Love the One Your With (for life)
How satisfied are you in your marriage? That is a loaded question for many couples. One of the marital satisfaction assessments I use with couples I see for counseling a very pointed question is asked: "Would you marry the same person again?" Obviously a "No" answer is an indication of just how difficult saving this marriage will be. There has been so much pain, difficulty, and disconnection in the relationship that the person cannot imagine going through that experience again. They believe they made a mistake and married the wrong person.
In our society there is still a strong expectation that we are to marry for life. Even though this expectation appears to be weakening most marriage vows include something like "till death do us part". We are making an incredible commitment and many of us fail to keep it with divorce likely for 43-46 percent in the first 15 years of marriage. It is interesting that the divorce rate has come down from a high of 53 percent in 1979. I do not believe we are getting better at relationships, especially long term committed ones. I believe some of that decline is due to more people choosing not to marry. In fact, 59% of the population is married, down from 62% in 1990 and 72% in 1970 (http://www.divorcemag.com/statistics/statsus.shtml). There is an apparent trend that marriage as an expected rite of passage of adult life is losing momentum.
Maybe one of the reasons for the decline in the number of marriages is due to fear of failing. Individuals who have observed their own family's failure to stay together may want to avoid the pain and trauma of divorce. Of course that assumes that "getting married" has anything to do with relationship pain and trauma. When any involved and "committed" (whether for life or not) relationship breaks up, there is pain and trauma. Just remember, or ask your teenager, what it was like to break up with someone in high school.
It is obvious to anyone who has been in a committed relationship that we are designed for relationships to last. Why else would it be so painful when we lose a relationship if we were not made for lasting attachments to one another? We can even think of ourselves as an "attaching species". Think about it: we become a part of, attached to many things like organizations, communities, teams, churches, etc. Something about our identity is in whatever or whomever we join. It is possible to even think of addictions as attachment disorders. We become overly attached to and engaged with substances and behaviors. We even become identified by the substance we are addicted to; "I am an alcoholic". Most, if not all addictions have roots in poor or dysfunctional parental attachments. A major component of any recovery program is finding a healing community of available and responsive people. That is part of the power of Alcoholics Anonymous.
If you happen to find yourself in a difficult relationship and you believe getting out of it will solve your problem, please think again. You will find something or someone else to attach to or become a part of that defines your identity and it may be worse than what you already have. Please consider working on your present relationship and learning how to make it work. We can learn to establish secure, safe and rewarding relationships; we are made to be in harmony with one another.
I regularly counsel couples whose marriages are struggling. It is something of a passion of mine to help preserve marriages. My marriage has lasted 19 years this week, May 14th. Notice how I say "lasted" as if it is supposed to not last. I should say I have been married 19 years. I never really think or wonder about my marriage not lasting. I know it will except death do us part. Obviously I have a wonderful wife and life mate who whole heartedly loves me. Many people think she must be a saint to love me as wholly as she does. I agree. I can be a difficult person to live with; but then so can we all.
Couples come into my office often voicing a similar sentiment of never concerning themselves with their marriage not lasting. And then something happens that threatens the relationship like an affair, or a sickness like depression or cancer, or some other event that weakens the marital bond. There are basically two kinds of marriage; those that have a secure bond and those that don't. Those with a secure bond can endure most anything life throws at them. Those with an insecure bond usually can't.
Dr. John Bowlby believes, and years of research and development of his theory of human attachment confirms, that we are biologically wired for a few intimate relationships. In other words, we are created to have close, secure, and safe relationships with a few individuals or "significant others". It is the way things are supposed to be, and it is exactly what God did as described in the creation account of Genesis. Something in us is wired to expect someone to be there for us and with us. As God says in Genesis, "it is not good for man to be alone." Attachment is a fundamental fact of life and we should expect our parents or other caregiver to be there for us and for our marriages to be "built to last".
There really are no surprises when significant human relationships go as designed. We develop a secure sense that we are important to someone else and they are important to us. Simply, someone is there for us who we can trust and depend upon and because of this we realize we are valuable. This helps us develop a secure sense of self and we come to "expect" that others will love us and we will love others. We have a fundamental confidence that relationships will work.
When Adam said to Eve: "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh", it is a statement reflecting the fundamental created oneness of man and woman. When a man and a woman are united and joined into a one flesh union as husband and wife it is a relationship that is 'built to last" because it is basic and fundamental to who we are. Just like we are made for living and breathing in an oxygenated environment so are we made to be together; vulnerable, naked and unashamed.
Please view your loved one without all their coverings of fear and defensiveness based on a lie that we are not acceptable and lovable just as we are.
Bones, Spock, and Captain Kirk
Any one of us knows the joy and pain of relationships. Of course this statement fits only if we are emotionally engaged with them. It is the "stuff" that makes relationships dynamic and vibrant. It is also the stuff that makes them painful and difficult.
What does it mean to be emotionally engaged and how do you tell if you are? Why is it so important that we be emotionally engaged or attached to our children or our spouse or our friends? What is the big deal about emotions anyway? Well, it turns out that emotion is central to how our brain works, especially with memory. In fact, everything we experience in life is being assessed by our amygdala, the so called center of the emotional brain, and it processes information before we even know it. Do you remember the last time you became emotional? Think about a recent emotional experience like becoming angry or sad. You were "into" the emotion before you had time to think. The emotion is just there, it is not something you make happen like when you figure something out with your "thinking brain" and put the plan into action.
Some individuals find it very difficult or even "alien" to experience intense emotions or they are very restricted in their emotional expression. It might be that the only emotion they experience is anger or fear. It is like their emotional brain is not as active or sensitive to emotional experience. If you have ever seen Star Trek episodes then you know of Spock and how "human emotions" are alien to him and his decisions are made solely by logic. Or, if you know someone who has experienced a stroke their emotional expression is different. For some stroke victims there is no emotion associated with anything. They are extremely flat and unresponsive and very difficult to connect with. We need emotional expression to connect with one another.
Another character in Star Trek is the contrast to Spock; it is Bones, the passionate and emotional physician who is constantly frustrated with Spock's cold logic. Bones is emotional about practically everything especially when it involves relationships. He is always accusing Spock of not "caring" because he believes Spock's decisions and actions are unaffected by what happens to others. And of course Bones' actions are almost always effected by how it affects others and he places a premium in his decision making on what it will mean to someone else. Sometimes this clouds his judgment.
And then there is Captain Kirk. He is the balance point to both Spock and Bones. Where they are metaphorical extremes, he is the metaphorical center point, making decisions considerate of both emotion and logic. Captain Kirk is the model of how our brain is supposed to work. He is passionate and emotionally engaged with his crew and friends but able to make the "tough" decisions when necessary. He is able to engage both his "emotional brain" and his "thinking brain". One does not dominate the other and his decisions are better, more likely to be the right one because he is using his whole brain to make the call.
Which character do you identify with? Consider your important, significant relationships and assess if you are more of a Spock or a Bones. Maybe Captain Kirk describes you. More likely, we find that we can be all three depending on the circumstance. Try and observe in what situations you are more likely to be emotionally engaged and calmly considering options like Captain Kirk. What circumstance brings out the "Bones" in you where emotional expression dominates? When are you primarily considering the facts regardless of its affect on others?
Work on becoming more aware of what circumstances and contexts bring out which Star Trek character. It is in those circumstances where a Bones or Spock dominates that we have growing to do. When Captain Kirk shows up, we have learned that we can both emotionally connect and thoughtfully consider options to make sound judgments.