Are you serious about marital enrichment?

Or, is reconciliation closer to your present need?

Whatever the case may be, Dr. Sue Johnson, author of “Hold Me Tight,” and developer of Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy, identified three important criteria that, when present and active, promote the growth and stability of attachment bonds between husband and wife.

Johnson, influenced in her development of EFCT by that field of study known as attachment theory, understood that marital relationships would be little more than legal contracts without the emotional, soul-level ties that bind one to another.

“When love doesn’t work, we hurt,” writes Johnson.

Biblically Demonstrated, Clinically Defined

To help us understand better what we mean by “attachment bonds,” we can turn to “Attachments,” by Drs. Tim Clinton and Gary Sibcy. There, Clinton and Sibcy write that attachment is an “overarching system that explains the principles, the rules, and the emotions of relationships—how they work and how they don’t work, how we feel when we’re with the ones we love the most.

Further, they explain that in attachment, we are asking ourselves a variety of questions: Are you there for me? Can I count on you? Do you really care about me? Am I worthy of your love and protection? What do I have to do to get you attention, your affection, your heart?

With these ideas and questions in mind, Johnson identified her basic criteria as follows:

Accessibility, Responsiveness, and Engagement, otherwise known as "A.R.E." While there may be other matters that we would want to address and be familiar with in seeking to nurture our attachment bonds relative to our spouse, we wouldn't want to be without these three.

By God’s common grace to all mankind, we can observe these attachment-building virtues demonstrated in scripture, and defined in the clinical counseling environment.

Johnson defines A.R.E. as follows:

Accessibility: This means staying open to your partner even when you have doubts and feel insecure.

Responsiveness: It means accepting and placing a priority on the emotional signals your partner conveys and sending clear signals of comfort and caring when your partner needs them.

Engagement: Emotional engagement means the very special kind of attention that we give only to a loved one.

Christian counselor Kenneth Sanderfer, who later published a Christian adaptation of “Hold Me Tight” with Johnson titled “Created for Connection,” observed that A.R.E. isn't novel to the Christian, but, he says, "This responsiveness is part of a Christian’s bond with God and God’s covenant with humanity."

We should ask ourselves, however: Is this so?

To be sure, we don't find the acronym “A.R.E.” anywhere in Scripture, so can we trust it's truthfulness and faithfulness to God's word?

In this case, we're not looking for verbatim scripture citations where the exact words are used; instead, we possess genuine examples of God relating to his people in ways that clearly demonstrate the patterns of responsiveness we desire in our actual marriage relationships--accessibility, responsiveness, and engagement. Indeed, by good and necessary consequence, A.R.E. can reasonably be inferred as being present in the Bible long before the publications by Johnson and Sanderfer.

Distinguishing Marks

As one example among many, consider the words of David in Psalm 135:3 (ESV):

"On the day I called, you answered me; my strength of soul you increased."

In this Psalm, David, speaking to God, recounts a time of need wherein he cried out to God, and God not only answered him, but responded in such a way that David's soul was strengthened. We could say that God showed himself to David as one who is accessible, responsive, and engaged.

Of this Psalm, Charles Spurgeon wrote,

"It is the distinguishing mark of the true and living God that he hears the pleadings of his people, and answers them; the gods hear not and answer not, but Jehovah’s memorial is—'the God that heareth prayer.'"

Imagine walking in A.R.E. toward your spouse in their time of need, despair, or suffering, and hearing them say in return, "my strength of soul you increased"!

In this example, we find reason to be encouraged in our faith in God, knowing that in our "day of trouble," he will prove to be accessible, responsive, and engaged (Jer. 29:13). God is, of course, so much more than these things, but he certainly is not less. And, when we experience him in these ways, our attachment bonds to him are made strong.

In theological terms, we call this “assurance.”

Follow the Leader

For husbands and wives who are actively working through a season of counseling, these and other passages provide working examples of A.R.E. Like a small child going fishing with their father for the first time, counseling couples can take A.R.E. as it exists as a counseling construct, and learn to "walk as Jesus walks" with his bride (1 John 2:6).

We do what he does.

We follow his lead.

Jesus is, in fact, the supreme example of these attachment-building virtues, par excellence.

As he has made himself accessible, responsive, and engaged toward us, so we can walk in grace and humility toward our spouse, seeking to emulate his pattern.

So, when it comes to your marriage and marriage counseling, A.R.E. you serious?