Responses to "Marriage as Formation"

Greetings from beautiful Leakey, Texas, a tiny burg that lies along the Frio River. My family has been spending the week of the fourth with a passle of friends from Austin for nearly 15 years! I received more comments on my last blog entry, Marriage as Formation, than on anything I've written so far. Some of the comments were left on the blog. Some were sent to me via email. Here are a few additional thoughts aimed at addressing some of the questions you raised. What does it means to be "fully human?" There are a million opinions regarding how to answer this question, all built upon whatever philosophical and/or theological perspectives a person prefers. It is very difficult to move beyond what we think or wish were true to a perspective that is grounded in some sort of objective reality. Without going into all the detail, based on my readings in various disciplines, I now operate on the premise that human beings operate most "naturally" out of our animal nature, which is survival oriented. As E.O. Wilson says,"[The] brain is a machine assembled not understand itself, but to survive." (Conscilience, 1998, p. 96) Becoming fully human requires the conscious choice to place sacrificial love above survival as the driving ethic of life, which is also a central message of Christianity. Marriage is one of the most intense arenas in which this challenge takes on flesh. Sacrificial Love is not the same thing as "giving up." Several of you mentioned situations in which you, or people you know, had simple settled in to "dead" marriages "for the sake of the children." You said that this seems like a couple is making a sacrificial choice for the sake of the kids. Nothing could be further than what I mean when I talk about sacrificial love. A person committed to a marriage based on sacrificial love would never let a spouse get away with sliding into such a state. This person would look for every avenue to confront, challenge, and cajole the partner to be true to the wedding vows. To use the kids as an excuse to settle for a dead relationship is the very anti-thesis of both psychological and spiritual maturity. I know these are strong statements. But I am very graceful towards all those people who have truly fought for the ideal, and yet found themselves with a spouse who is equally creative in stonewalling and avoiding. Sacrificial Love versus Codependency A couple of you described important ways in which you give your Self and time to community service, and asked if these acts of service were not acts of sacrificial love. I think not, at least in most situations. Most people give significant time to community service because of what they get out of it. This is the definition of codependency. Codependent behavior is any behavior I engage in to meet my personal needs under the guise of meeting someone else's need. Personally, I think codependency has gotten a bump wrap. It can be very positive, so long as one is honest about it. For example, I try to give blood every 8 weeks. I enjoy the way I feel about myself for doing it. I enjoy the positive reactions I get from other people on the rare occasions that it comes up in conversation for some reason. But I'd never delude myself into thinking that there's anything sacrificial about it.... Besides, let's be honest here... a fair amount of what we give of ourselves "out there" serves to keep us disconnected from where the real action should be focused... at home. Sacrificial Love is not about "Quid-pro-Quo." You've brought up how frustrating is to give and give, and never get back. Of course, when we give with an expectation of getting back, then we've already jumped off the S.L. train. Quid-pro-Quo is always a part of a good marriage. There's always an element of "I'll scratch your back if you'll scratch mine," but the failure of QpQ is a good indication that something of a more serious nature has already been eroding the relationship. Once it dawns on you that you are getting angry because QpQ is leaving you feeling like a doormat, its time for the really scary stuff to start. This where a person has to decide if he or she has the guts to say something like:

• "I've been feeling more and more like you have chosen not to live up to our marriage vows. Your actions lead me to the conclusion that you do not respect me. I'm not willing to leave our marriage, but I'm also not willing to sit back and expect so little of you. You are capable of so much more, and I can hardly claim to love you and not expect your best. So, this is fair warning. I'm getting ready to love you in some really difficult ways unless you make some different choices about how to be in this marriage."

I know... it sounds good on paper...

Marriage as Survival: I marry in order to stay alive.

This post is a continuation of thoughts I began to develop in posts on December 6 and 13 of last year (2007)

Are you aware of how your survival issues impact your marriage? For most of human history the main goal of marriage was survival. The survival of individuals, the survival of clans, the survival of empires. Marriages were, thus, arranged in order to address survival needs. Romance was a luxury of the elite and, even then, was something one got from a tryst, not from one's spouse. With affluence, survival needs fade in to the background. Or perhaps I should say that physical survival needs fade in to the background. No one in the USA has to marry in order to keep from starving. (Physical survival can still be in issue in marriages involving physical abuse, but that’s a different issue.) So, marriage may no longer be about physical survival, but it is definitely about emotional survival! And I THINK I'd say that these usually revolve around self-esteem needs, though I'd like to hear your point of view on this. Here's a list of some typical emotional survival needs that can get mixed up in the choice of a spouse:

• "I can't believe this former cheerleader is attracted to me!"
• "Finally, sex without guilt."
• "My family might be happy if I choose him."
• "I feel safe when I'm with her."
• "She really admires me!"
• "With my help he'll be successful (and then I'll feel successful)."

Most couples certainly come together based on the genuine and positive characteristics each sees in the other, but underneath the surface there is always a quiet negotiation around the issue of survival. A mature marriage emerges when each person identifies and takes responsibility for his or her survival needs. In a mature marriage, each person is committed to personal growth. In an immature marriage, each person is trying to find ways to get the other to meet his or her needs. In religious or spiritual language, this places marriage, potentially, in the category of "idolatry." An idol is anything to which we take our anxiety that has no power to heal our anxiety. Idols may have the power to soothe us or distract us, but they can never transform us. And if we are to give any credence to the great religious traditions of the world (not just Christianity), then we "know" that we are all idolaters. To be a bit transparent here, I've known for a long time that I have a deep need to be "seen" and admired. Put any personality inventory in front of me, and I'm going to score high on the narcissism scale. Its something that I joke about, but it has taken me years to realize what this emotional need of mine -- this idolatry -- has meant for my marriage. I've spent tremendous amounts of time learning what this means for me as a therapist, but not nearly enough time learning what it means for me as a husband. Consequently, I've made it very difficult for my wife to have a relationship with me. Rather than relating to my wife as the unique person that she is I've spent far too much time relating to her as though I'm entitled to have her admiration. It hasn't made for a particularly healthy connection. So, if you buy in to my assumptions, then most of us marry in order to find something that is missing within us. Its not just about that. The more mature a person, the more he or she is going to connect with another based on who the other actually is, but I assume that almost no one in the first half of life has reached that level of maturity. For most of us, marriage at least begins primarily as an idolatrous, survival oriented, experience. If you're marriage is less than satisfying to you, here's a few questions: 1. In what ways does your marriage kick up emotional survival issues for you? 2. In what ways have you taken responsibility for your own survival? 3. In what ways have you tried to make this your partner's fault? 4. What did you learn about marriage and survival from your parent's marriage?

Marriage as Survival, Enrichment, and/or Formation

Every one knows the statistics: Half of all marriages end in divorce. Conclusion: Marriage is hard (Yes, I needed a Ph.D. to figure this out). Therapists basically know what happens when marriage fails. We know that some couples have no business getting married in the first place. We know that some couples do not have the resources or maturity to handle the inevitable stresses and strains of marriage when they arise. We know that some couples could, but are unwilling to do the work that marriage requires. John Gottman is probably the only marriage researcher out there who has developed anything approaching a scientific model for studying marriages, and he concludes that marriages fail because, when stress hits, friendship erodes and is replaced by either apathy or, worse, contempt. Many therapists have developed models for how to think about the erosion of this friendship (mine can be seen by clicking Alienation Cycle), but having a model and having a solution are two completely different things! Nonetheless, models DO generate ideas about how and when and where to intervene in this alienation cycle. Lately, the following idea has taken shape in my mind, and seems to have been of some help to the clients I've started discussing it with. I'd summarize it like this:

Most marriages in America fail because couples are

unable or unwilling to shift from a survival or enrichment

view of marriage to a formation view of marriage.

In my previous entry I described three core values that shape life: survival, enrichment, and/or formation. I also said that I believe a person's life will be fundamentally shaped by which of these three values he or she chooses to place at the center.

When I take this idea and apply it to marriage, I come up with three core reasons to be in a committed relationship:

1. Marriage as Survival - I marry in order to survive.
2. Marriage as Enrichment - I marry in order to be happy.
3. Marriage as Formation - I marry in order to mature.

I'll be using my next three entries to say a bit more about each of these.

Survival, Enrichment, and Formation

A few more ideas on how we develop into mature humans have been taking shape for me.... Its generally accepted that we develop in all areas of life. All this means is that we do not start out growed up. Certain things have to happen for us to get there. It is also generally accepted that a part of development is natural, which is to say that it sort of occurs on its own. For example, once a baby is born, the brain starts to develop so that, over time, a child is able to learn language, math, etc... The other part of development, however, is what I would refer to as intentional. By this I mean that there are certain choices that a person has to intentionally make if he is going to mature. For example, a person must decide if she is going to pursue professional goals by stepping on whomever gets in her way, or if she is going to pursue success while taking into consideration the needs of those around her. This is a choice. Recently is has become clearer to me that individuals must choose whether or not they are going to live according to one of these three core values: - survival: My goal is to keep myself alive. - enrichment: My goal is to be happy. - formation: My goal is to be mature. Everything is ALWAYS a lot more complicated that a few pithy ideas can convey, but I am seeing more clearly that my clients are almost all wrestling with which of these three core values to intentionally choose. There's no question that the ways in which one deals with life will virtually be determined by this choice.