(This is a talk that Gerald Drose and I presented years ago...)
We decided to
call this talk Conscious Marriage although it's really about
how couples develop and change. This also happens to be similar to how
individuals develop and change, only being part of a couple
allows you to
have support for your development and to be a part of
someone else's
development. It's fundamental to know that what
relationships are about is
your own personal growth and the growth of your partner, yet
there are few
places in our culture or in our lives where we get to really
witness or
learn about this process.
The major
theorists writing in the area have identified certain stages that
couple go through and the crises that arise in each stage
that must be
successfully negotiated in order for the couple to move on
to the next stage.
The beginning
of a relationship is often referred to as the "bonding
phase." It is
the stage when couples come together in romantic zeal, drawn
together by needs which may be out of each of their conscious awareness.
The prominent theory for how we pick our life partner is
that you are drawn
to someone whose strengths are your weaknesses and whom you
unconsciously
hope to learn these things from. They represent the parts of
yourself which
are undeveloped. For
instance, we met and fell in love during the latter
part of graduate school.
(Dina talking:) Gerald's attraction to me had
something to do with the fact that I was extremely organized
and was well on
my way to finishing my PhD dissertation, working a few hours
every day,
making the idea work.
(Gerald talking:) while I was obsessing for hours reading
book after book
changing my ideas every month for about a year. There was a consistent,
organized part of her that worked through frustration
without changing her
mind, while I was a perfectionist that was continually
searching for the
perfect idea and she was a doer --with a less than perfect
idea but a strong
need to be finished.
(Dina talking:) I realize that part of what I was attracted
to in Gerald was
a confidence in himself as a professional that I lacked, a
belief that he
could enter any complex situation and find a creative
solution whereas I
felt young, green and scared of leaving the safety of the
student role and
becoming a responsible adult.
If you look
back on your relationships you can probably identify a part
that the other person had that you felt you lacked. This pattern is more
likely to occur the younger the members of the couple are in
their personal
development. It may
have been the way he was with friends, or the way she
took care of herself, or his confidence in the work place,
or her closeness
to her family.
That's why
falling in love is often described as feeling like you have
found your other half, that you have become ONE. It is like
two half-people
come together, fitting like the two sides of Yin and Yang
and you have one
whole circle.
Many believe
that this feeling defines romantic love, that his person
makes you whole. This
is the illusion of romantic love that has been passed
down through centuries of literature and is now firmly
embedded in the
unconscious of us all. The illusion is quite simple--that
someone else can
fill that empty part in you.
Now you have in front of you the only two
people on the planet who have not seen the movie "Titanic." But from what we've heard about it, it sounds
like one of the reasons it has so captured the hearts of the
viewers is that
it portrays this ideal love scenario very effectively--the
wealthy,
inhibited, over controlled woman who falls in love with the
free, creative,
poor but passionate young man--and this was a love that
never moved beyond
the romantic stage and was etched forever in memory as that
perfect union.
We'll never know if their relationship would have survived
the difficulties
of the real world when they got back on dry land--but we
don't even care!
Last night Gerald and I saw "As Good as it
Gets"--again, opposites
attracting. He saw in
her the humanity, the possibility for human
connection that he lacked.
It's harder to understand what she saw in
him--but I think he had her the moment he said, "There
is no one else who
sees that you are the most incredible woman on the
planet." And isn't that
we all fantasize about?
That someone will see the true wonderfulness inside
of us? But again, the movie ends before we ever see them
trying to negotiate
the next phase (I'd give them three months, tops). Hollywood has little
interest in going there--how boring!
So you have
two half-people coming together to form a
whole--and therein
lies the first cost of this stage of a relationship. While we may convince
ourselves that we will integrate these aspects of or partner
into ourselves--or learn from them the things they are good at--in fact after a
period of time we seem to quit developing these underdeveloped parts of
ourselves because it is so much easier to let the other person do it--besides,
they are so much better at it than we are--and sometimes they may even
criticize us when we do it (subtly at first, then not so subtly).
This is the
central conflict of the first phase of a
relationship. If a
couple comes together because of each person's expertise in
a particular
situation, when the other attempts to develop some expertise
it can be very
scary to the expert! Experts do not like to feel obsolete or
replaceable.
For example, (Dina talking) my role, as the organized one,
was to plan and
prepare meals, remembering Gerald's empty refrigerator when
I first met him.
If I left town I would cook, freeze and label meals (just as
I'd seen my
mother do for my father) convinced that Gerald would starve
to death while I
was gone--or worse, go out to eat for every meal while I was
gone (as the
organized one I also had to be on top of how we spent money,
you see). Here
was an adult man with a son who had never gone hungry or
broke before my
arrival. But my
delusion that I was irreplaceable made me feel terribly
needed and special.
This bonding
phase requires the maintenance of the original illusion. I
often ask clients dealing with the end of a relationship if
they remember
having doubts in the beginning about this person and what
they did with
those doubts. Yes, they admit, there were clues very early
on that this was
a bad match but the little voice that was concerned about
these things was
bound, gagged and thrown in a closet by that part of them
that wanted the
high of that romantic feeling. The desire to bond tightly is
so powerful it
will talk a person out of their doubts for a while. There is
no drug that
matches the high of falling in love--food tastes better, the
sun shines
warmer and every love song was written for you. Heroin? Crack? Who needs
them? It's only when
things are falling apart that a person can admit that
the problems were there all along, they just wouldn't allow
themselves to
see it and know it because it would have killed the high and
kept the
relationship from ever happening.
A famous
psychiatrist wrote a book about therapy called "Love's
Executioner" He
titled it this because so often people drop out of therapy
just when they start to fall in love--they start feeling so
good that they
decide they must be fine and "who needs therapy when
I'm so happy," and then
we see them years later when they are waking up from their
dream-state with
major relationship problems. The title refers to the fact
that therapy can
be seen as the executioner of Romantic Love--because it's
about seeing
reality, having your eyes open and your feet on the
ground--while romantic
love is about illusion, projection and denial. Whenever I see people who
are waking up and getting out of destructive relationships
and afraid they
will just repeat the pattern again, I tell them to commit to
themselves that
they will get in therapy the next time they feel themself
falling in
love--as a reality check.
It certainly tempers some of the high--which for
a true romantic may seem a bitter pill to swallow-- but it
can help a person
avoid major pitfalls down the road.
The bonding
phase is completed as the illusion is gradually replaced by
painful reality. At
the start the connection was so tenuous it required
constantly maintaining the illusion until there was enough
security in the
strength of the relationship to test it. Somehow a silent signal is
arranged between the couple that can be interpreted as
meaning," Now, it's
safe, we can begin to let up a bit on this romantic behavior
and get down to
the real thing."
Many people remember this moment as their first big
fight--and it's a pretty scary event! Our first fight
happened six months
into the relationship at the Atlantic House restaurant, a
structure built on
stilts sitting out over the ocean on Folly Beach off of
Charleston, South
Carolina. When
Hurricane Hugo hit and we saw pictures of the devastation in
Charleston, the Atlantic House was reduced to a pile of
sticks. Now we look
back and think if every structure that we ever had a fight
in was destroyed
it would look like Sherman had marched through the South
again!
When this
honeymoon-is-over phase starts, many couples think it is the end
of the bonding process--it's not. What preceded was the prelude, now the
relationship is in Act One. The prelude had to be enjoyed in
order for the
reality testing to commence.
The longer it takes to get to this phase, the
higher the cost--the price paid being the development of
true intimacy and
the expression of each partners' True Self.
A word here
about affairs. This shift from the
romantic phase to the
disillusionment phase is a time when affairs are most likely
to occur,
especially when one partner is committed to maintaining the
illusion of
romance in his life.
When the demands of external reality and the passage
of time make it difficult to maintain the illusion, the one
more desirous of
that original feeling may seek it out somewhere else,
telling themself that
because the feeling is gone, they must have picked the wrong
person--not, oh
yeah, this is the natural phase that all relationships go
through and that
we can weather together...
Many couples
do not have affairs but instead develop subtle and not so
subtle ways to exit the relationship without really leaving.
One may become
overly involved in work rather than come home to the
build-up of tension.
They may spend hours in front of the TV or the computer--
numbing out rather
than arguing. One may become involved in projects around the
house so there
never seems to be time to sit and relate.
It's as if
each fears that the relationship cannot withstand the explosion
of the build-up of tension and they silently non-verbally
agree to keep
things at a comfortable distance--never quite resolving
conflicts, storing
up and holding onto resentments, never clearing the
decks. Sexual frequency
may drop off, and when they do decide to be sexual it feels
detached and
emotionally unsatisfying.
They learn the art of having their bodies
together and their hearts far apart.
Many times
this phase begins when children are born, or struggles around
money and power develop.
She might start focusing her energies in other
places. Perhaps she
decides to go back to school or further develop her
career. Perhaps they
have children and her focus shifts away from the
relationship to the needs of the kids. Perhaps he takes up running and
develops new friendships that take him away from her for
periods of time.
Many couples
"drift apart" so far they end up divorced. More than 50% do
not survive this phase.
Many people just do not have the knowledge or the
skills to make this phase work. They may have had poor role-models in their
own parents. Or they were so deeply asleep and unconscious
when they married
that when they awoke to the reality of their partner they
had no desire to
stay with that person.
This phase is
lengthy and it's about:
*How do we fit together now that we know who we really
are?
*How do we negotiate the differences in our personalities
that once
attracted us to each other and now drive us nuts?
*What parts of ourselves are we willing and able to
change?
*Are the changes that my partner wants from me going to
benefit me also, or
just them?
*Am I able to let go of some of the things I hope my partner
will change and
accept them for who they are and give up the fantasy that
there is a better
match out there for me?
*Am I getting enough of my emotional needs met in the
relationship that it
is worth the price of giving up my fantasies and
illusions?
There are a
couple of important ingredients that allow couples to move into
the next phase.
*Number one is TRUST.
Not the fidelity trust but rather the faith that
together the couple can work through difficulties--or at
least is willing to
risk it. This trust is an indicator of the strength of the
commitment to
each other.
*Another necessary ingredient for surviving this phase is a
healthy dose of
TOLERANCE. The
ability to recognize that "I'm human and fallible, therefore
I can accept you as fallible, too, neither of us is
perfect" provides a
safety net for the risky process of letting go of the
illusions and being
more real. Showing
ones True Self, warts and all, makes a person very
vulnerable to being criticized, for having these
vulnerabilities used
against them at a later date, for being seen as less than
perfect.
Acceptance and tolerance of each other's essential
imperfection and
humanness makes this phase less painful and more successful.
*A third ingredient is RESPECT. If the latter part of the
bonding phase is
spent building respect then the differentiation can take
place without it
being such an overwhelming, terrifying event. Respecting one's partner and
feeling respected allows partners to hang in there through
the rough times
but feel that they are not being abused. The more respect there is, the
more couples will allow
each other to expand and develop new aspects of
themselves through experimenting in their careers, taking
courses, trying
new sports, making new friends. The relationship is less of
a clinging,
desperate thing but a more mutually supportive traveling
thing.
For those that
do survive this phase, what does the new picture look like?
What happens is the couple will begin to be more honest with
each-other--less afraid of upsetting each other and having
disagreements or
conflicts. Sex at this time begins to be less theatrical and
less fantastic.
Each member is beginning to reclaim or perhaps discover for
the first time--
his or her True Self.
This means becoming more aware of our needs and
separating them out from our partner's needs.
Partners
become more intentional in their interactions-- meaning they don't
just react to each other unconsciously, but become more
aware of the effects
of their behavior on the other and work to find ways to
communicate that
increase goodwill and trust. Each partner takes
responsibility for
communicating their needs and desires and lets go of the
fantasy that their
partner will intuit their needs. There is the realization that even when
you state your needs outright there will be times when you
have to meet your
needs yourself. And finally there is an acceptance that all
good
relationships require work.
The two
halves of the whole separate themselves out and become two wholes.
They no longer need each other to feel like they have a
place in the world.
Now that they don't need each other for their survival, they
are choosing to
be together.
We think this
bicycle analogy provides a very clear and helpful image for
you to imagine when thinking about these various phases:
In the bonding
stage, both partners are on the same bike, a dominant
partner pedaling, a dependent partner riding on the
handlebars. Eventually,
the dependent partner gets sick of the bumpy ride up there
on the handle
bars and the dominant partner gets tired of supplying all
the power. The
rider may kick the peddler off so they can change direction
or speed. If
they are still trying to use the same bike but are fighting
over who is
supplying the power and where they are going they'll end up
going nowhere!
If a couple
can differentiate, they each get their own bicycle and they
ride side by side.
Each is powerful and caring enough about the other one
to regulate their speed.
They ride separately but together. Sometimes one
can go faster than the other, but it's always with the care
and respect to
notice if the other is coming along so that one does not get
too far behind.
When the
couple survives the disillusionment phase then they move into the
final phase which is usually referred to as intimacy. This
last stage makes
the rest of the struggle worthwhile. Sometimes a renewed interest in
spiritual concerns or a sense of the finiteness of time
causes you to look
at your partner with a new appreciation. You get better at tolerating the
conflicts, at apologizing and making up, at clearing the
decks. You
realize you can travel more efficiently through life as two
together, can
negotiate life with double the wisdom and experience -- plus
you get the joy
of sharing the stress and the beauty of the journey with
another
person--which fulfills our fundamental human need to share
life's journey
with another. In this
way, what started as two halves becoming whole,
separated into two wholes, now develops into an entity where
the whole is
greater than the sum of its parts--where the relationship is
a third entity
with a life of its own that greatly benefits each of the
participants in it.
Returning to
the bicycle metaphor, this is the stage where the couple rides
a bicycle built for two.
One can pedal and the other can rest, and they can
switch off, as they explore new territory together. There is a return of
romance and good sex.
Sex is no longer a power trip or a sleeping pill, but
a way for two people to share closeness and unconditional
love. Romance is
again possible because the partners nourish each other in so
many ways that
their capacity for love is increased with each interaction.
What does it
take to travel across this territory? It takes the courage to
allow your True Self to be seen by another human being.
Beyond that it takes
compassion, empathy, tolerance and the will to be more than
a survivor, to
be a participant in our own destiny. The reward is the joy of loving and
being loved throughout the remainder of your lives.
