Emotional Gridlock

 

Hahahaha!  I laughed out loud when reading chapter 4 of Schnarch’s Passionate Marriage.  He spends a lot of time setting up the interplay of other-validation v self-validation, self-presentation v self-disclosure and fusion v differentiation.  Basically, Schnarch describes a process that begins during courtship when we are poorly differentiated and seek emotional fusion.  We then seek validation from others (our date/perspective partner) and get all fused up.  Once we get emotionally fused we discover that many things we might otherwise do, say or feel make our partners anxious which makes us anxious.  And often when we seek validation it sometimes forces the other person into saying what you want to hear instead of how they truly feel thus creating this sense of self-betrayal.  So we end up presenting something from almost the outset that violates our own integrity instead of real disclosure.  Sometimes we disclose in the hope that the other person will validate us in addition to disclosing something about themselves.  Often, neither happens which frustrates us.  The icing on the cake is when our past disclosures become ammunition during heated fights!  We become walking wounded, and pretty soon a stony, icy silence sets in.  Total emotional gridlock.

 

This, according to Scnarch, is the perfect and most fertile place for true intimacy to blossom!  Hahahaha!

 

No, I’m not kidding.  Emotional gridlock happens when we run out of accommodations, we are tired of the mask, and we refuse to violate our integrity anymore.  Basically we have run out of patience and tricks and now must choose to confront ourselves because we are not making any headway with changing our partner.  Ain’t that a hoot?!?  According to Schnarch, I’m on the verge of some real electric sex, here!

 

In this section of the book, Schnarch just doesn’t confront contemporary psychology and marital counseling; he stands it on its head.  It’s not a problem of communication as emotional gridlock can only happen when the communication is really happening.  Otherwise one partner would still be blathering on and trying to attack the stone wall.  But when both partners know the score (I’m not changing and I’m sick of trying to change you!) and silence ensues progress can be made.  It looks like “falling out of love” but we are truly incapable of love “until the honeymoon is over and gridlock arrives.”(p.119)  

 

What finally made me put the book down and begin writing this was a statement Schnarch made about self-confrontation.  Basically when we are finished confronting our partner in an effort to either mold and shape them or seek validation from them (it ain’t coming) then we have to deal with who we are.  We have to differentiate.  “Only when we confront our own essence do we become more tolerant and accepting of everyone else, including your partner.”

 

It’s taking the plank out of our own eye before deciding to remove the speck in someone else’s.

 

So marriage and emotional gridlock and anxiety and tension and trying for intimacy and not getting it and being all angry and frustrated are all just steps up that staircase to a new level of growth. 

 

Arwyn and I are definitely in that whole frozen tundra area of emotional gridlock.  That blow up of the last entry which took place over a month ago is almost a last gasp of confrontation in trying to get her to move.  And she is not budging.   Talking more is not going to get us anywhere, and I can see that now.  More confrontation isn’t going to work at the moment, until I know I can handle where ever it ends up going.  I’ve accommodated way past my comfort zone.  At least reading Schnarch’s take on icy conditions around here makes me feel better about it!

 

But I still have questions here.  Schnarch does a swell job of incorporating emotional and spiritual intimacy into the whole sexual arena.  But I still wonder about the concept of attraction here.  I guess I’ve had people tell me I look good since dropping the fat and I feel better about it.  But how in the world would I expect her to ever light up physically if she’s just not attracted to me in that way?  Yeah, yeah, sex has a lot more going on in terms of intimate connection but a body has to get naked and in the sack at some point, right?

 

I feel like I just took a step backward right there.  Oh well.  I’ll keep reading and writing as the mood hits.  This particular subject also has some implications as far as our other discussion at Unsolicited Advice, but I’ll get to that later.

 

D.

Merry Christmas!

I have the pleasure of teaching the Sunday before Christmas and the Sunday before New Years.  I wonder if anyone will show up.

 

The format will be extremely informal.  I just want to know where everyone is, spiritually speaking.  Are there challenges with the Christmas season that are unique?  What are they?  Why are they more challenging now than other times during the year?

 

What are you most looking forward to this season?  Maybe the holidays being over?

 

“After the holidays” is something that is heard a lot more this time of year.  People put off things until after the holidays.  They put off weight loss, starting a new habit or breaking an old one.  Conducting business this time of year can be a challenge.  Everything from construction projects to just getting in to see the doctor.  Try traveling by air for a good time.  It is difficult to get anything done’

 

In our church group we are every bit as much caught in the web.  Family night supper…not until after the holidays.  Choir practice…after the holidays.  Church office….closed for the holidays.

 

All in the name of celebrating the birth of Jesus.  But when Jesus was born, people still were living their daily lives.  They were in the midst of being counted for a tax declared by Caesar Augustus. They were tending vineyards and flocks, fishing, making and dying clothe, trading, bartering and selling.  

 

We talk all during the season of lent about anticipating the coming of the baby Jesus.  It’s an odd thing to talk about this.  Wasn’t he already born?  Why do we look forward to the birth of the baby all over again?  Why do we insist on putting Jesus back in the manger every year?

 

It is a good time of year to celebrate the coming of Christ.  We commemorate this event because it is when God came to live among us.  God loved the world so much the He came here to be one of us.  Why?  It wasn’t to bring some more laws and commandments.  He already sent Moses and the prophets for that.  It was not to set up an institution.  The Jews had a fine institution with a temple, synagogues, priests and other leaders to judge and interpret the law.  The scribes and Pharisees carefully preserved the laws and traditions during the exile and during various occupations and persecutions.

 

God did not need to come to Earth in order to set up a religion or a religious government.  There were already elders, priests, teachers of the law and civil authorities in place.  In fact, the Roman Empire afforded unprecedented opportunities in civil government, leadership and  peace and security.  There had already been prophets, judges and kings. 

 

The institutions and laws set up by God were not going to suffice.  God has a bigger plan which He had from the beginning.  God wanted His creation to be able to walk with Him as Adam did in the Garden of Eden.  People needed God but God wanted a people who would know Him.  A people who cared about knowing Him.  The only way to restore that relationship was to deal with the problem of sin which ruined that relationship in the first place.  That relationship can only be restored by somehow dealing with sin.  Jesus, God with Us, was the only solution that would do.

 

All the hoopla is about God being in relationship with us and us being in relationship with Him and each other.   It is about restoring a relationship broken by sin.  Without relationship, Christmas makes no sense.  It’s no accident that many broken relationships are often restored this time of year.  People who don’t speak to each other any other time of year seek to connect around Christmas.  Why?

 

I think it is because relationship is hard wired into our psyche.  We’re made in God’s image and God created humans especially to have relationship with Him and with each other.  Once relationship is broken (on account of sin) we are in a state of unrest until we can reconcile.  This time of year is about human relationship for most people but for God it is Him reconciling people to Himself.  And it all began with the baby in the manger.  It is all difficult to understand unless we consider how we feel about our own broken relationships.  In order to truly reconcile we need to physically connect and touch.  And that’s what God did.  He reached His hand out to us.  Will we reach back?  Will we return the embrace?  God leaves that entirely up to us, but He’s there whenever we decide to show up in the relationship. 

 

Through being in a human relationship where only one of us shows up at a time, I’ve come to understand how God feels when we do that to Him.  He understands rejection in the most intimate and personal way possible.  It happens to Him everyday on a massive, global scale.    

 

D.

[This morning the lesson went swimmingly well as the other folks really did bring their game on and we had some dandy discussion.  Even a few resolutions about getting along with hard-to-take relatives based on this lesson which I started out reading Matthew 1:12-25 (I think) focusing on "God with us" and what it means.]