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June 3 - July 8, 2017
intimacy means that we can be who we are in a relationship, and allow the other person to do the same. “Being who we are” requires that we can talk openly about things that are important to us, that we take a clear position on where we stand on important emotional issues, and that we clarify the limits of what is acceptable and tolerable to us in a relationship.
we can stay emotionally connected to that other party who thinks, feels, and believes differently, without needing to change, convince, or fix the other.
Substantive change in important relationships rarely comes about through intense confrontation. Rather, it more frequently results from careful thinking and from planning for small, manageable moves based on a solid understanding of the problem, including our own part in it.
changing any relationship problem rests directly on our ability to work on bringing more of a self to that relationship. Without a clear, whole, and separate “I,” relationships do become overly intense, overly distant, or alternate between the two. We want closeness, but we become ineffective and fuzzy agents of change, moving in this week with angry complaints and distancing next week with cold withdrawal—none of which leads to anything new. Without a clear “I” we become overly reactive to what the other person is doing to us, or not doing for us—and we end up feeling helpless and powerless
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for their own sake, and for the most complex variety of unconscious reasons. Throughout our lives, we learn that the survival of our relationships, and the very integrity of our family, depend on our being this way or that. We, too, unwittingly communicate such messages to others.
If the cost of change is high, what is the cost for Jo-Anne of not changing—of continuing in this same pattern over the next ten years? What adjectives might you use to describe Jo-Anne’s personality or character?
nonchange are often clearly apparent. For Jo-Anne, these costs may include chronic anger and bitterness, feelings of depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, or even self-hatred. They may include sexual or work inhibitions, physical complaints, or any other symptom in the book. We do know there is a price we pay when we betray and sacrifice the self, when too much of the self becomes negotiable under relationship pressures.
We move up on the selfhood scale (and the intimacy scale, for that matter) when we are able to: present a balanced picture of both our strengths and our vulnerabilities. make clear statements of our beliefs, values, and priorities, and then keep our behavior congruent with these. stay emotionally connected to significant others even when things get pretty intense. address difficult and painful issues and take a position on matters important to us. state our differences and allow others to do the same.
focusing on a relationship at the expense of one’s own goals and life plan overloads that relationship. The best way Susan could work on her relationship with David was to work on her own self. This kind of self-focus is a good rule of thumb for all of us.
“Instead of driving up next weekend,” Susan said, “I’m going to stay at home and get some work done.” For the first time in a while, Susan became the spokesperson for more distance, not in an angry, reactive manner but rather as a calm move for self. Indeed, when Susan began to pay more attention to her work, she became quite anxious about how she had neglected it.
As a first step, Gwenna talked with Greg about their relationship, calmly initiating the conversation in a low-keyed fashion. She shared her perspective on both the strengths and weaknesses of their relationship and what her hopes were for their future. She asked Greg to do the same. Unlike earlier conversations, this one was conducted without her pursuing him, pressuring him, or diagnosing his problems with women. At the same time, she asked Greg some clear questions, which exposed his own vagueness.
During the waiting period, Gwenna was able to not pursue him and not get distant or otherwise reactive to his expressions of ambivalence and doubt.
Paradoxically, couples become less able to achieve intimacy as they stay focused on it and give it their primary attention. Real closeness occurs most reliably not when it is pursued or demanded in a relationship, but when both individuals work consistently on their own selves.
When we are not paying enough attention to how we are connecting with our own family, we will be overreactive to our in-laws—or to how our spouse is conducting his family business.
we become overfocused on the incompetence of the other and underfocused on the incompetence of the self. We are unable to see more than one side of an issue, to generate new options, and to observe and change our own part in a relationship pattern that is keeping us stuck.
Our reactivity may take the form of a migraine headache or an attack of diarrhea on the first or last day of every visit home.
First, differences per se are rarely “the problem” in relationships; the problem is instead our reactivity to differences.
Toning down our reactivity is perhaps the most crucial and difficult step toward removing barriers to intimacy or toward solving any human problem.
start thinking about differences in her marriage rather than just reacting to them.
Those who come by overfunctioning most naturally are often (although by no means always) firstborns or only children.
Because overfunctioners “look good” (like my sister “sailing through” at the time of my mother’s cancer diagnosis), their needs and problems are often overlooked, even by themselves.
We may even be convinced that the other party cannot survive without our help (“My sister wouldn’t eat if I didn’t buy her groceries”).
Finally, it is emotionally painful to modify a chronic overfunctioning pattern. As we will see, it may evoke strong feelings of depression, anxiety, and anger as our own vulnerabilities and needs come rushing to the surface—and who needs that! It’s understandably hard to tolerate short-term pain, even for the promise of a more whole and grounded self later on.
perhaps the most difficult aspect of modifying an overfunctioning pattern is to share our vulnerability with the underfunctioning person and to relate to that person’s competence.
Learning how not to be helpful is an especially difficult challenge for those of us who move in quickly to fix the problems of other family members or to rescue those in distress.
The change on Anita’s part was not just a strategic shift into “I” language. It came from a deeper place, from a growing recognition that we cannot know for sure what is best for another person—what they can and cannot tolerate, what they need to do, when, and why. Surely it is difficult enough to know this for one’s own self.
If a topic feels too hot to handle, we may opt for silence at the expense of authentic connectedness—or we may feel we have to make a choice between having a relationship and being a self.
What’s a daughter to do about a mother? When she’s the apple of her mother’s eye? Does she make her mother squirm By exposing the worm? Or does she help her mother deny? “The Daughter’s Song”
Sometimes, however, our failure to share something—or ask something—greatly impairs our experience of self, our sense of esteem and worth, and our ability to be intimate with significant others.
Kimberly was able to calmly invite her mother to share her reactions (“Mom, what is the hardest thing for you about my being gay?”) and to hear her out over time without becoming critical or defensive.
At the risk of stating the obvious, I might add that learning to say “I’m sorry” goes a long way toward lowering intensity and shifting a pattern in any relationship.
You don’t have to be lesbian to appreciate that the costs of coming out can be very high. On the other hand, the cost of “staying in” may be no less dear, simply less obvious.
Linda was occasionally anxiously preoccupied with the subject, and like a true big sister she had prescribed everything from exercise and medication to psychoanalysis. But the lines of communication were not really open. When I asked Linda how serious her sister had ever been about suicide (Had Claire ever made a plan?), Linda was not sure. Nor did she know what Claire’s own perspective was on her depression, what efforts she had made to solve it, and what she had found helpful or not.
with our first family about who we are, what we believe, and where we stand on important issues will strongly influence the level of “independence” or emotional maturity that we bring to other relationships.
two separate people who understandably have two different views of the world. Failure to appreciate this blocks real intimacy, which requires a profound respect for differences. We have seen how vulnerable we all are to confusing closeness with sameness and behaving as if we should share a common brain or heart with the other person.
When an important relationship is stuck, we become powerful and courageous agents of change by making a new move in a low-key way, by taking a new position with humor and a bit of teasing, by making our point in a paragraph or two rather than in a long treatise.
But you can’t initiate a courageous act of change because the other person will love you for it. The other person may not love you for it, at least not in the short run and possibly never.
If we are truly convinced that we cannot live without our husband’s support, our mother’s inheritance, our current job, or the room in our parents’ basement, our own bottom-line position may be “togetherness at any cost.” We may not articulate this bottom line or even be conscious of it, but in such circumstances we may find it impossible to initiate and sustain courageous acts of change.
Paradoxically, we cannot navigate clearly within a relationship unless we can live without it.
