Continuing the discussion of Passionate Marriage that started here.
One of the things that impressed me about Schnarch was that he
had similar thoughts to mine about the influence of childhood
experiences, as he outlines here (my emphasis):
Many marital therapists believe childhood wounds drive marriage,
leading us to reenact our family problems with our adult partners. I do
not. While I don't ignore unpleasant childhood experiences, I also
don't believe they are the only or even the strongest factor shaping a
marriage. Childhood wounds have their impact, just like parental
modeling and social conditioning. I believe other aspects have at least
as much -- if not more -- impact on marriage than our childhood or
unconscious processes. ...
Misguided emphasis on childhood wounds does more than send couples off
in the wrong direction. The resulting "trauma model of life" ignores
everything outstanding about our species' determination to grow and
thrive. ...
I'm not proposing that we ignore past events that limit our present
efforts. Awakening creative effort, however, requires leaving personal
tragedies behind rather than constantly revisiting and revising them.
This is neither as difficult nor as undesirable as it might seem. ...
This "non-regressive" approach does not deny the impact of the past --
but you don't necessarily have to go back into the past to resolve it.
You can work on the past where it's surfacing in the present. This
gives meaning and utility to your current difficulties and provides an
active way to work on your present and past simultaneously. ... When
working on the past in the present, you're working directly on your
current problem, too, so what's of immediate concern to you -- your
marriage -- often improves. You don't have to decide from the outset what's causing what.
In other words, don't assume that if your wife would only solve her
problems with, say, her rejecting Dad or her overbearing Mom, she'd be
able to respond to you the way you want. In fact, deciding that
childhood trauma is the main thing that's driving her responses can
send you on the motha of all goose chases....Not to mention that this
means you're also thinking in terms of "fixing" her to your
satisfaction and neglecting what you can do for yourself.
Schnarch has a beef with the conventional wisdom that "problemizes" every pain that life is heir to.
Fifty years ago, child development specialists recognized the
importance of infants' drive to bond (attach) to their caregivers.
Unfortunately, we've erroneously assumed this is the dominant and
overriding drive for children and adults, and popularized the image of
infants being helpless and terrified when no one is there to comfort
them. We've applied this same image to marriage and concluded our
partner is supposed to soothe us and not do things that make us
insecure. However, radically new information emerging from infant
research over the last decade shows that infants have remarkable
resilience and are able to regulate some of their emotional equilibrium
by three months of age. ...
We've ignored how taking care of your own feelings is an integral part
of maintaining a relationship and how it fuels attachment and
selfdirection. We've reduced adults to infants, reduced infants to a
frail ghost of their resilience, and reduced marriage to providing
safety, security, and compensation for childhood disappointments. In
other words, we've eliminated from marriage those things that fuel our
essential drives for autonomy and freedom. Common notions of
interdependence emphasize our neediness but not our strengths.
There is one dilemma of married life that is just inherent in the
couple relationship, and therefore unavoidable even by the most
perfectly-matched pair in all creation.
This is partly why my approach to therapy is known as the sexual crucible approach.
The name describes how it often feels when marriage's classroom is in
session. What's an example of a crucible in marriage? How about the
fact that your
spouse can always force you to choose between keeping your integrity
and staying married, between "holding onto yourself" and holding onto
your partner.
These integrity issues often surface around sex and intimacy -- about
what the two of you will and won't do together. They can just as easily
arise over issues about money, parenting, in-laws, and lifestyle. The
more emotionally enmeshed you and your spouse are -- fused
in my lingo -- the more you will push this choice right down to the
wire. Stay in the marriage or get divorced. The key is not to lose your
nerve or get overreactive or locked into an inflexible position. I know
that's tough when you think your marriage is about to explode -- or
you're about to sell out your beliefs, preferences, or dreams. But it's
actually part of the people-growing process in marriage.
To illustrate this concept, Schnarch introduces a new couple, Bill and
Joan, whose first therapy session starts with explosive emotions:
Bill blurts out his worst fears about their marriage. "We got married
for the wrong reasons. I really wasn't ready to get married. I let her
push me into it."
Joan, twisted like a pretzel on my couch, immediately adopts a "Don't blame me again for that, it's your fault too!" expression.
For several seconds it's not clear where things are headed. Then I
realize tears are streaming down Joan's cheeks. "Damn! I promised
myself! wouldn't cry!" she stammers, trying to gain control, "I've. . .
I've always known he never chose me. He just didn't want to give me up.
I haven't been able to face it."
Bill turns beet red. "I told you I wasn't ready to get married! You know I've always been afraid to make decisions!"
Schnarch eventually tells this couple that, contrary to popular belief,
wonderful and lasting relationships can develop from "all the wrong
reasons." In fact, it's only after you've been married awhile that you
mature enough for the "right" reasons to even exist, and acknowledging
and working (Schnarch says "struggling") with the reality of the bad
start may be the only way to find the right way to stay together.
We like to believe that "communication problems" underlie most
relationship difficulties because we welcome the idea we can literally
talk our way out of anything. We love the fantasy that we can
"understand" and "express" our way out of our dilemmas.
But this is not what happens. Instead, in unwitting partnership,
couples create emotional gridlock. Bill and Joan's relationship was
like an intricate Chinese puzzle: one's movement was blocked by the
other's equally stymied position. Joan complained that Bill drained her
energy by having one crisis after another. Bill was furious that Joan
wasn't "supportive." He demanded to be "number one" in her life. She
found his neediness unattractive. He became more insecure and
accelerated his demands -- until they were trapped by their
interlocking frustrating and frustrated needs. ...
After seeing this go on repeatedly in my office -- and my own home --
I've concluded that some dilemmas aren't meant to be "fixed." All
problems aren't meant to be "smoothed." The solutions we seek sometimes
come from living through them. We spin intricate webs until we have no
way around them. We can escape the situation we've created
(temporarily), but we can't escape ourselves.
Our self-made crises are custom-tailored, painstakingly crafted, and
always fit perfectly. We construct emotional knots until, eventually,
we are willing to go through
them. It may sound farfetched, but sexual dysfunctions are blessings to
couples who use them well. In like fashion, we sometimes create
situations that ask us to risk our marriage in order to receive its
bounty. Approached in this light, committed relationships become epic
dramas of heroism rather than soap operas.
Well, whaddya know? He used the word "heroism" again.
I think he's stealing my stuff.
Next: More on Bill and Joan's Excellent Adventure
Passionate Marriage Discussion: 1 2 3
3:22:58 PM 
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