (Main, Kaplan, Cassidy, 1985).  Bowlby’s (1969) internal working models describe the self-regulations of emotional variations responsible for attachments styles (Birnbaum et al, 1997).  

All four of the people I describe above grew up with caretakers whose attachment interactions with their children were varying degrees of dismissing or preoccupied. And yet, from research, we have learned that couples can earn security within a relationship, even though their individual attachment histories indicated insecure attachment styles (Roisman et al, 2002).

Intersubjectivity: An intersubjective (Atwood & Stolorow, 1984) post-modern approach emphasizes how psychic phenomena and interactions happen in a context, bridging personal and shared, self and others.  

Social constructionists (Bretherton & Munholland, 1999) frame human perspective, knowledge, and meaning as constructed by society, more than individual realities.

Humans became a dominant species during the Pleistocene Epoch through their ability to cooperate, thus supporting the cultural intelligence hypothesis (Richerson & Boyd, 2005; Tomasello et al, 2005).  This explains how the attachment system kept individuals alive within the protective dyad. And this intersubjective system enhances teamwork to keep the group alive. 

Neuroscience of how our brains are wired informs all these viewpoints. Such wiring has developed to reduce threat and to seek safety as we have learned from Porges’ research (2011). Evolutionary strategies selectively pressured mutations that increased social understanding and advanced intersubjective communication.  In this way, the neocortex and mindreading abilities expanded among our great ape relatives. 

One study in particular integrates the above-mentioned viewpoints. The authors Cortina & Liotti (2010) propose attachment’s main function is to protect the individual. And, intersubjectivity’s focus is to facilitate teamwork and group survival.  

Fonagy & Target (2008)’s research integrates both dyadic attachment and the more complex intersubjective approaches by describing how the brain reacts under the stress of trauma. Catecholamine neuromodulators flood the central and peripheral nervous system turning on the amygdala — our emotion center — and turning off mentalizing functions in the prefrontal cortex. Heart and skeletal muscles turn on, and the stomach turns off to prepare for fight or flight. 

Thus, numerous researchers now support the view that the attachment and intersubjective mentalizing systems, while obviously interrelated, are functionally and developmentally distinct (Gergely & Unoka, 2008; Cortina & Liotti, 2010).

APPLICATION: CREATING A SECURE UNCOUPLED STATE

Jack and Jill’s interactions remained in a constant state of “amygdala hijack” mode.  My experience was that they could not emotionally separate, so they remained trapped in a negative bond, triggering one another into continuous cycles of shame > blame  > retaliation.

In contrast, Brian and Betty learned to collaborate and earned their secure relationship with one another.

Earning Security

Step by step, I gradually taught Brian and Betty about secure functioning. First step, they learned to remain quiet yet attentive while the other talked … to make eye contact … to recognize the other’s bid for attention … to acknowledge and respond to the other’s psychic and actual emotional state. Second step, they learned to recognize and acknowledge difference and conflict. They accepted that disruptions always happen. The repair is what is essential. 

They found that this attunement-disruption-repair cycle (Tronick, 1989; Beebe & Lachmann 1994; Tavormina, 2017) is the foundation of knowing and being known by another’s mind, and the source of intimacy and intersubjective connection. This is the essence of creating Rumi’s field, a third space that is a container for any content.  

While our brains seek novelty, they crave predictability. Reliably knowing what comes next is fundamental to a secure-functioning relationship and to three PACT principles which showed Brian and Betty how to create their third space.

Emotion regulation.  Regulating our emotions helps us tolerate ambiguity, unpredictability, difference. Regulating our own emotions, while the other is doing so, too, helps us feel safe and protects against black and white thinking (you vs. me).  

Differentiating boundaries: between self and other, and between actual and perceived reality. Each person recognizes the other as a separate center with thoughts and feelings of his/her own. Having this “theory of mind” (Fonagy 2001) acknowledges various perspectives. With this ability, the other’s viewpoint is recognized, acknowledged, and respected. 

Safety. Thus, differentiating and holding self-other boundaries and regulating emotions, helps both people feel safe. Holding safety as a transition play space can contain both complexity and flexibility.  These are the characteristics of collaboration and cooperation, even when there is conflict and disagreement.  

CLINICAL ASSESSMENT 

From these theoretical foundations, this two-step theory of secure uncoupling embraces the identifications and internalizations around levels of intersubjectivity. Clinically, I ask: Does each partner identify with the other partner in a two-person dyad, which uses the attachment brain? Or, is the identification more with the team as a shared experiential state which uses our complex neocortical brain level within a multi-intersubjective system?  

We can see how Jack and Jill trapped themselves as their amygdalae were their primary emotion regulators. Brian and Betty ultimately earned security together and learned to cooperated in their co-created third space.  

CONCLUSION

Thus, the concept of uncoupledness can hold an intersubjective space — a dialectical space that encompasses both the self as separate and simultaneously in relationship to an other.  Whether coupled or uncoupled, two people can develop and find Rumi’s field. 

REFERENCES 

Atwood, G. E., & Stolorow, R. D. (2014). Structures of Subjectivity: Explorations in Psychoanalytic Phenomenology and Contextualism. (2nd ed.) Routledge. (Original work published in 1984)

Barks, C., Trans. (1995, 2004). The Essential Rumi. (“Great Wagon” p. 36). HarperOne. 

Beebe, B. & Lachmann, F. (1994). Representation and internalization in infancy: Three principles of salience. Psychoanalytic Psychology. 11. 127-165. 10.1037/h0079530.

Birnbaum, G.E., Orr, I., Mikulincer, M., & Florian, V. (1997). When marriage breaks up: Does attachment style contribute to coping and mental health?  Journal of Social and Personal Relationships. 14(5):643-654. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407597145004. 

Bowbly, J. (1982). Attachment: Attachment and Loss Volume One. Basic Books. (Original work published 1969)

Bretherton, I. & Munholland, K.A. (1999). Internal Working Models in Attachment Relationships: A construct revisited. In J. Cassidy & P. Shaver (Eds.) Handbook of Attachment Theory & Research. Guilford Press.

Cortina, M. & Liotti, G. (2010). Attachment is about safety and protection, intersubjectivity is about sharing and social understanding: The relationships between attachment and intersubjectivity. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 27(4), 410-441. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0019510.

Dryer, J. A. (2021). Secure uncoupling: A proposed theory of belonging after divorce. In R. C. Curtis (Ed.), Belonging through a psychoanalytic lens (pp. 96–106). Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003130192-14

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