The Couple Bubble - How you can keep each other safe and secure

The Couple Bubble: How you can keep each other safe and secure 

Who among us doesn’t want to feel loved? Finally, to be able to be ourselves just as we are, to feel cherished, cared for, and protected—this has been the pursuit of humans since the beginning of recorded time. We are social animals. We depend on other people. We need each other. 

When we enter into a relationship, we want to matter to our partner, to be visible and important. We want to know our efforts are noticed and appreciated. We want to know our relationship is regarded as important by our partner and will not be relegated to second or third place because of a competing person, task, or thing. 

The couple bubble is a term used to describe the mutually constructed membrane that holds a couple together and protects each partner from outside elements. A couple bubble is an intimate environment that the partners create and sustain together and that implicitly GUARANTEES such things as: 

I will never leave you.

I will never frighten you purposely. 

When in distress, I will relieve you, even if I’m the one who is causing the distress. 

Our relationship is more important than my need to be right, your performance, your appearance, what other people think or want, or any other competing value. 

You will be the first to hear about anything and not the second, third, or fourth person I tell. 

The couple bubble is an agreement to put the relationship before anything and everything else. It means putting your partner’s well-being, self-esteem, and distress relief first. And it means your partner does the same for you.  You both agree to do it for each other. Therefore, you say to each other, “We come first.” In this way, you cement your relationship. It is like making a pact or taking a vow, or like reinforcing a vow you already took with one another. 

Partners entering into a couple bubble agreement have to buy into it and own it and fully appreciate it. They have to be ALL the way. When couples don’t honor the couple bubble and complain they aren’t being well cared for, often the reason is that they get exactly what they paid for. Pay for part of something, and you get part of something.  

The couple bubble is a pact between partners in which the quid pro quo is to burden one another with the tasks of devotion and caring for the other’s safety, security, and well-being before anything else. The mutual burden determines the degree of shared gratitude and valuation you both can experience. If you think about it, when the going gets tough, the couple bubble is all you can really count on to hold your relationship together.

This doesn’t mean you won’t make mistakes along the way or accidentally hurt each other. It doesn’t mean you can never make a decision that puts yourself before the relationship, nor that you absolutely never should. These things will happen, no matter what. However, it does mean you will hold each other to your fundamental agreement, “We come first.” 

Together, you and your partner can create and maintain your bubble. You agree to do things for one another that no other person would be willing to do, at least not without getting paid.  In fact, and listen up, this is important: anyone who offers with no strings attached to do what partners must do for each other most definitely wants something in return (e.g., sex, money, or commitment). If you’re in a committed relationship and someone else seems willing to fill in for your partner, watch out. As the saying goes, there’s no such thing as a free lunch. 

So the bubble is something you work on together. But also keep in mind that you are responsible for your end of the deal. You keep it up because you believe in the principle, not merely because your partner is or isn’t willing to do the same.  It works only when both partners operate on a principled level and not on the level of "you go first."  

Think of (visualize) the couple bubble like a three-legged stool.  Each of you represents two legs of the stool; the third leg is the relationship.  Together the two of you create the third leg, which is defined as your relationship. 

Here are some helpful reminders: 

Devote yourself to your partner’s sense of safety and security and not simply to your idea about what that should be. What may make you feel safe and secure may not be what your partner requires from you. Your job is to know what matters to your partner and how to make him or her feel safe and secure. 

Don’t pop the bubble. Because the couple bubble has as its foundation a fundamental, implicit, and absolute sense of safety and security, neither of you should have to worry that the bubble is going to pop. Acting in an ambivalent manner, or taking a stance that is partly in and partly out of the relationship, undermines the security you have created.  If you allow this to persist, one or both of you will be forced into an auditioning position, and you will lose all the benefits of the bubble you have so carefully created. 

Make sure the bubble is mutually maintained and honored.  

Plan to use your couple bubble. It provides a safe place in which you and your partner can always ask each other for help, rely on one another, and share your vulnerabilities. It is your primary means of support and protection.