As with any approach, couple therapy must have a clear vision toward which the couple can navigate. We may call this the therapeutic goal or therapeutic narrative. The clarity by which the therapist holds this vision and expects the couple to meet this goal largely determines therapeutic success. We might ask the couple before us, “Why are you a couple?” “What’s the point of your relationship?” “Who or what do you both serve?” Most partners will say, “We love each other,” or, “We have children,” or, “We have similar things in common.” This speech focuses on what predicts long term success in adult romantic relationships. We will discuss how purpose and shared vision sets the stage for meaningful, long-lasting relationships, and how a lack of purpose, shared meaning, and shared principles of governance (guardrails that protect partners from each other) is a predictor of accumulated, psychobiological threat and eventual dissolution. Here we examine couple capacity to co-regulate distress states as essential to threat reduction as well as confront the couple attitude when it comes to what sustains relationships over the long run. Love is not enough to ensure relationship endurance given the ever-present, survival-based nature of the human primate.

Learning Objectives:

1. To be able to list at least five purpose-centered principles for a union.
2. To be able to name at least five examples of a shared vision.
3. To be able to define and describe shared principles of governance.
4. To be able to explain why a couple’s shared mythology, shared purpose, shared vision, and shared relationship ethics is vital to couple longevity and happiness.