Intimacy & Desire: Awaken the Passion in Your Relationship (40 page)

Joe thought he needed to drag Sue into the growth cycle. But when he finally let go of Sue and concentrated on confronting and controlling himself, suddenly his efforts lined up with how relationships and people work. As this happened, Joe had better control of himself and more leverage in his marriage.

When one partner holds on to himself in an emotionally fused relationship, the other feels controlled. Joe’s controlling himself had an immediate impact on Sue. He was not only changing their relationship; he challenged her picture of reality. Moreover, when one partner starts to develop a solid flexible self, the options of the other shrink. They have just four alternatives: Dominate your partner, submit to your partner, withdraw (divorce or separate) from your partner, or grow.

You’re in the crucible when you realize there’s no way around your situation. The only solution lies in going
through
it. Some problems are not meant to be solved and forgotten.
Solutions to some problems only exist after we go through them, because our development is the solution
. In this way, marriage (and the marital bed) is the cradle of adult development.

Shortly thereafter, Joe and Sue had a pivotal interaction that brought things to a head. Sue said she was up for sex, but once they started, things quickly went wrong. Sue launched into a litany of
her
insecurities. Joe confronted himself and didn’t give in to
his
own insecurities. He didn’t back down and soothe Sue. She was shocked and tried to make him adapt to her. Joe managed not to fold.

In the following days Sue went into an agitated depression. She walked around the house ranting about abandonment and trashing Joe. She
compared him to her father, which she knew he wouldn’t like. Sue complained that both Joe and her father had abandoned her.

Maybe things wouldn’t have hit the breaking point if Sue had stopped there. But Joe was doing a pretty good job of holding on to himself. She wasn’t getting the response she typically got from him, and she needed it to quiet and calm herself down. So Sue decided to take a final emotional shot at Joe, and she wanted a knockout punch. She said,
“I’m giving up on this marriage. I’m getting a divorce!”

This was the first time Sue had done this. This was a desperate move, hoping Joe would get scared, back down, and reassure her. Neither she nor Joe anticipated that it crossed a line for him that he didn’t know he had. Joe became silent.

He waited a bit before he spoke. His voice was solemn. “Don’t ever tell me that again unless you’re on your way out the door!”

Finally, they had arrived at critical mass.

What does it takes to fundamentally change your relationship? How best to handle this? Growth generally occurs outside your comfort zone: Gridlock has to reach high intensity before someone does something productive. This point is known as
critical mass
.

Critical mass is the anxiety and pressure required to trigger fundamental change. Critical mass surfaces as an “uneasy quiet” rather than an emotional explosion. Volatile arguments stop. There are no threats, no screaming or yelling, no more ultimatums.

It’s hard to understand this at first, because people think critical mass involves the worst argument of your life.
Critical mass is not the worst argument you’ve ever had, but it is the most important
. Critical mass isn’t excoriating each other in brutal “honesty telling” and blood-letting. Critical mass doesn’t leave you both so wounded that you decide to kiss and make up and never to do that again.

Shouting, accusations, and threats stop when you reach critical mass,
because you sense you are on the verge of pivotal change. Self-preservation tells you this is not the time to do something stupid that will shape the rest of your life—like taunting or daring your partner.

All living entities (people, couples, families, organizations, and ecosystems) have a point of irrevocable change. Even as pressures for change mount, no fundamental change occurs short of this point. Then, like the proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back, a trigger event provides the catalyst. Core change can result in short order. (The world wide economic downturn is an immediate unfortunate example. Let us hope global warming is not another.)

You can have lots of things needling you to change yourself or change your relationship, and still you do nothing. But when the situation declines to the point you can’t ignore it anymore, then everything that has built up suddenly causes core change. Some couples reach critical mass over disclosure of an affair (but others don’t). For others it’s serious illness, or the death of a child, parent, or friend.

For Sue and Joe, it occurred when Sue threatened to leave the marriage. Joe was stung Sue would throw that at him, especially when he knew she wasn’t really thinking of leaving. How could she stoop that low to get him to back down? It triggered Joe’s memories of his parents mishandling similar points in their marriage.

Your emotional balance determines how much anxiety and pressure it takes for you to reach critical mass. The lower your Four Points of Balance, the more anxiety and pressure it will take to mobilize you. Well-differentiated couples can reach critical mass in sobering conversations about difficult topics pretty much as they arise. Poorly differentiated couples require an atomic bomb.

Very poorly differentiated couples have a narrow “window of opportunity” to resolve their issues: They don’t budge until the last moment, when pressure and anxiety are intense, and they can’t think straight or stay non-reactive. Unfortunately, the rules have been laid down through
millions of years of human evolution. The weaker your Four Points of Balance, the higher the level needed for critical mass.

We touched on this earlier when we said the weaker your Four Points of Balance, the lower your level of integrity. However, when your integrity stands up and you can’t buy your own bullshit anymore, things happen. For lots of couples, things don’t have to get worse. All it takes is someone’s integrity finally standing up. That’s it. Suddenly, they’ve reached critical mass, because by this point they are already in over their heads.

You can’t fake getting to this point, because your partner’s radar is on full alert. Any inconsistencies tell him you’re just pretending. That’s why shouting, “I’ve had enough!” doesn’t always create critical mass. No words inherently create critical mass (not even “I’m having an affair”). Your partner has to map your mind and see you’re serious about not accepting the status quo.

Sue and Joe’s prior therapy hadn’t made a significant difference for them. Their prior therapist admonished them to compromise and negotiate, accept and forgive, and give in for the good of the relationship. They both tried to behave better, acting like they thought couples were supposed to. Joe spent time being understanding and sympathetic, and Sue made a few overtures for sex. But once sex started, it was the same old thing.

This never helped them reach an irrevocable point in their relationship from which there was no turning back. Instead, their therapy had focused on making Sue feel more secure with Joe, presuming this would lead her to feel desire and passion. Joe listened and waited until Sue felt like initiating—or, more accurately, until Sue signaled she wanted Joe to initiate. Unfortunately, Sue never got to that point, and when she didn’t, she blamed Joe for failing to make her feel secure enough. Not wanting to be blamed himself, the therapist sided with Sue. Your therapist’s Four Points of Balance set the upper limits of his or her ability to help you.

Whether you’re the HDP or the LDP, here are some suggestions for when you’re approaching critical mass. These suggestions have different applications depending on which role you’re in.

•
How you go through critical mass determines how you come out
. Your best bet is holding on to your Four Points of Balance (Solid Flexible Self, Quiet Mind–Calm Heart, Grounded Responding, Meaningful Endurance). Going through gridlock face-forward, facing your anxiety, will give you the best outcome. (Being dragged through gridlock gives you little gain for your pain.)

•
Quicker is better
. You don’t want to bog down in the middle. The MFHC Intensive Therapy Program and Passionate Marriage® Couples Retreats help couples reach critical mass and get through gridlock as rapidly as possible in a productive manner. Acceleration and momentum are important.

•
Forget about your partner being there for you
. Partners are often a major source of anxiety, rather than a source of security. This is especially true when things reach critical mass. When this happens, your best move always involves maintaining your integrity, calling on your resilience, and operating from the best in you. In other words, being there for yourself.

•
Stop thinking marriage can’t work when only one partner wants to grow
. Marriages and families cannot function effectively solely by consensus. I’ve said all along that relationship stability is maintained unilaterally. So is change.

•
Don’t grab the high ground (and don’t give it to your partner)
. When things reach critical mass, there’s no point in claiming to be the “real victim” or trying to grab the high ground. And if your partner (or you) can still get away with either one, you haven’t reached critical mass yet.

•
Stop trying to change your partner
. Let marriage pressure your partner instead of you trying to do it directly.

•
Confront your self
. Self-confrontation keeps you from believing
your own nonsense and allows you to learn from your mistakes. The Four Points of Balance enable you to stand up to yourself! Instead of becoming defiant when you partner confronts you, things get
really
serious when you allow this to happen and you confront yourself.

•
Don’t give your partner ultimatums or threats
. And don’t let your partner back you into thinking you’re giving one. When you issue an ultimatum, the only person it is binding for is you.

Why do things have to reach critical mass? According to William Brietbart, psychiatrist and psycho-oncologist at Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, “If life is always smooth, we’re never challenged. Suffering is probably necessary to make us grow. The need to find meaning is a primary force, but we may need to be confronted with our own mortality for that to occur.”
¹³⁹

Cancer survivors, for instance, often use going through this crucible experience to reconstruct their lives. They don’t return to their prior level of functioning, they go on to greater levels. According to one scientist who is also a cancer survivor, “Post-traumatic growth is above and beyond resilience. Life after cancer means finding a new normal, but for many the new normal is better than then old normal.” The Office of Cancer Survivorship at the National Cancer Institute cites altered and enhanced relationships as one example.
¹⁴⁰
Research indicates cancer survivors frequently come out of their crucible demonstrating the characteristics of increased Four Points of Balance: bravery, curiosity, fairness, forgiveness, gratitude, humor, kindness, and an enhanced sense of meaning.

Cancer survivors survive, in part, because they develop Meaningful Endurance. Meaningful Endurance can save your marriage and your life. It’s about having hope when things don’t look good. Meaningful Endurance is a sense of possibility, based on facing reality and accepting inherent risks, and being willing to work things out as best you can. According to one study, hope increases your chances of surviving
cancer. It’s not just a matter of faith. When you have hope you take action.
¹⁴¹

So what’s it like to reach critical mass? People who avoid things feel some measure of panic. But once they take the leap of faith they experience peace: Clients describe it like being inside the eye of a hurricane. They see the chaos of their lives from a quiet place and begin to understand it.

Joe finally looked at how he perpetually deferred to Sue’s anxieties. Actually, to his own anxieties, really. He realized how his own insecurities made him adapt to Sue in ways he didn’t respect. Against the backdrop of his life history, his actions took on the larger meaning needed to trigger his integrity. Would he always live within her limitations? Would he let her dominate their marriage by escalating beyond his comfort level? These soul-searching questions increased his resolve to deal with this.

“Eye of the hurricane” experiences happen when you take a leap of faith. But if your partner won’t make the leap, it’s not like that for her. You stepping up to daunting personal challenges puts your partner squarely
in
the hurricane, in which case she’s probably anything but serene. Seemingly out of nowhere she’s confronted with issues she’s successfully avoided for years.

For Sue, this meant believing she could function at a higher level. Believing she could stop crippling herself and those she loved through her steadfast unwillingness to endure discomfort for growth. Believing she could be different than her mother. This, in turn, meant growing in places she had previously cauterized. It hurts to perpetually want and hope your parents are going to change.

I talked to Sue about using the people around her. She was borrowing function from her husband and her children, restricting their lives and suppressing their functioning. I noted how her pattern was similar to her mother. Sue tried to deflect this. It took a while for her to settle down and take a leap of faith.