CARE

We Never Outgrow the Need for Care

My doctoral research focused on attachment theory and foster parents’ childhood attachment experiences. One of the strongest findings was the importance of substitute attachment figures. Many participants described painful relationships with birth parents, but healing relationships with grandparents, aunts, uncles, or mentors who stepped in and provided care, stability, and emotional safety.

John Bowlby’s attachment theory helps explain why these relationships matter. Human beings are wired to seek safety and comfort when overwhelmed or distressed. This need does not disappear in adulthood. In marriage, we continue to seek emotional security from the people closest to us.

CARE: The System of Comfort, Safety, and Connection

In this blog series, we are reviewing the seven affective systems that Jaak Panksepp developed. And this month, we are considering the CARE system and how you can capitalize on it to deepen your connection in your marriage. Last month, we talked about SEEKING and the importance of maintaining curiosity. When we pair these two systems together – CARE and SEEKING, our marriage foundations become very strong. 

Panksepp built on Bowlby’s work and helped identify the specific neurological systems in our brains that contribute to CARE behavior. CARE is nurturing. It provides comfort and soothing during emotional escalation, reassuring a person that they are secure and safe. For marriage, this means being emotionally present. 

Curiosity Helps Us Stay Emotionally Present

CARE can be activated when one partner is upset, anxious, or experiencing any number of negative emotions. But don’t just assume that CARE is something you do when your partner is in pain. CARE happens in ordinary, peaceful times as well. 

Curiosity supports emotional presence in both pain and peace because the goal becomes understanding.

Two Different Responses to Distress

Let me illustrate with two different parenting responses. Imagine that it is getting close to a toddler’s bedtime, and the inevitable, “It’s time to go to bed,” is said. This can result in a tantrum; attachment theorists call this a protest.  And this moment can elicit two responses. 

1. The first response is the parent who just demands the crying stop, and the child just goes to bed. 
2. The second response is the parent who picks up the child and calmly soothes the tantrum, and inquires with the child about what might be going on. Physical soothing and emotional responsiveness calm the nervous system and strengthen trust in both the parent and child.

The first response prioritizes stopping the behavior. The second prioritizes emotional connection and soothing.

Marriage Has Its Own Forms of Protest

Marriage has its own forms of protest, and CARE is often the healthiest response. When things are not right in either partner’s world — stress, exhaustion, work demands, parenting, trauma triggers, etc. — protest happens. CARE means placing yourself in an emotionally responsive state.

Three Ways CARE Shows Up in Marriage

This is not just using the right words or even doing the right things. It means changing your brain. I think you can do this in three responses. 

1. Invitation: the initial response to a partner’s distress. It is the recognition of a partner’s pain by seeing and naming the hurt. It is openness to talking about the pain, even if we have to nondefensively own that we are the actual cause of the pain. Our invitation needs to include the intent to be a stable and secure point. We need to be predictable. The Gottmans would call this Turning Towards. Our partner makes a bid in their protest, and we invite their engagement to hear and discuss the stress point.
   
2. Nurture: the ongoing soothing of the distress. It is verbal (reassurance) and/or physical soothing (touch, hugs, holding hands, etc.). The Gottmans use the term flooding to describe physiological distress escalated by cortisol. Soothing ourselves and our partner lowers the cortisol. Our tone of voice, and the use of touch can help calm both ourselves and our partner simultaneously— physiological coregulation.
   
3. Sacrifice: willingly inconveniencing ourselves at times for the good of the relationship and the well-being of our partner. This is the essential building block of trust in all intimate relationships. Trust is usually built through small, repeated acts of care and consideration. Small acts and kind words matter. Do them often. 

CARE Is More Than Fixing Problems

There are infinite ways couples can be inviting, nurturing, and sacrificial. What matters most is understanding the posture behind the behavior. Allow your own imagination to soak in these ideas and practice what works for your relationship. Ask your partner what they might need in a given moment of distress. What would make them feel Invited? Nurtured? or sacrificed for?

CARE is not primarily about fixing a problem. CARE is being a good companion through the problem. Invite, Nurture, and Sacrifice — these are the ingredients to empathy and ultimately deeper trust and intimacy that feels truly CAREing. 

What Happens When CARE Feels Lost?

Do you know what happens when you lose or fear you might lose this type of connection, empathy, and friendship? PANIC/GRIEF. We are going to talk about that next month and examine part of what happens in marriage when things go wrong. 

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Below is your downloadable resource for this month. Use the discussion questions to better understand CARE in your relationship.