It’s long, but worth reading! LOL!
Last week, the spiritual realms intervened in my life again in a very obvious way!
I was traveling to Melbourne and on the way to the airport Ken and I had a largish fight! Ok…BIG fight!
Feeling miserable, I boarded the plane to find a friend of mine, and her brand new lover in the seat in front of me. The contrast of a brand new relationship full of love and adoration and what I had just left was a great lesson!
On top of that, I arrived in my hotel room and while unpacking, a paper that had been sitting in my bag for a couple of months suddenly ‘appeared’! I had forgotten it was in there and somehow it just seemed to be at the top of my bag!
It was an article from Psychology Today, here is the link -http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200512/lust-the-long-haul
Great title huh? “Lust for the Long Haul!” Anyway, it’s brilliant and I had shown it to Ken some months earlier and it was obviously not the right time!!
However when I read it again, I took the risk of sending it to him and this time it really struck home for both of us.
Essentially, the article talks about the myth of romantic marriage as many articles do, but with a twist I had not seen before. One that resonated deeply with me.
It quotes the work of a psychologist David Schnarch, a renowned marriage and sex therapist who says “Sex is inherently based on intimacy. The problem is that most people have a very misguided idea of what intimacy means”.
I laughed as he points out the version of ‘true love’ as portrayed by Tom Cruise in the film Jerry McGuire as he looks at Renee Zellweger and says profoundly ‘you complete me”.
Now I bet most people either gagged at this line or secretly wished their partner looked at them and said it! LOL!
Wisely, Schnarch points out that while it sounds good, and might be true for a short time, it really is not true.
It reminded me of what I discovered while writing my book on joy, that when we ‘fall’ in love with another, in those early days it’s so wonderful because we actually fall in love with ourselves! It was demonstrated by my friends on the plane, they were at the ‘you complete me’ phase! And having a wonderful time.
They were both mature enough though to realize it was a golden phase they are in and, having both been married before and aware of the traps of expecting the other to ‘complete you’!
It ain’t ever going to happen! NO one else can complete you! Only you can do that. And that’s what marriage or partnership is about. YOU growing and developing and as Schnarch says, growing up and being an adult!
He says that when ‘sex isn’t what it used to be, it’s the beginning of the real purpose of marriage, forcing us to figure out who we are as individuals’.
My own experience has proven this to be true!
We have been married for seven years and have both learned enormous amounts about ourselves, and not much of it easy! We have had to recognize qualities and habits and patterns of neediness, over caring, now feeling worthy of love, projecting our junk onto each other, blaming and basically accepting each other as different people!
With different ideas and beliefs and opinions. And we are learning to stop looking to each other for validation, but rather believing in ourselves and loving ourselves first, so then we can feely love another FOR WHO THEY ACTUALLY ARE and not who we would like them to be!!
John Gottman the great marriage researcher says that the paradox in marriage is that our partners change when we accept them for who they are.
Interestingly most people don’t know who they are!! We don’t delve deeply and sort out who we really are from what others have told us we are, or the defended selves we have created for protection or the artificial version we have created to prove we are worthy to others!
Marriage or partnership gives us that chance and when sex is not what it used to be, it’s probably not that you don’t love each other, it’s more likely to be the beginning of that journey to finding yourself.
I remember on a speaking tour with John Gray he talked about the ‘trash can’ theory. He suggests as we go through life, we have an inner trash can into which we stuff all the hurts and pain and fears that happen to us in life. We work hard to keep the lid on that trash can so we never have to look inside and deal with that stuff.
When we are in love and feel safe, after some time, we unconsciously think, oh good, I can take the lid off the trash can and deal with some of this!
And whoosh! Out comes all this garbage that we spew out over our partner! LOL! Have you ever done this?! I have! We see all these ‘problems’ in them and blame them and we turn into hideous humans incapable of grasping that it is us, and out garbage - we are dealing with!!
Some other quotes I loved from Schnarch were “ Real intimacy requires a kind of openness, honestly and self respect most of us aren’t used to”
“Ultimately you get through the gridlock in marriage to a place of more honest self disclosure where the focus is on being known rather than being validated.” I wanted to add to that, it’s the trigger for self awareness and personal and spiritual growth and development.
In my marriage, the big AH HA moment came for me when I realized that despite my total lack of memory of my childhood, other than I was loved by my Mum, something had happened that was stuffed into my trash can that made me feel I was not worth loving!
I have no idea what it was, but I discovered that deep inside, it’s how I felt and it influenced a whole lot of behaviors with my long suffering husband! This showed up in behaviors like overcaring for others; taking responsibility for everyone and trying to fix everything for everyone! I gave away all my energy to others. It went hand in hand with an inability to feel, let alone take care of my own feelings or energy levels!
He, in turn, has come to realize his lack of self worth from whatever happened to him as a child; his need for validation from me which appeared as neediness, and looking to me to sooth him when he felt anxious. In fact, if you read the article, you will see that Schnarch’s example of ‘Jack and Tammy’ was pretty close to my situation with Ken!
We had reached the place Jack and Tammy had reached, where we needed to “take a step back and change how we individually dealt with our own emotions rather than leaning on, and resenting, each other.”
Many of us spend so much time blaming our partner for not meeting our needs.
Whose job is it really to meet your needs? YOURS!!!
It’s a hard lesson becuase no one else can do it.
I have to learn to love myself before I can really love another. I have to learn how to take better care of myself and to work out who I really am. And to take responsibility for my life and how it is, and see that it’s all about ME, not what someone else is doing or not doing!
Ken has to learn the same things!
As the article says, we both have “to learn to take responsibility for our own emotions and learn to feel good about ourselves without requiring someone else’s praise and compliments.” And that ‘’it’s not your partners job to sooth you, it’s yours!”
“The issue is no longer about what your partner does or does not do. You can accept that they like all people have their own limitations and failing, Instead the focus shifts to you and whether you are being a grown up, or not!”
So here is my gift to you, this wonderful article, and a challenge!
Find out who you really are. Find out what your needs are and work out how YOU can meet them. Find out who your partner REALLY is and respect them for that. Accept there are differences. Honor them! Understand and take responsibility for your own emotions. Find out how to sooth yourself and make yourself feel good.
See the spiritual gift your partner is giving you, the chance to learn to know and love yourself, at last!
Go and give them a big hug now and thank them for this opportunity.
It won’t be the easiest journey in your life, but it’s the most valuable.
Learning to love yourself and feeling worthy of being loved is the greatest gift you can give your children, and yourself, and your partner.
If you model this, children learn it.
I am off to give Ken a gratitude hug!
PS: Another friend of mine who is a relationship psychologist tells me that every man, EVERY man who comes into her practice is convinced that every other man on the planet is having more sex than he is!
When I said this at a conference recently one man called out what, twice a month? And his wife called out ‘are you having an affair’!!!
Fellas, the others are probably not having more than you, but if you embark on the journey outlined in this article, YOU might be having more than them! LOL!
Until next month!
