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?

A Quote from Gerald May

"This transformative process -- The freeing of love from attachment -- is akin to the ancient biblical concept of salvation. ... In contrast to life -denying asceticism that advocates freedom from desire, [Saint Teresa of Avila] and [Saint John of the Cross] see authentic transformation as leading to freedom for desire. For them, the essence of all human desire is love." Gerald May, The Dark Night of the Soul: A Psychiatrist Explores the Connection Between Darkness and Spiritual Growth, 2004, p. 73 Sacrificial love -----is not something we achieve ----------on our own -----as if it were a college degree -----or a merit raise. Sacrificial love... -----it is patient ----------and kind. -----it knows no envy ----------nor pride, ---------------nor selfishness -----it is full of trust ----------and hope ----------and perseverance. We might taste it, -----but we cannot live it, ----------unless we are transformed. ----------unless our love is transformed, ---------------from a grasping --------------------clinging -------------------------demanding ------------------------------attachment to self, -----to a free-falling trust into the Ground of all True Love ----------who comes to us in the vulnerability of a little baby ----------and in the sorrow of shattered body, ---------------naked and bleeding, --------------------on a cross. No one lives this Love apart from transformation. wme

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.

Ethics and Anxiety

I've been asked to teach an ethics seminar in the Spring to our local chapter of the Texas Counseling Association. The subject of ethics generally annoys me. I realize this could be due to my own lack of ethics, but I actually think its more because I believe that the whole subject of ethics within professional organizations has been highjacked by anxiety.

For myself, ethical behavior is to be defined by two broad principles.

1. I must never use the natural power differential in my relationship to a client for personal advantage.
2. An effective therapy relationship is redemptive for the client.

These principals, like all principals, require that the clinician be quite mature and exercise careful judgment. However, as Jesus pointed out on more than a few occasions, we humans don't like principals. They make us anxious. We prefer rules. Rules are much safer.

So, ethics boards, at least therapy ethics boards come up with rules like, "No dual relationships." This means that I'm not supposed to be a therapist for, say, my proctologist. The fear is that I, as a therapist, MIGHT be tempted to parlay my special relationship with this good doctor into a FREE PROCTOLOGY EXAM!

Now, there's no doubt that clinicians have fallen prey to such temptations. I suspect that its been more common for a clinician to get an extra good deal from a client who is a car salesman that from said medical expert, but you get my point.

Well, this sort of stuff makes ethics boards anxious, and so rules are produced... like...

• Since there are a few idiotic and unethical clinicians among us who abuse client relationships, we're going to decide that all of you don't have enough sense to use good judgement.

Because I DO happen to be a reactive, narcsissitic maverick who tends to think that rules are for everyone else, I figure I need to see if there is hard research other there that actually speaks to the validity of the sort of ethics dictums that are common. I've done some initial research on my own. I can't find anything.

So, if you know of research - good scientific method type research - related to these concerns, would you please make note of that in the comments section?

Redemptive Confrontation

Two friends have "confronted" me concerning something I had written that they both found troubling and offensive. They each took the risk of being very direct and honest with me about it. In considering what they had to say, I had to conclude they were right.

I draw attention to it here because it seems so rare that people are willing to express love in this way. So often we use the excuse of not wanting to offend to justify a lack of full honesty. When we do so, we put a lid on the potential for that relationship.

Of course, sometimes I have been confronted over an issue, and I've disagreed with the person's point of view. This situation challenges the relationship in an additional way, but also offers an additional avenue to intimacy. At times like that, I try to say something like, "I'm so grateful that you've brought this up with me, but, if I'm honest, I've got to say that I think you are wrong on this one. But I also want to make sure I'm understanding you right..."

Redemptive confrontation can be so hard to develop, but its one of the best ways to assess who your best friends are, or determine the health of your marriage. Any relationshp that can handle RD, is a good relationship.

And to the friends who spawned these thoughts.... Thank you again.

A few resources that might interest you...

The Precarious Present is a fascinating article on trauma by Dr. Robert Scaer MoodGYM is a free online program to help persons address depression and anxiety by identifying and changing negative thinking patterns. MoodGym is based on the priciples of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Unconditional Love is an episode of This American Life. The bi-line for this program is: "Stories of unconditional love between parents and children, and how hard love can sometimes be in daily practice"