Stanley Hauerwas, EFT, and Love That Changes People

Mar 8

5 min read

Updated: Sep 13

Most couples who come into therapy think they have a communication problem. They often believe that if they could just learn to express themselves more clearly, listen better, or argue more fairly, their relationship would finally start to work. While communication is important, I’ve learned through years of working with couples that it’s rarely the real issue. So, what is the real issue?

The Deeper Issue: Formation

The deeper issue is formation. Who are we becoming inside this relationship? Oddly enough, one of the thinkers who has helped me understand this better is not a psychologist but the theologian Stanley Hauerwas. I got my Master's degree from Fuller Seminary, which excels at the intersection of theology and psychology. You can read more about it here.

Hauerwas argues that human beings do not form themselves. Instead, we are shaped profoundly by the communities we belong to and the stories those communities tell about what it means to live well. For him, ethics is not just about rules or moral effort; it’s about formation. We learn patience, courage, forgiveness, and faithfulness because we live among people who practice those virtues and expect them from us. Character grows in communities that sustain certain ways of living together.

When I first encountered this idea, it struck me that something very similar is discussed in psychology. It sits at the heart of Emotionally Focused Therapy, developed by Sue Johnson and taught to me by Jim Furrow during my time at Fuller Seminary. At first glance, theology and couples therapy seem like different worlds. Yet, they both aim to answer the same question: How do people actually change?

The Relationship Is the Environment That Forms Us

Attachment science shows us something we often forget: human beings are wired for emotional connection. Our nervous systems are built around the need for secure relationships. When that connection feels threatened, we react quickly and often painfully. One partner might pursue, criticize, or protest, while the other withdraws, shuts down, or distances themselves. Couples often see these reactions as personality flaws or communication problems. In reality, they are protective responses to a deeper fear.

This fear usually sounds like: Am I still important to you? Do I matter? Are you going to leave me alone in this relationship? Emotionally Focused Therapy focuses on this deeper level of the relationship. Instead of fixing surface arguments, it helps couples understand the emotional bond underneath them. When that bond becomes safer and more secure, something remarkable happens: people begin to change—not because they are trying harder, but because the relationship itself has changed.

This is where Hauerwas’s insight becomes fascinating. He insists that communities form people over time. The practices, expectations, and stories of a community shape the character of its members. A healthy marriage does exactly that: it becomes a small community where two people continually shape each other’s emotional lives.

The Stories Couples Tell About Each Other

Another theme in Hauerwas’s work is the power of narrative. Communities live inside stories that tell them who they are and what kind of life is possible. Couples do the same thing. By the time most couples arrive in therapy, they often live inside a painful story about each other. The narrative usually sounds familiar: “You never listen to me,” “You’re always criticizing me,” “You shut me out,” or “You don’t care.”

These stories rarely come from nowhere. They grow out of real experiences of hurt and disappointment. Over time, they harden into a narrative where each partner sees the other as the problem. Emotionally Focused Therapy helps couples look beneath those stories to see something deeper. Often, both partners react to the same emotional reality: they fear losing each other.

When this fear becomes visible, the story begins to shift. Instead of viewing each other as enemies, couples start to recognize they are both caught in the same painful cycle. Once the cycle becomes the problem, partners can begin turning toward each other again. It’s one of the most powerful moments in therapy.

Marriage as a School of Love

One quiet truth many couples discover in therapy is that marriage is not primarily about happiness; it’s about formation. You marry someone because you love them, but the relationship itself teaches you how to love. This process can be uncomfortable. Conflict exposes fears, arguments reveal wounds, and misunderstandings bring vulnerability to the surface.

When couples learn to repair those moments instead of retreating from them, something deeper begins to happen. The relationship becomes a place where people learn patience, emotional courage, and forgiveness. They start showing up for each other in ways that weren’t possible before. Hauerwas would call this the formation of character. From a psychological and attachment perspective, one might describe it as secure bonding. Either way, the result is the same: people become capable of a deeper kind of love because they choose to engage in a relationship.

Why This Matters

We live in a time when relationships often feel fragile. Loneliness is widespread, and many people wonder if lasting love is even possible anymore. However, both attachment science and thinkers like Hauerwas point toward a hopeful reality. People are not fixed; we can become different kinds of people. But that transformation rarely happens alone. It happens in relationships where people are willing to keep turning

toward each other, where difficult conversations become possible, where repair follows conflict, and where love is practiced again and again over time. This is the deeper goal of therapy.

Hauerwas would call it formation. Attachment science would call it earned security. I don't much mind which word you use.

What I care about is that both of them say the same thing, and it's the opposite of what most people believe about themselves: you are not finished. The person you are in this relationship is still being made, and the relationship is doing the making, whether or not either of you is paying attention to it.

That's the part that should be hopeful. It means the marriage isn't just the place where you find out who you are.

It's the place where you become someone.

If the theological frame is part of why you are reading this, that is something I work with directly — both in Christian marriage counseling in Joplin and in Christian premarital counseling for couples preparing to marry.