Making Space for Ambivalence in Long-Term Relationships: Through Somatic Couples Therapy in St. Paul, MN
Long-term relationships are rarely simple. Most couples expect ups and downs—periods of closeness, distance, stress, and relief. What many people don’t expect is ambivalence: the confusing, often quiet experience of holding mixed feelings about a relationship at the same time.
You might think:
“I love you, and I’m not sure how I feel right now.”
“I want this relationship, and I’m also really tired.”
“I miss you, and closeness feels scary.”
These thoughts can feel alarming. Many couples worry that ambivalence means the relationship is failing or that a decision has to be made immediately. But ambivalence is not a sign of weakness or avoidance. Often, it’s a sign that something important is happening beneath the surface.
In many cases, ambivalence is an honest response to long-term attachment, shared history, and real-life stress. This is where somatic couples therapy in St. Paul, MN can offer meaningful support—by helping couples slow down, listen more deeply, and understand what their bodies and emotions are trying to communicate.
What ambivalence really means in long-term love
Ambivalence usually shows up when a relationship matters. You don’t feel torn about people you don’t care about. Mixed feelings often appear when love, fear, hope, grief, and disappointment are all present at once.
Attachment-focused therapists like Sue Johnson remind us that adult romantic relationships are attachment bonds. When that bond feels threatened—by repeated conflict, emotional distance, betrayal, or chronic stress—the nervous system reacts. One part of you may still want closeness, while another part tries to protect you from pain.
Similarly, Stan Tatkin explains that couples are nervous system partners. When one person feels unsafe or overwhelmed, it affects the other. Over time, if the relationship becomes linked with tension or unpredictability, ambivalence can develop as a form of self-protection. It’s not a lack of love—it’s the body trying to stay safe.
Add in the realities of long-term life together—parenting, financial stress, health challenges, caregiving, religious or family pressure, unresolved trauma—and ambivalence becomes even more understandable. The heart may want connection, while the body hesitates.
Why ambivalence often gets misunderstood
Many couples treat ambivalence like an emergency. Conversations become urgent and pressured:
“Do you want to be with me or not?”
“Why can’t you just decide?”
Under this pressure, people often shut down or become defensive. Instead of clarity, there is more confusion and distance. The nervous system goes into survival mode, making it harder to think clearly or speak honestly.
Therapists like Esther Perel often talk about the tension between safety and desire, closeness and independence. Wanting both does not make someone inconsistent—it makes them human. Ambivalence is often the mind and body trying to hold these opposites at the same time.
The problem is not ambivalence itself. The problem is rushing it, judging it, or trying to argue it away.
How somatic couples therapy helps
Somatic therapy focuses on the connection between the body and emotions. Instead of only asking, “What are you thinking?” it also asks, “What is happening in your body right now?”
Ambivalence is often felt physically:
tightness in the chest
a knot in the stomach
shallow breathing
numbness or heaviness
restlessness or agitation
In somatic couples therapy in St. Paul, MN, couples learn to notice these signals and understand what they mean. Rather than seeing reactions as flaws, therapy reframes them as protective responses shaped by past experiences.
This approach draws from body-based psychology and attachment theory. It helps couples slow conversations down, notice when they are becoming overwhelmed, and respond with more care. When the body feels safer, emotions become clearer and communication improves.
Instead of pushing for immediate answers, somatic work builds tolerance for uncertainty. It helps couples stay present with mixed feelings long enough for insight and choice to emerge.
Ambivalence as a doorway, not a dead end
Think of a long-term relationship like a tree with deep roots. Over time, it faces storms, droughts, and seasons of change. Some branches grow strong. Others crack or need pruning. The tree isn’t failing—it’s adapting.
Ambivalence often signals a moment of growth or transition. Something in the relationship may need attention, care, or change. When couples approach ambivalence with curiosity rather than fear, it can lead to a more honest connection.
Therapists like Terry Real emphasize the importance of understanding how old survival patterns show up in adult relationships. Ambivalence can reflect an inner conflict between wanting closeness and wanting self-protection. Somatic couples therapy helps make that conflict visible and workable.
Relationship repair skills that support ambivalence
Effective therapy focuses not only on insight, but also on practical skills. Couples seeking relationship repair skills in Minneapolis, MN, and nearby areas often benefit from learning how to stay connected during moments of uncertainty.
Some key skills include:
Naming specific feelings
Instead of saying, “I don’t know if I want this,” try:
“I feel both love and fear when we talk about the future.”
Separating emotion from meaning
Feeling overwhelmed does not automatically mean the relationship is wrong. It may mean the nervous system needs support.
Using “both/and” language
“I care about you, and I need things to change.”
“I want closeness, and I need more space right now.”
Practicing repair
Research by John Gottman shows that repair attempts—small gestures that restore connection after conflict—are key to long-term relationship health. Repair teaches the body that conflict does not equal abandonment.
These skills help couples hold ambivalence without letting it turn into distance or despair.
Choosing the right support
When ambivalence is present, it’s important to work with a couples therapist in Saint Paul, MN who understands both attachment and the nervous system. Good therapy does not rush couples into decisions out of fear. Instead, it creates safety for honesty, grief, anger, hope, and love to exist together.
A skilled couples therapist helps couples slow down, listen differently, and rebuild trust—both with each other and with their own inner experience.
A closing reflection
Ambivalence is not a failure of love. Often, it’s a sign of integrity—a refusal to ignore what feels true. When couples learn to make space for ambivalence, they often discover deeper clarity, stronger boundaries, and more authentic connection.
With support, patience, and somatic awareness, mixed feelings don’t have to pull couples apart. They can become an invitation to grow—together, with roots that run deeper than certainty alone.
CAN SOMATIC COUPLES THERAPY IN ST. PAUL, MN, HELP YOU HOLD AMBIVALENCE WITHOUT COLLAPSING INTO CERTAINTY?
When you've been taught that doubt means disloyalty or that uncertainty signals the end, ambivalence in a long-term relationship can feel terrifying. In romantic partnerships, this can show up as anything, to name what you're feeling, fixating on whether you're "in" or "out," or searching for proof that your hesitation means something is fundamentally wrong—alongside the pressure to resolve the ambivalence immediately before it damages everything. A moment of emotional distance, a fantasy about a different life, or noticing what you might be sacrificing can activate panic shaped in environments where commitment was absolute, and questioning was betrayal. These patterns aren't signs that your relationship is failing or that you need to make a decision right now; they're your nervous system responding to the discomfort of holding two truths at once.
Your private pay somatic couples therapist in St. Paul, MN, can help you and your partner begin to notice and tolerate ambivalence as information rather than an emergency. In private pay somatic couples therapy, you'll learn to recognize how the urge to resolve, confess, or catastrophize shows up in the body and between you—and to practice staying present with uncertainty without demanding reassurance, forcing clarity, or abandoning the relationship to escape the discomfort. Over time, space opens for complexity, honest conversation, and connection that doesn't require you to perform unwavering certainty or hide the parts of yourself that wonder, question, or grieve what commitment costs.
This work isn't about deciding whether to stay or go, or proving your commitment is pure enough. It's about learning to be with the fullness of your experience without rushing to resolution. At NobleTree Therapy, sessions move at a pace your nervous system can handle. We honor how ambivalence lives in the body and use gentle, body-based practices to support staying grounded when competing desires, losses, or longings arise. If this resonates, you're invited to reach out and explore whether this work feels like a next step.
Let's connect—schedule a free consultation
Learn more about private pay somatic couples therapy at NobleTree
You don't have to resolve your ambivalence today. Sometimes, learning to hold it is the work.
OTHER THERAPY SERVICES OFFERED AT NOBLETREE THERAPY IN ST. PAUL, MN
At NobleTree Therapy, we support individuals, couples, and families across Minnesota who are learning to hold complexity in relationships that were built on certainty. Many people come to this work carrying the imprint of environments—spiritual, familial, or cultural—where ambivalence wasn't allowed, where questioning meant leaving, and where staying required performing unwavering commitment. Somatic couples therapy in St. Paul, MN, is one way we help partners slow down and examine how the fear of ambivalence continues to shape connection, honesty, and the permission to feel mixed emotions about love and partnership.
Alongside private pay somatic couples therapy, NobleTree Therapy offers LGBTQIA+ affirming care, support for healing religious trauma and spiritual abuse, and space for the grief that emerges when you realize commitment doesn't have to mean erasing doubt. We also work with individuals exploring how the pressure to be certain, the fear of disappointing a partner, or the shame around wanting multiple things show up in the body long after leaving systems that demanded absolute devotion. Whether you're learning to trust that ambivalence doesn't mean betrayal, practicing what it means to love someone while also grieving what you've given up, or discovering that you can hold competing truths without collapsing, our work honors your lived experience and the wisdom of moving at a pace your nervous system can sustain.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kendra Snyder, MA, LMFT, NCC (she/her) is the founder of NobleTree Therapy and a licensed trauma therapist serving Minnesota and Colorado. Her work is deeply informed by an understanding of how systems that demand certainty—whether religious, cultural, or familial—can shape a person's capacity to hold ambivalence, name competing desires, or acknowledge loss within ongoing commitment. For over a decade, she has supported individuals and couples navigating the discomfort of realizing that loving someone doesn't mean never questioning the relationship, and that staying doesn't require erasing the parts of yourself that wonder what else might have been possible.
Kendra's approach is somatic, depth-oriented, and relational, with a particular focus on how the fear of ambivalence—the urgency to resolve, the shame around doubt, the pressure to perform certainty—becomes embedded in the nervous system and carried into adult partnerships. In her couples work and somatic couples therapy in St. Paul, MN, she helps partners recognize when the need for resolution is actually a protection against the vulnerability of not knowing, and how to gently stay present with mixed feelings without rushing to decision or demanding reassurance. Her practice is especially attuned to people healing from spiritual systems that equated doubt with sin, adoptees navigating complex feelings about family and belonging, LGBTQIA+ individuals holding tension between chosen relationships and cultural expectations, and anyone learning that commitment can include ambivalence without fracturing.
Kendra believes that relational healing unfolds not through forced certainty or emotional simplicity, but through the courage to hold complexity, the practice of staying present when feelings conflict, and the slow restoration of permission to be human—messy, uncertain, and still worthy of love. At the heart of her work is a commitment to helping couples move out of all-or-nothing thinking and into connections that feel mutual, embodied, and spacious enough to hold the truth that love and loss, satisfaction and longing, can exist at the same time.