Dr. Pat Love: Marriage and Family Dynamics

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2024/12/04

Dr. Pat Love is a renowned relationship expert, therapist, and educator with over 40 years of experience in marriage and family therapy. A Distinguished Professor at Texas A&M, she co-founded the Austin Family Institute and authored seven books. Dr. Love’s approach is grounded in science, making complex research accessible and practical. Featured on Oprah, The Today Show, and CNN, she specializes in helping couples reconnect and build resilient relationships through education, skills, and simple, transformative shifts.

Love talks about her work as a marriage and family therapist, the importance of understanding, vulnerability, and relational thinking in therapy. She highlights transforming criticism into requests, addressing underlying emotional needs, and integrating research into therapy. 

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: I’m going to start with a personal question. What do you find most fulfilling about being a marriage and family therapist? Is it helping couples become happy with each other again?

Dr. Pat Love: Yes, that’s a big part of it. Additionally, a secondary fulfillment comes from a common scenario in couples therapy: you often have a ‘dragger’ and a ‘dragged.’ One person brings the other into therapy. I love that dynamic.

When I see the ‘dragged’ person, initially resistant, I realize, “Wait, this could actually help me?” or “I didn’t expect it to be like this,” that transformation is magical. They go from being reluctant, barely saying a word, to realizing I’m here to support the relationship. I start every session the same way: “How can I help? What would be different if you left here feeling that this was worth your time, money, and effort?” I aim to get a positive, measurable, and specific outcome, the couple’s goal. Granted, that goal may change over time, so I ask the same question in every session because the reason for coming to therapy can evolve.

I strive to give each person what they came for. It’s especially rewarding when the person who didn’t want to come or thought, for example, that because I’m a woman, they would be ganged up on realizes that it’s not like that at all. I’m very aware of that concern, as are most couples counsellors. When they realize that they get to turn, speak, be understood and validated, and see tangible progress, that’s when the real change happens.

Another thing that helps is my research-oriented approach. I read the research and integrated findings into the therapy, making it practical and strategic. I also don’t follow a strict hourly session model. Instead, I do what I call ‘intensives.’ When a couple comes in, we use the time we need. I tell them to block off at least three hours, and if we don’t need it, we won’t use it. If we reach a good stopping point, we’ll stop. You’d be surprised how many couples appreciate this approach, especially when half of them ask, “How much will this cost, and how long will it take?” Resolving things quicker is appealing, particularly to the reluctant participant.

So, in summary, I find fulfillment in two things: helping couples achieve what they came to achieve—whether that’s to be happier together or, in some cases, to split amicably—and seeing the transformation in the person who was initially resistant, who feared they would be vulnerable or ganged up on, realizing that therapy isn’t what they expected. Those are the two most fulfilling aspects for me.

And also, third, to me, relationships are a puzzle. It’s a mystery. It’s no coincidence that I love watching and reading mysteries because I always want to figure things out. Here’s what they want—what’s preventing them from getting it?

And how can I bring them into congruence with what they want? So, it’s a big puzzle for me, and I love trying to help them. Once, they gave me permission by saying, “Here’s why we came.” If they say, “We came here because we want to be happier together.” In one way or another, I tell them, “I’m on the side of the relationship until you fire me.” So, whatever I do, I’m working with your contract. I like working that way because it gets them to buy in. When they say, “We want to be happy together,” they start behaviours in my office.

And I say, “Now, how does this fit your goal of being happier together?” So I use their contract, willingness, and presenting issue as leverage, but I do it overtly. I don’t know if I went off-topic, but that’s what I love about it. It’s a big puzzle, and I help people be happier and appreciate each other. Also, the reluctant person sees counselling as a friendly process.

Jacobsen: You’ve done this for longer than I’ve been alive.

Love: Yes.

Jacobsen: So, that’s a large reservoir of experience, and the most important part of that experience and knowledge is its application—knowing what to look for. It’s a much more efficient process. It is probably a global process, too, where you can see the big picture more immediately. So, when you’re looking at the emotional state of that partnership and the attachment styles of the people coming in, what do you notice over time have been things that are more amenable to therapeutic intervention, with their consent and those that are a little more intractable in some ways?

Love: Some people have emotionally left and come to either prove a point, save face, or say, “Do your best to try to revive this dead body, but I’ve already left.” 

Jacobsen: So, the opposite of all that is indifference.

Love: Yes. And I get asked to figure out, “Well, what makes relationships work?” So, I did a lot of research and read all the literature I could find, and I enjoyed that part. I did a thorough job of it. If you look at Maslow’s hierarchy, there is no difference in relationships. Safety and security are foundational—it’s the basis.

Jacobsen: So, any form of abuse, for either partner or both, immediately puts them, or at least one of them, at the lowest rung.

Love: Yes, but you would think that would mean, “This is over,” but it doesn’t. Because even though the abuse and harm are present, it doesn’t always mean the relationship ends. When they’re hurt, some people try harder, hang on, and are more afraid of leaving than staying. Also, your chances of dying once you leave go up—that’s a valid statistic—exponentially. But yes, safety is crucial. You developed a coping strategy if you didn’t grow up with safety. You could look at my childhood and say, “Well, that wasn’t safe.”

You had the police called. There was abuse, violence, alcoholism, and food insecurity. All those things were present. Well, as a child, I developed a coping strategy. Part of it was, “Oh, it’s not that bad.” Denial wasn’t just a river—it was real. So, you carry that into adulthood. This is probably a tangent we don’t need to go off on, but let me put it in a soundbite: the coping mechanism that saved your life psychically as a child can become highly inconvenient in adulthood, but it still lives in you. So, you could look at me and say, “Why are you with an abusive person?”

But my coping strategy is so strong that I would say, “Well, you don’t know them like I do. They’re not always like that. Look at my good life, and I don’t want to break up my family.” And all those things are true. So yes, safety is a big issue. Going back to your original question, what makes counselling work or not work?

Are there people with whom it just doesn’t work? If somebody’s already emotionally left the relationship or is specifically infatuated with someone else, it’s like pushing a chain. But that becomes evident quickly because it doesn’t take long to catch on if you’ve been in this field a long time. Now, does that mean I won’t work with them?

No, not at all. A colleague of mine, Bill Doherty—you might know Bill—he wrote a whole book on discernment therapy. It’s all about how to work with a couple where one person is having an affair or is ambivalent while the other is committed. There’s a whole book about that. So, it doesn’t mean I wouldn’t work with that person, but it becomes evident soon enough. And that’s important information for the partner who thinks they’re married or committed, only to realize that the other person isn’t cooperating with the counselling. And this counselling isn’t cheap, by the way.

So, that’s a long answer to your question. But if they’ve already emotionally checked out, that’s the short answer. 

Jacobsen: Let’s say we have a couple who need a tune-up. Best-case scenario—how do you work with those softballs when they come into your office?

Love: They usually won’t come to me because it would cost too much. But if they have a lot of money, they might. So, I work with everybody the same way. I start by asking, “How can I help?” You be that person. I’m going to say, “Scott…”

You’re two people. How can I help? If you left here and said, “Wow, that was worth it,” what would be different for y’all?

Jacobsen: I’ll promise this: I was given the name Chad by Dr. Elinor Greenberg to get the point across about Gestalt therapy for narcissism. So, I’ll be Chad and also Charice. So, yes.

Love: So, Chad?

Jacobsen (as Chad): I’m a little miffed because my wife used to bake cookies every time I came home. Everything else in our relationship is wonderful and loving. Still, there are no more cookies, and I think I’ve slighted her. In turn, I feel slighted. There are no more cookies at the end of the day, and I love my peanut butter chocolate chip cookies.

Jacobsen (as Charice): He stopped kissing me before he left for work in the morning so I could send a message by not baking cookies to show him how I feel.

Love: Yes. Is it that simple, Chad? If y’all left here and said, “Wow, that worked. It was worth the time, money, and effort,” what would be different in the next 24, 36, or 48 hours?

Jacobsen (as Chad): I could consider my wife’s concern that I’m not expressing loving sentiments in her love language.

Love: What would success look like for you personally, Chad?

Jacobsen (as Chad): Cookies.

Love: Is it that simple? What do cookies say to you? What do they mean to you?

Jacobsen (as Chad): I feel like I’m being cared for.

Love: So, here’s what I would do now. I would look at Charice and say, “Now, did you know that cookies were that important to him? Did you know that?”

Jacobsen (as Charice): I had no idea.

Love: Then I would get Chad to look at her. First of all, nobody would ever come to me with these specific issues.

Jacobsen: No, of course not, but this is a best-case scenario.

Love: But the concept is there. I would try to understand what the cookies mean to you, Chad, and get Charice to realize what that means to you. I’ll have you talking to each other about that immediately. I’d have her repeat to you what she’s understood to prove that she gets where you’re coming from. Though to be honest, this would probably be a different issue—it’s probably going to be about sex.

It could be spending money. It could be keeping the house clean. It could be paying attention to your family. But the cookies represent the presenting problem, so to speak. If people say, “I want to be happier, and this is a tune-up,” I try to get to the underlying meaning. They’re saying they want to feel more in love, more loved, and more connected.

People tend to connect around their vulnerability, so I suggest getting beneath the cookies to see what they mean to you. Then, I’d get her to understand how that simple act—whether a package of Nestlé’s or something homemade—makes such a difference. I bake cookies for everyone, and I put extra nuts in them. Everyone thinks I’m an amazing cookie maker, but it only takes about 20 minutes.

So, how long does it take to make those cookies? But the cookies symbolize how I work to get people to a place of vulnerability and understanding. We also touched on security earlier, and relational thinking is another aspect of what makes relationships work.

Do you think as a single person, or as someone married or committed? Relational thinking is different from single-mindedness. You don’t make unilateral decisions that affect your partner. When you decide, consider the impact on your partner or the relationship. That’s relational thinking, and it’s a predictor of happiness and longevity. A couple seeking a tune-up could benefit from being more relational in their thinking. For example, how long does it take to make cookies, and what else am I doing with my time? Why wouldn’t I do that if making these cookies touches his heart and symbolizes so many other things?

So, it’s about getting beneath the surface to the meaning of what each act represents. And does that align with your goal, which is to tune up the relationship? Does that help?

Jacobsen: Yes, it does. So, you’re looking at the surface-level action and the meaning. The meaning and, as you described, the motivations behind it—both good and bad.

Love: Yes. So, what would that look like? Because it’s almost like that infinity symbol—what do you think, Chad? Are we talking cookies every day? And you’ll probably say no, once a week, because who wants cookies every day? You’d get tired of them. But what would once a week mean to you, Chad?

“God, I’d feel loved. I’d feel generous. I’d feel more sexual. I’d feel more connected.”

Love: And then Charice starts to realize, “Wow, all of that is connected to this.” So, it’s not a secret how I work. I want couples to take every single skill I know home with them. I’d teach them how to transform criticism—like, “You never make me cookies”—into a request.

For example, “I’d love it if you made cookies. Here’s what it does for me. This is how it touches my heart, and this is how it moves the ball forward for us to boost our relationship.” That aligns with why they came to therapy. It’s a simple process. 

Jacobsen: What key changes can individuals make in their relationships to be more flexible, spontaneous, or authentic?

Love: It all depends on the contract. It all depends on the criticism. When someone criticizes, I ask, “What would you prefer instead? And what would that look like?” Then, I ask for examples. “What’s one example of that? What’s a second example? What’s a third?” When you get to three examples, the partner has a choice: they can do one of those things or offer an alternative.

If you want to make a change, adding positives is easier than eliminating negatives—period. The end. People come into therapy, and in the beginning, you often hear a lot of complaints. And if no one ever complains, and the person can’t even get a word in at home, I’ll give them space to express themselves in this safe context. But if they start going back and forth with the same arguments, I’ll ask, “Have y’all had this conversation before?”

If they say, “Oh, yes, we’ve had it,” I’ll tell them there’s no point in paying me to have the same conversation again. I’ll ask, “What do you want instead? What would that look like?”

And they might say, “I want her, him, or them to understand.” And I’ll say, “Great! I can help you do that.” Then, I get them to talk, and I have the partner reflect it back, reflect it back, and reflect it back until they can say, “Let me see if I’m following you. Let me see if I’ve got that. Let me see if I’m understanding you.” I tell them upfront that understanding is not the same as agreeing.

Most of us think that if you and I are in a relationship, I don’t have the right to ask you to always agree with me. I’m not saying that doesn’t exist in some relationships, but generally speaking, I have the right to expect you to be interested and try to understand me. Do you see the difference?

Jacobsen: Yes, that makes sense.

Love: A lot of it is about seeing the world from another point of view.

Jacobsen: Yes.

Love: A lot of people want to be understood. We like people who understand us, but we love people who see the best in us. Oftentimes, to see the best in you, I have to understand you well, take the time and curiosity to get to know you, and acknowledge how we might be different. Because the human brain is so subjective—we think about ourselves all the time and view things through our own experience. So, it takes a lot of curiosity, compassion, and generosity to step into someone else’s world and say, “Wow, that’s a different brain. I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

My buddy, Steven Stosny—if you haven’t interviewed him yet, you should. He’s one of my dearest friends. We wrote a book together. He wrote the male part, and I wrote the female part. Honestly, it was like talking to an alien half the time. I would ask, “Steven, do men really think that?” But I learned so much—he’s brilliant and amazing. I love him.

Jacobsen: Thank you so much, Dr. Love, for your time today. 

Love: Thanks, Scott. We appreciate you. Bye-bye.

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