Getting the Love You Want, 20th An. Ed. (13 page)
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Authors: Ph.D Harville Hendrix
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TO ONE DEGREE or another, most couples who are involved in a power struggle follow a similar pattern: they structure their lives in such a way that true intimacy is virtually impossible.
The way that they do this is often ingenious. By asking my clients a simple question, “What does your spouse do to avoid you?” I have come up with a list of over three hundred different answers. Here’s a fragment of that list. According to my informants, their mates were avoiding them by: “reading romance novels,” “disappearing into the garage,” “camping out on the phone,” “worshiping the car,” “spending too much time with the kids,” “being wedded to the computer,” “volunteering for every committee at church,” “spending too much time with the boat,” “spending time at her mom’s,” “having an affair,” “avoiding eye contact,” “memorizing every word of
The New York Times,
” “falling asleep on the couch,” “being a sports junkie,” “coming home late for dinner,” “fantasizing while making love,” “being sick and tired all the time,” “not wanting to be touched,” “four Scotches a night,” “spending too many evenings at the Rotary,” “lying,” “refusing to make love,” “having sex but not making love,” “living on the tennis court,” “bulimia,” “jogging ten miles a day,” “going on weekend fishing trips,” “going shopping,” “having her own apartment,” “daydreaming,” “refusing to talk,” “smoking marijuana,” “playing video games until two in the morning,” “talking on the cell phone,” “working on the house all the time,” “masturbating,” “playing his guitar,” “keeping separate bank accounts,” “picking fights,” “reading magazines,” “doing crossword puzzles,” “refusing to get married,” and “going to bars.”
The way that they do this is often ingenious. By asking my clients a simple question, “What does your spouse do to avoid you?” I have come up with a list of over three hundred different answers. Here’s a fragment of that list. According to my informants, their mates were avoiding them by: “reading romance novels,” “disappearing into the garage,” “camping out on the phone,” “worshiping the car,” “spending too much time with the kids,” “being wedded to the computer,” “volunteering for every committee at church,” “spending too much time with the boat,” “spending time at her mom’s,” “having an affair,” “avoiding eye contact,” “memorizing every word of
The New York Times,
” “falling asleep on the couch,” “being a sports junkie,” “coming home late for dinner,” “fantasizing while making love,” “being sick and tired all the time,” “not wanting to be touched,” “four Scotches a night,” “spending too many evenings at the Rotary,” “lying,” “refusing to make love,” “having sex but not making love,” “living on the tennis court,” “bulimia,” “jogging ten miles a day,” “going on weekend fishing trips,” “going shopping,” “having her own apartment,” “daydreaming,” “refusing to talk,” “smoking marijuana,” “playing video games until two in the morning,” “talking on the cell phone,” “working on the house all the time,” “masturbating,” “playing his guitar,” “keeping separate bank accounts,” “picking fights,” “reading magazines,” “doing crossword puzzles,” “refusing to get married,” and “going to bars.”
The fact that so many couples perforate their relationships with exits raises an obvious question: why do men and women spend so much time avoiding intimacy? There are two very good reasons: anger and fear. Why the anger? In the romantic stage of a relationship, people find it relatively easy to be intimate, because they are filled with the anticipation of wish fulfillment. Their partners seem to be Mommy and Daddy, doctor and therapist all rolled into one. Months or years later, when they come to the realization that their partners are committed to their own salvation, not theirs, they feel betrayed. A tacit
agreement has been broken. In retaliation they erect an emotional barricade. In effect, they are saying, “I am angry at you for not meeting my needs.” Then they begin systematically to seek pleasure and satisfaction outside the relationship. Like a cow in a pen stretching its neck over a fence to graze on green grass, they look elsewhere for gratification. The husband who stays late at the office even when he has finished the day’s work, the wife who spends the entire evening reading to the children while her husband watches TV—both of these individuals are trying to find pleasure that is missing from their relationships.
agreement has been broken. In retaliation they erect an emotional barricade. In effect, they are saying, “I am angry at you for not meeting my needs.” Then they begin systematically to seek pleasure and satisfaction outside the relationship. Like a cow in a pen stretching its neck over a fence to graze on green grass, they look elsewhere for gratification. The husband who stays late at the office even when he has finished the day’s work, the wife who spends the entire evening reading to the children while her husband watches TV—both of these individuals are trying to find pleasure that is missing from their relationships.
The other reason couples avoid intimacy is fear, specifically the fear of emotional pain that might replicate what they experienced in childhood. On an unconscious level, many people react to their partners as if they were enemies. Any person—whether parent or partner or next-door neighbor—who is perceived by the old brain to be a source of need gratification and then appears to be withholding that gratification is cataloged by the old brain as a source of pain, and pain raises the specter of death. If your partner does not nurture you and attend to your fundamental needs, a part of you fears that you will die, and it believes that your partner is the one who is allowing this to happen. When a basic lack of nurturing is coupled with an onslaught of verbal and in some cases physical abuse, the partner becomes an even more potent enemy. The unconscious reason some people avoid their partners, therefore, is not that they’re looking for greener pastures, but that they are fleeing death. The appropriate image in this case is not the bucolic scene of a cow foraging for food, but that of a terrified lamb running away from a lion.
In most cases the fear of the partner is unconscious. All that couples are aware of is a mild feeling of anxiety around each other and a desire to be with other people or to be involved in other activities. Occasionally the fear is closer to the surface. One client told me that the only time she felt truly safe around her husband was when the two of them were in my office. He
had never physically abused her, but their relationship was so filled with conflict that a part of her felt that her life was in danger.
had never physically abused her, but their relationship was so filled with conflict that a part of her felt that her life was in danger.
WHAT DO I mean by “exits” and why is it important to limit them? Basically, exits are a way to act out our feelings rather than put them into words. As an example, it’s easier to stay late at work than to tell your partner that you feel unhappy every time you walk in the front door. You have an understandable reason for staying away—you don’t want to feel depressed. Also, it would take a tremendous amount of courage to tell your partner how you really feel about being together. It is far simpler to stay late at work and avoid all the pain and the drama.
But in order to have a satisfying love relationship, both partners need to draw their energy back into the relationship. First of all, it is very difficult to identify what is wrong in a relationship if the participants keep themselves distant and distracted. Even more important, two intimate partners cannot reconnect with each other until they are physically and emotionally available.
To help couples overcome their resistance to narrowing their exits, I rely on the principle known as “graduated change.”
2
You’ve probably discovered this principle in your own life. It is easier to tackle a difficult project if you divide it into small, manageable tasks. You can then rank the tasks in order of difficulty and attack the easy ones first. Graduated change makes the entire project seem more manageable.
2
You’ve probably discovered this principle in your own life. It is easier to tackle a difficult project if you divide it into small, manageable tasks. You can then rank the tasks in order of difficulty and attack the easy ones first. Graduated change makes the entire project seem more manageable.
When you come to Part III, you will find complete instructions for making a commitment to first narrowing, then closing your exits, but I want to emphasize here that this is an ongoing process and not a one-time event. Bascially, it involves talking with your partner about your feelings rather than acting them out. Here is an overview of how it works:
Imagine two people who are trapped in an unsatisfying relationship. To make up for the emptiness, they have filled their lives with substitute pleasures. Let’s focus on the woman’s exits. In addition to the responsibilities involved in having a career and raising two children, she has an active social life, a position on the community board, a passion for physical fitness, two music lessons a week, and an addiction to science fiction novels. These activities help reduce her underlying feeling of despair, but they drain vital energy away from her love relationship.
If this woman were to decide to cut back on some of her activities, she would first have to determine which of her numerous involvements could properly be termed an “exit.” Like many people, she would probably find a degree of validity in virtually everything she did. When you do the commitment exercise in Part III, you may have this same initial confusion: what is an exit and what is an essential activity or a valid form of recreation? The way to find out is to ask yourself the following question: “Is one of the main reasons I’m doing this activity to avoid spending time with my partner?” Most people know whether or not this is the case. If the answer is “yes,” that makes the activity an exit, and a subject for a conversation with your partner.
Let’s suppose that this woman has asked herself this question and identified activities that she would be willing to curtail or eliminate. Next, she would rank them according to difficulty and choose the ones that would be easiest for her to give up. For example, she might decide it would be relatively easy to make two changes: jog three days a week instead of five, and read her novels on her lunch hour, not in the evenings, when she could be spending time with her husband. She might also decide that it would be difficult but not impossible for her to find someone to take over her position on the community board. Other changes would be even more difficult. If she were to go ahead and make the two easy changes, however, she
would liberate several additional hours a week to devote to her relationship. This would be a good place to start. Other changes, if necessary, could come later.
would liberate several additional hours a week to devote to her relationship. This would be a good place to start. Other changes, if necessary, could come later.
At the same time that this woman would be eliminating her exits, her husband would be going through a similar process. He, too, would be examining his activities, identifying his exits, asking for a conversation about those exits, and beginning a systematic program of reduction. As a result of this exercise, they would be spending significantly more time together.
As we have said, and it bears repeating, the commitment to closing an exit is not a specific event that occurs at a particular moment. It is a process that may take considerable time, sometimes several months. One reason it takes so long is that it requires a lot of soul searching for people to identify their own exits and the reasons behind them. Then it takes courage to discuss the exits with their partners. But, paradoxically, once the conversation takes place, the exits become much easier to narrow and eventually close. Talking openly about them creates a deeper sense of connection between the two individuals and reduces their need to stay isolated.
The best way for couples to talk about closing their exits is to ask for a dialogue. (See the Imago Dialogue
here
.) They could start by saying: “One way I act out in our relationship (rather than put my feelings into words) is (thinking about suicide a lot; or fantasizing while we are making love) …” “The reason I do this is because (I feel I will never get your attention; or you are passive when we are making love) …” And then continue to talk until all the feelings are expressed. Then the other partner does the same until both have put all their unexpressed feelings into words and asked for appropriate changes in behavior. When they do this on a regular basis, the need to act out diminishes and is replaced with deeper feelings of connection.
here
.) They could start by saying: “One way I act out in our relationship (rather than put my feelings into words) is (thinking about suicide a lot; or fantasizing while we are making love) …” “The reason I do this is because (I feel I will never get your attention; or you are passive when we are making love) …” And then continue to talk until all the feelings are expressed. Then the other partner does the same until both have put all their unexpressed feelings into words and asked for appropriate changes in behavior. When they do this on a regular basis, the need to act out diminishes and is replaced with deeper feelings of connection.
The reaction to this heightened interaction varies from couple to couple. Some couples enjoy the additional contact.
Others find that commitment to narrowing down and closing off their exits leaves them fewer avenues of escape from painful situations. Although this is not a pleasant outcome, they learn from the exercise nonetheless. They begin to understand why they’ve been avoiding each other, and this is an important first step in therapy.
Others find that commitment to narrowing down and closing off their exits leaves them fewer avenues of escape from painful situations. Although this is not a pleasant outcome, they learn from the exercise nonetheless. They begin to understand why they’ve been avoiding each other, and this is an important first step in therapy.
WHEN I LEAD couples through these series of commitments—an agreement to: (1) come to a minimum of twelve therapy sessions, (2) define their relationship vision, (3) stay together for a specified period of time, and (4) gradually commit to closing their exits—I let them know that all of these separate agreements ideally lead to a larger commitment: a decision to join together in a journey that will last the rest of their lives. Although this decision cannot be made at the beginning of therapy, I want couples to know that, in order to obtain maximum psychological and spiritual growth, they need to stay together not for three months or three years or even three decades, but for all of their remaining years. Childhood issues do not present themselves to be resolved in one tidy package. They come to the surface slowly, usually the more superficial ones first. Sometimes a problem has to present itself a number of times before it is even identified as a significant issue. And sometimes a psychological need is so deeply buried that it is only triggered by a crisis or the demands of a particular stage of life. Ultimately it takes a lifetime together for a couple to identify and heal the majority of their childhood wounds.
In a culture where serial monogamy is a way of life, the idea of a permanent commitment to one partner has a quaint, old-fashioned ring to it. The prevalent question of the 1950s—“Can this relationship be saved?”—has now become “
Should
this relationship be saved?” And millions of people decide that the
answer is no. In fact, ironically, many people now view divorce as an opportunity for personal growth. It’s not within relationship that people grow and change, according to this increasingly popular view, it’s when the relationship falls apart. People believe that separation opens their eyes to their self-defeating behaviors and gives them an opportunity to resolve those problems with a new partner. But unless they understand the unconscious desires that motivated their dysfunctional behavior in the first relationship, and learn how to satisfy those desires with the new partner, the second relationship is destined to run aground on the same submerged rocks.
Should
this relationship be saved?” And millions of people decide that the
answer is no. In fact, ironically, many people now view divorce as an opportunity for personal growth. It’s not within relationship that people grow and change, according to this increasingly popular view, it’s when the relationship falls apart. People believe that separation opens their eyes to their self-defeating behaviors and gives them an opportunity to resolve those problems with a new partner. But unless they understand the unconscious desires that motivated their dysfunctional behavior in the first relationship, and learn how to satisfy those desires with the new partner, the second relationship is destined to run aground on the same submerged rocks.
Ironically, the more Helen and I have become involved in a psychological study of love relationships, the more we find ourselves siding with the more conservative proponents of love relationships. We have come to believe that couples who decide to make a lifelong commitment should make every effort to honor their vows to stay together “’til death do us part”—not for moral reasons, but for psychological ones: fidelity and commitment create the feeling of safety that allows couples to work on their unconscious issues and heal their childhood wounds—the unconscious purpose of all committed love relationships.
IN PART III, you will have an opportunity to deepen your commitment to each other and begin a process of growth and change. The suggested time period for completing all eighteen exercises is ten weeks. Dedicating two and a half months of your time to improving your relationship may be all that you need to begin realizing your relationship vision. If you need more time, take it. It is a worthy investment to give love a chance, no matter how long it takes.
CREATING A ZONE OF SAFETY
Perfect love means to love the one through whom one became unhappy.
—SØREN KIERKEGAARD
ONCE A COUPLE has made a commitment to stay together and work on their relationship, the next logical step is to help them become allies, not enemies. It’s fruitless to take two people who are angry with each other and try to lead them along a path of spiritual and psychological growth—they would spend too much time trying to knock each other off the road. In order to make the surest and fastest progress toward their relationship vision, they need to become friends and helpmates.
But how is this going to happen? How can couples put an end to their power struggle when they haven’t had the opportunity to resolve their fundamental differences? Love and compassion are supposed to come at the end of the therapeutic process, not at the beginning.
I found a solution to this dilemma in my studies of the behavioral sciences. I learned that I could influence the way a
couple feels about each other by helping them artificially reconstruct the conditions of romantic love. When two people treat each other the way they did in happier times, they begin to identify each other as a source of pleasure once again, and this makes them more willing to take part in intensive therapy.
couple feels about each other by helping them artificially reconstruct the conditions of romantic love. When two people treat each other the way they did in happier times, they begin to identify each other as a source of pleasure once again, and this makes them more willing to take part in intensive therapy.
YEARS AGO I was resistant to the idea of such a direct approach to changing my clients’ behavior. Coming from a psychoanalytic tradition, I was taught that the goal of a therapist was to help clients remove their emotional blocks. Once they had correctly linked feelings they had about their partners with needs and desires left over from childhood, they were automatically supposed to evolve a more rational, adult style of relating.
This assumption was based on the medical model that, once a physician cures a disease, the patient automatically returns to full health. Since most forms of psychotherapy come from psychoanalysis, which, in turn, has its roots in nineteenth-century medicine, the fact that they rest on a common biological assumption is not surprising. But years of experience with couples convinced Helen and me that a medical model is not a useful one for relationship therapy. When a physician cures a disease, the body recovers spontaneously because it relies on genetic programming. Each cell of the body, unless it is damaged or diseased, contains all the information it needs to function normally. But there is no genetic code that governs relationships. Long-term love relationships are a cultural creation imposed on biology. Because people lack a built-in set of social instructions, they can be trapped in unhappy relationships after months or even years of productive therapy. Their emotional blocks may be removed, and they may have insight into the cause of their difficulties, but they have a tendency to still cling to habituated behaviors.
Like many couples therapists, I came to the conclusion that I would have to play an active role in helping couples redesign their relationships. Insight into childhood wounds is a critical element in therapy, but it isn’t enough. People also need to learn how to let go of counterproductive behaviors and replace them with more effective ones.
A BEHAVIORAL APPROACH proved especially useful in restoring a couple’s sense of love and goodwill. In his book,
Helping Couples Change: A Social Learning Approach to Marital Therapy,
psychologist Richard Stuart presents an exercise for couples that helps them feel more loving toward each other simply by engaging in more loving behaviors. Called “Caring Days,” the exercise instructs husbands and wives to write down a list of positive, specific ways their partners can please them. For example, a man might write down: “I would like you to massage my shoulders for fifteen minutes while we watch television.” Or “I would like you to bring me breakfast in bed on Sunday morning.” The partners are to grant each other a certain number of these caring behaviors a day, no matter how they feel about each other. Stuart discovered that the exercise generated “significant changes in the details of the couple’s daily interaction during the first seven days of therapy, a very firm foundation upon which to build subsequent suggestions for change.”
1
Helping Couples Change: A Social Learning Approach to Marital Therapy,
psychologist Richard Stuart presents an exercise for couples that helps them feel more loving toward each other simply by engaging in more loving behaviors. Called “Caring Days,” the exercise instructs husbands and wives to write down a list of positive, specific ways their partners can please them. For example, a man might write down: “I would like you to massage my shoulders for fifteen minutes while we watch television.” Or “I would like you to bring me breakfast in bed on Sunday morning.” The partners are to grant each other a certain number of these caring behaviors a day, no matter how they feel about each other. Stuart discovered that the exercise generated “significant changes in the details of the couple’s daily interaction during the first seven days of therapy, a very firm foundation upon which to build subsequent suggestions for change.”
1
To see whether or not this behavioral approach actually worked, I decided to try it out on Harriet and Dennis Johnson. I chose the Johnsons because they were as unhappy with each other as any couple in my practice. One of Harriet’s main anxieties was that Dennis was going to leave her. In a desperate effort to hold his interest, she flirted conspicuously with other men. To her dismay, Dennis responded to her flirtatious
behavior the same way he responded to just about everything else she did—with stoic reserve. During one session, he mentioned that he was even trying to adjust to the fact that Harriet might one day have an affair. His quiet heroics exasperated his wife, who was trying everything within her power to penetrate his defenses and get him to be more interested in her. Those rare times when she managed to get him riled up, he would behave in typical isolater fashion and flee the house. Most of their fights ended with Dennis’s zooming off to safety in his Audi sedan.
behavior the same way he responded to just about everything else she did—with stoic reserve. During one session, he mentioned that he was even trying to adjust to the fact that Harriet might one day have an affair. His quiet heroics exasperated his wife, who was trying everything within her power to penetrate his defenses and get him to be more interested in her. Those rare times when she managed to get him riled up, he would behave in typical isolater fashion and flee the house. Most of their fights ended with Dennis’s zooming off to safety in his Audi sedan.
To lay the groundwork for the exercise, I asked Dennis and Harriet to tell me how they had treated each other when they were first in love. As I listened to them, I had the strange feeling that they were talking about two different people. I couldn’t imagine Dennis and Harriet going on long Sunday bike rides together, leaving work to meet each other at the movies, and calling each other on the phone two or three times a day.
“What would happen,” I asked them when I recovered from my amazement, “if you were to go home today and start doing all those things again? What if you were to treat each other the same way you did when you were courting?” They looked at me with puzzled expressions.
“I think I would feel very uncomfortable,” Dennis said after a moment’s reflection. “I don’t like the idea of acting differently from the way I feel. I would feel … dishonest. I don’t have the same feelings toward Harriet that I used to, so why should I treat her as if I did?”
Harriet agreed. “It would feel like we were playacting,” she said. “We may not be happy, but at least we try to be honest with each other.”
When I explained that taking part in the experiment might help them over their impasse, they agreed to give it a try, despite their initial objections. I carefully explained the exercise to them. They were to go home, make their lists, and volunteer to give each other three to five of those behaviors a day. The
behaviors were to be gifts. They were to view them as an opportunity to pleasure each other, not as a bartering tool. And, most important of all, they weren’t to keep score. They were to focus only on the giving end of the equation. They left the office promising to give the exercise an honest effort.
behaviors were to be gifts. They were to view them as an opportunity to pleasure each other, not as a bartering tool. And, most important of all, they weren’t to keep score. They were to focus only on the giving end of the equation. They left the office promising to give the exercise an honest effort.
At the beginning of their next appointment, Dennis reported on the results of the experiment. “I think you’re really on to something, Harville,” he said. “We did what you asked us to do, and today I feel a lot more hopeful about our relationship.”
I asked him to tell me more.
“Well, the day after our appointment, I found myself driving around town in a black mood,” Dennis volunteered. “I can’t even remember what made me feel so down. Anyway, I decided that it was as good a time as any to do what you asked, so I stopped off at a variety store and bought Harriet some flowers. That was one of the requests on her list. So I gritted my teeth and picked out some daisies, because I remembered she always liked daisies. The clerk asked me if I wanted a note card and I said, ‘Why not?’ I remember saying to myself, ‘We’re paying Dr. Hendrix a lot of money to make things better, so I’d better do this all the way.’ When I came home, I signed the card ‘I love you.’” He paused for a moment. “The thing that surprised me, Harville, was that, as I handed Harriet the flowers, I really did care for her.”
“And when I read the card,” Harriet added, “tears came to my eyes. It’s been so long since he’s told me he loved me.” They went on to describe all the other things that they had done to please each other. She had cooked him pot roast and potato pancakes, his favorite dinner. He had agreed to curl up together in bed as they fell asleep instead of turning his back to her. She had gotten out her yarn and needles and started knitting him a sweater vest. As they were recounting these events, there seemed to be remarkably little tension between them. When they left the office, I noticed that as Dennis helped Harriet on with her coat she smiled and said, “Thank you, honey.” It was
a little thing, but it was the kind of pleasurable give-and-take that had been so absent in their relationship.
a little thing, but it was the kind of pleasurable give-and-take that had been so absent in their relationship.
I asked Dennis and Harriet to continue to give each other caring behaviors, and at each session they reported a gradual improvement in their relationship. They not only were treating each other more kindly, but were also more willing to explore the issues that underlay their discontent. They spent less of their time in my office complaining about each other and more time exploring the childhood issues that were the reasons for their unhappiness in the first place.
Because Stuart’s exercise proved so helpful for Dennis and Harriet, I used it as a model for an expanded exercise that I labeled “Reromanticizing” because it effectively restored the conflict-free interactions of romantic love.
2
I introduced the Reromanticizing exercise to my other clients, and, almost without exception, when couples began artificially to increase the number of times a day that they
acted
lovingly toward each other, they began to feel safer and more loving. This intensified the emotional bond between them, and as a result they made more rapid progress in their therapy.
2
I introduced the Reromanticizing exercise to my other clients, and, almost without exception, when couples began artificially to increase the number of times a day that they
acted
lovingly toward each other, they began to feel safer and more loving. This intensified the emotional bond between them, and as a result they made more rapid progress in their therapy.
I will explain the details of the Reromanticizing exercise more fully in Part III. When you carefully follow the directions, you, too, will experience an immediate improvement in the climate of your relationship. The exercise is not designed to resolve your deep-seated conflicts, but it will re-establish feelings of safety and pleasure and set the stage for increased intimacy.
WHY IS THIS simple exercise so effective? The obvious reason is that, through daily repetitions of positive behaviors, your old brain begins to perceive your partner as “someone who nurtures me.” Painful memories are overlaid with positive
transactions, and your partner is no longer categorized as a bringer of death but as a wellspring of life. This opens the way for intimacy, which is only possible in a context of pleasure and safety.
transactions, and your partner is no longer categorized as a bringer of death but as a wellspring of life. This opens the way for intimacy, which is only possible in a context of pleasure and safety.
But there are other, subtler reasons the exercise works so well. One is that it helps people erode the infantile belief that their partners can read their minds. During romantic love, people operate out of the erroneous belief that their partners know exactly what it is that they want. When their partners fail to satisfy their secret desires, they assume that they are deliberately depriving them of pleasure. This makes them want to deprive their partners of pleasure. The Reromanticizing exercise prevents this downward spiral by requiring couples to tell each other exactly what pleases them, decreasing their reliance on mental telepathy.
Another consequence of the exercise is that it defeats the tit-for-tat mentality of the power struggle. When couples take part in the Reromanticizing exercise, they are instructed to pleasure each other on an independent schedule; they mete out a prescribed number of caring behaviors a day, regardless of the behavior of their partners. This replaces the natural tendency to hand out favors on a quid pro quo basis: You do this nice thing for me, and I’ll do that nice thing for you. Most relationships are run like a commodities market, with loving behaviors the coin in trade. But this kind of “love” does not sit well with the old brain. If John rubs Martha’s shoulders in the hope that she will let him spend the day going fishing, a built-in sensor in Martha’s head goes: “Look out! Price tag attached. There is no reason to feel good about this gift, because I’ll have to pay for it later.” Unconsciously she rejects John’s attentions, because she knows that they were designed for his benefit, not hers. The only kind of love that her old brain will accept is the kind with no strings attached: “I will rub your shoulders because I know that you would like it.” The back rub has to come as a “gift.”
This need to be “gifted” comes straight out of our childhood. When we were infants, love came without price tags. At least for the first few months of our lives, we didn’t have to reciprocate when we were patted or rocked or held or fed. And now, in adulthood, a time-locked part of us still craves this form of love. We want to be loved and cared for without having to do anything in return. When our partners grant us caring behaviors independent of our actions, our need for unconditional love appears to be satisfied.
A third benefit of the exercise is that it helps people see that what pleases them is the product of their unique makeup and life experience and can be very different from what pleases their partners. This reinforces the fact that they are separate people. Often, partners in a relationship cater to their own needs and preferences, not to each other’s. For example, a woman I once worked with went to a great deal of trouble to give her husband a surprise fortieth-birthday party. She invited all his friends, cooked his favorite foods, borrowed a stack of his favorite 1960s rock-and-roll records, and organized lively party games. During the party, her husband acted as if he were enjoying himself, but a few weeks later, in the middle of a counseling session, he got up the courage to tell his wife that he had been secretly miserable. “I’ve never liked having a fuss made about my birthday,” he told her. “You know that. And especially not my fortieth birthday. What I really wanted to do was spend a quiet evening at home with you and the kids. Maybe have a homemade cake and a few presents.
You’re
the one who likes big noisy parties!”
You’re
the one who likes big noisy parties!”
His wife had taken the Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you,” a little too literally. She had unwittingly given her husband a party that suited her tastes, not his. The Reromanticizing exercise circumvents this problem by training couples to “Do unto others as
they
would have you do unto
them.
” This turns their random caring behaviors into “target” behaviors, behaviors that are designed to satisfy their partners’ unique desires.
they
would have you do unto
them.
” This turns their random caring behaviors into “target” behaviors, behaviors that are designed to satisfy their partners’ unique desires.
When couples regularly give each other these target behaviors, they not only improve the superficial climate of their relationship, they also begin to heal old wounds. I have an example from my personal history. Helen and I faithfully perform the same exercises that I assign my clients, and the Reromanticizing exercise is one that we have done so many times it has become integrated into our relationship: it’s something we do without thinking. One of the things that I ask Helen to do for me is to turn down the covers before we go to bed. This request comes from an experience I had over forty years ago. After my mother died, I was taken in by my sister, Maize Lee. She was only eighteen at the time and recently married, but she did a wonderful job of caring for me. One of the things that touched me most was that she would always find time to go into my room before bedtime, turn down my covers, and put out a glass of orange juice or milk for me to drink. Today, when Helen turns down the covers for me before I climb into bed, I remember Maize Lee and all that she did for me, and I feel very loved indeed. On a deep level, this simple action is re-creating the vital parent-child bond. I feel secure again, and the injury of my childhood is repaired in an adult relationship that has become a zone of love and safety.
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Taken by Rage: Rage Ryders MC by Liberty Parker
Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal
Beverly Byrne by Come Sunrise
West of the Moon by Katherine Langrish
Solomon's Jar by Alex Archer
Horse Wise by Bonnie Bryant
The Burglar Who Painted Like Mondrian by Lawrence Block
Arrival by Ryk Brown