The Modern “Dance” Of Intimacy

Twenty-two years ago the book “Men Are From Mars, Women are from Venus” hit the “Relationship Help” section of many bookstores. In this book author John Grey created controversy with his bold assertion that, in fact men and women were very different.  The differences showed up, according to Dr. Grey, in very fundamental ways…. such as how communication happens, how needs are met, and how a feeling of “safety, security and stress reduction is achieved.  In a recent interview, Dr. Grey elaborated on the differences between men and women in terms of stress reduction. He now claims female/male differences are due to the fact that men predominately reduce stress and feel secure by having optimal levels of the hormone “testosterone” available in their nervous system. In contrast to this, women achieve feelings of safety, security, and low stress when they have plenty of the hormone “oxytocin” on board. So, how does this work, and how does he know it is so?  It makes sense, actually, when you think about it from an anthropological/sociological perspective 

Testosterone and Oxytocin and how they function adaptively as hormones 

Testosterone is a hormone produced in men and women, but it is generally produced in larger quantities in men.  Testosterone is responsible for sex drive and aggression. It has been found to “flood” the endocrine system, particularly in men, when these men are involved in competitive and/or very “driven” and “goal oriented” activities.  Too much testosterone can be a bad thing, obviously, and can lead to violent and “out of control” behavior. Testosterone is associated with anger and destruction.  On the “plus” side, it has been postulated that evolutionarily speaking, optimal levels of testosterone in men are correlated with success on the “hunt” in “Hunter/ Gatherer” societies.  In earlier days, successful hunting was essential for survival of the species. It could be argued that the men who were doing the hunting felt good, satisfied, and content, after a successful hunt, thus creating the desire to hunt again.

Oxytocin, in contrast to testosterone, is known as the “love” hormone or the bonding hormone. Women produce it in their bodies in order to facilitate bonding with newborn babies,. It is also released in other skin-to-skin contact situations. One can imagine, again in Hunter Gatherer societies, that the women spent a lot of time together in tribes where they found safety in numbers and hung out with other females to take care of the young. There is no doubt that oxytocin release feels good.  We are, after all, social animals.

The Oxytocin/Testosterone Dance 

It must be said, of course, that both men and women produce oxytocin and testosterone, and also that people vary widely as to how much of these hormones they produce.  There are individual differences.  John Grey simply suggests that men on the whole tend to “lead” with testosterone, while women are more prone to “lead” with oxytocin. It’s important to note though “Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus” was first published in 1992.  In the book, Dr. Grey outlines the “dance” between men and women as a paradigm where the woman is at home with young children, soaking up the “oxytocin” with her children, but also becoming exhausted with childcare, and wanting to “bond” with her husband when he gets home. She needs the same feeling with him she was able to get with her children…but probably needs a more “adult” version than she can get from young children.  When her husband gets home, she pursues him, in Greys Scenario, and begs him to cuddle and bond with her and the children.  She wants to enfold her husband with the family oxytocin…and talk through feelings, ECT…. in order to feel more “connected” and secure

“Hubby,” on the other hand, according to Dr. Grey, has just had a full, and probably competitive day at work.  He may be feeling low levels of testosterone because he has not been successful in his projects or maybe he has been criticized or “put down”.  He may feel insecure and incompetent.  It is at this point, suggests Dr. Grey, that “Hubby” may need to temporarily “retreat”…to what has been jokingly called his “man cave”…to replenish his testosterone.  He might, for example need to work on projects or hobbies. The argument is, that he needs to have this replenishment time, before he can be available to soak up the oxytocin and bond with wife and family.

 The problem is, of course that this testosterone/oxytocin dance belongs to 1992…or even before that. (I would argue)

What About The Intimacy Oxytocin/Testosterone Dance In 2014? 

Ok…. so I think we can all agree that the world of work and family life is much different now. Family Life/work/ balance is a matter of how to more evenly share work and family responsibilities between both partners, even in “same sex” couples.  Generally, everyone wants things to feel “fair”. If not, anger and resentment can quickly build.  The reality is that the majority of adults in households with or without children actually do work in our modern society. (Statistics would bear this out) The “dance” therefore needs to be reworked with a new set of assumptions, new steps, and more careful communication than ever before. It seems to me that the essential question that needs to be asked of each “partner” in the modern “Intimacy dance” is:  “What is your particular “internal” balance in terms of how much Oxytocin you need to feel bonded, and secure with an intimate partner? When do you need this “skin to skin” and “eye to eye contact? “  What are your most vulnerable times of the day, for example?

Second Question:  “What are your testosterone needs? Do you, (regardless of your sexual identity or orientation) need to work on projects at or away from home that make you feel competent and successful before you can cuddle?  Here’s another example:  “Do you need your partner to admire your ability to “fix” things around the house, (or anywhere else for that matter) so that you can feel that satisfying surge of testosterone?

  Self-knowledge/Communication Is The Key 

I like to think of creating and building sustained intimate relationships as an on going co-creative process between any two people who actually have a desire for such a relationship.  I don’t think it matters in the least if we are talking about heterosexual or “same sex” couples. The responsibility is equally shared, I think, and entails the ability to know and communicate who you are and what you need…even as you understand deeply the different perspective and needs of your partner.  You will not be exactly the same as your “partner”, nor will you or your “partner “remain exactly the same over time.  Furthermore, your particular “partnership” mix of oxytocin/testosterone will not be the same as the one you see in any other partnership. We are all beautifully unique that way.

 So….Enjoy The Dance!!! 

What is left to say except…. do not be afraid to explore and participate in the dance! Be alert to the subtle changes in yourself and your partner that mean you need to change the steps, learn new steps, or change the “leader/follower” paradigm.   The ability to make the necessary changes is what will keep your relationship alive and vital.  It’s the Art of The Dance…. and the key to lasting joy and satisfaction.

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February…the month of sacred love

On The Nature Of Love 

At a “satsung” in Oakland the other day I was struck by the words of the well-known spiritual teacher, Adyashanti. He was addressing the central importance of “love” as the primary commerce in human connection, and he was remarking that people often lack “sovereignty” over their own hearts and minds.  Because of this, Adyashanti argued, many people find it difficult to know how to love, how to receive love, or even what love really is.

I listened more closely as Adyashanti described personal “sovereignty as having “an autonomous and empowered sense of yourself.”  This “felt” sense of self involves knowing and trusting yourself to the extent that your core beliefs, values, and passions are unshakeable and non negotiable.  In psychological terms we might call this “ego strength”, but I like the term “sovereignty” much better.  I like the idea that your entire being is like a sovereign nation and you are the true “ruler” of that nation.  Adyashanti pointed out that our greatest spiritual leaders such as Jesus, Ghandi, and Martin Luther King, possessed the ultimate in personal “sovereignty”.  All three of these leaders were of course revolutionary in their own time and their ideas were simply too threatening for those times. As is often the case, the bearers of revolutionary thought are sacrificed, even as their ideas live on.  We can live by the example of these three great “thought leaders” though, and understand that what they collectively represented and brought to the world was Love…. Pure, simple, and unconditional. I would argue that love poured out from these men and came from the core of their unshakable beliefs about mankind.

So….How does this Idea of Sovereignty” play out in The Formation Of Our Individual Identity? 

Here is how I think about it:  It seems to me that all of us in our modern culture are bombarded incessantly by messages about how to look, what to wear, how to think, what to feel.  These messages seep down into our unconscious where they comingle with messages from our childhood to create a mixed bag of   input about who we really are at the core.  It’s like computer software in a way…Programs are being run that we are not even aware of because they operate at a subliminal level. (Hence the effectiveness of advertising slogans)

What is most distressing to me is that the bottom line “message” is usually the following:  “You are not good enough at any level of your being”…simply not good enough. You must have more, do more, and be more.  Out of all this, we must cobble together some sort of an identity that is affirming, stable and consistent…no easy feat. It’s difficult to find your personal sovereignty in this climate.

The Riddle Of Forming Close Relationships When Identity Is Shaky 

In a way that has always struck me as paradoxical, we are all simultaneously both individuals and social animals.  As much as we hold tight to our shaky personal identities, we also long for personal connection.  To put it simply…we long to love and be loved.  The paradox causes conflict…. all the time. Consider the questions that we often ask ourselves when in relationship: “Will I have to give up some of me in order to be with you?”   When does “compromise” become “capitulation?”   Ideally one would neither dominate nor allow oneself to be dominated…but this ideal is hard to reach in the best of circumstances. I see it as a  the “riddle” of stable human connection  and I would argue that the riddle must be solved, or at least addressed in order to feel, express, and know true love with another person.  I think you have to know yourself…including your beliefs and passions and your boundaries, weaknesses, strengths, and vulnerabilities. and then you can truly see and appreciate those same things in another.  From this place, it seems to me that mutual unconditional love is really possible.

How To Know Yourself 

I have been thinking lately of “Practices” that facilitate the embodiment of the principle “know thyself”.  Here is what I have come up with:

1. Take a course in “mindfulness meditation”…. or really any kind of meditation…. and practice on a regular basis sitting in silence and watching your thoughts go by.  When you have mastered the technique you will notice that your mind will produce thought after thought after thought…but you will realize that your don’t have to believe any of them.  You will begin to notice patterns of recurring thoughts about yourself or the world…. and you can begin to question these thoughts.  Start just gently being curious and questioning about everything.  As the Buddha has famously said:  “Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it, or because it is spoken, written, or rumored by many…But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conductive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”…. I would just add to this that meditation sharpens your powers of observation of all things in the world…from the use of your five senses to the use of your intuition…Spend quality time with yourself just observing without doing anything else.
2. Any chance you get to walk quietly in nature is another opportunity to sharpen your powers of observation.  You can make this a “walking” meditation, as you note sounds, smells, and visual and tactile features.  When you are developing observational skills you will find that your mind is sharper and clearer about all things. You will experience directly a thought and a feeling about what you believe in, what you value, and what is true “beauty” to you.
3. Develop a questioning nature to everything anyone ever presents to you as “truth.”  Start always with the question…even if it is in your own mind…. Is this true?  Do I believe it to be true?  What if it’s not true?
4. Dare to respectfully disagree with others, while avoiding the trap of insistence that you are right. The idea is to practice “speaking your truth”…nothing more. Make room for multiple opinions knowing that other people’s opinions don’t have to threaten yours.
5. There is a practice called “morning pages” in which, for six weeks you write down everything that is on your mind every morning…first thing.  These are all the concerns that have been rolling around your unconscious all night…. This is fresh non-defended “data”.  Don’t read what you have written for six weeks.  When you look at what you have written after the six weeks it will be obvious to you what your central concerns are.  You can start then knowing yourself at a deeper level and you can begin an inquiry with yourself about those concerns, what you feel about them, what you can do about them.

So there you have it!  Good luck in your quest for self-knowledge and your pursuit of intimate relationship.  It is well worth the effort!

Shipping Crane At The Port Of Oakland

Last weekend I had the great privilege of going on a Bay cruise that began in Alameda, circled through the Port Of Oakland, went under the Bay Bridge, and ended up back in Alameda. For me, by far the best part of this adventure was getting “up close and personal” to the giant shipping cranes that carefully place containerized cargo onto huge cargo ships.  On the return trip, these same cranes unload ships coming from faraway places like Hong Kong and put the containers onto trucks.  Many of the containers then end up on trains that deliver goods all over the country.  I guess it’s the fascinated kid in me that can’t get over man’s ability to achieve such great things with such ingenuity and efficiency.  I always want to know “the way things work” and I learn best by just watching.  In the case of the shipping industry though, there is something else I’m interested in.  It just strikes me, as I watch the cranes loading their cargo onto the ships, that the world has become very small indeed…. and we have increasingly become very intertwined and interdependent with one another.  For example, I was curious to see a huge pile of what looked like scrap metal out at the port. When I asked about this I learned that the United States ships this metal to China where it is melted together to make new metal “things”.  I suppose for some reason it’s cheaper to do this in China.  So…. we do this constant “trade” with other countries and all of our economies have become one big “global” economy.  We really do need each other. We are all “One” in some sense.

The politics of “Trade”

 I realize of course that a case can be made for who the “power” players are in the business of world trade.  I’m not an expert in this area, so I won’t even go there.  It just seems to me that there is a universal “truth” that transcends current political realities.  The truth is that we all just share this one earth and we have great examples of how to cooperate and collaborate with one another in such a way that everyone can benefit.  I like to think of the shipping industry as being an example of that human ability.  I like to imagine Chinese dock workers…the equivalent of our longshoremen and teamsters…. unloading goods and transporting stuff where it needs to go.  I imagine it works much the same there as here.

Am I Naive?

Ok…Ok…. I’m totally aware of oversimplifying the flow of energy and goods all over the world.  I’m guilty of this belief that there is some kind of magnanimous force for good at work that is moving us all closer to each other…albeit not always smoothly and “fairly”.  For me, the evidence is all around that this is so… maybe I’m just choosing to see what I choose to see because it gives me a sense of peace and faith to so choose.

We all have our worldview.  And this is part of mine.

Key Clutter….Got A Lot Of Unnecessary Keys and other Paraphernalia on Your Key Chain?

Lighten Your Load For 2014

This Christmas my most “life changing” gift was the smallest one.  I now have a new keychain with exactly three keys on it:  1. My house key,  2. My Car key,  3. My office key.   Additionally, my keychain sports a small LED flashlight, and a remarkably small, sharp, pocketknife.  My keys and my “tools” are all I need to negotiate my daily life.  Yet, somehow, for many years now I’ve been weighed down with a gazillion unnecessary keys.  They have added weight and bulk to my purses, my coats, and my psyche.  The process of “key shedding” for me has been highly symbolic and representative of a sea change in the “shedding” of many things in my life that no longer serve.  Here’s how it happened.

A Key Inventory 

After taking all of my keys off the key chain, I did a quick inventory.  Here is what I found: 1. 3 keys to cars I no longer own, including keys to my adult daughter’s cars that are long since gone.  2. 2 keys to file cabinets that I no longer have. 3.  4 keys to doors in offices that I have no connection to at all. 4.  3 keys that I can’t even identify at all.  Some of these keys had some sentimental value and brought with them memories, so I didn’t throw them out, but I took them off the key chain.

What’s Up With All The Keys? 

In my view, keys have all kinds of meanings.  Keys open doors to houses, offices, and other private places.  Keys represent security and ownership.  Car keys have to do with autonomy and freedom.  When my daughters first learned to drive I always had copies of their car keys because I felt I needed access in case they got into trouble or lost their keys. In retrospect I can see it was a form of control as well.  I kept these keys way too long because it was hard to let go.

Keys Represent Identity 

What I have come to believe is that each of my keys represents a part of my identity.  I have a house key.  Therefore I’m a homeowner.  When I bought my first house this key conferred power and prestige to me.  A car key means I’m also a car owner.  My office key allows me a private inner sanctum where I do my work.  Homeless disenfranchised people don’t have keys, so they don’t have this identity.  I noticed that when I went from 12 keys to 3 keys I initially felt kind of lost and powerless.  Weirdly the heft and weight of my keys actually gave me this feeling of substance and importance

Shedding Keys Means Shedding the skin Of Old Identities

I don’t need keys to cars I don’t own or have access too, so these were the first keys to go. My daughters are grown and responsible for their own safety and transportation. There goes that identity. I only have one house and one office. All the other office keys finally got tossed, and I realized I kept them on the keychain because I still felt sentimentally attached to where I used to work. In some small way I was still attached to my younger identity. That’s why I kept the key. Maybe I even had an unconscious belief I might want to go back to my old job.  I usually only drive one car.  I have access to another but I don’t need the key with me all the time. I don’t need the security of having that second car key with me.  I used to think I did. It was like I felt I needed a “backup” car.

Now that I’ve downsized my key chain I feel that my identity is light, fluid, and ever changing.  It feels like I don’t anymore need so many small talismans that tie me to the material world and remind me that, yes, you are safe.  You have a place to live,  a way to get around, and a job.  That feeling now resides within me.

Do You Have Anything To Shed?

As 2013 draws to a close, it seems like a good time to think of shedding anything in your life that belongs to a previous version of you.  I’m also looking at clothes, dishes, bedding, and furniture that is no longer reflective of my present self. I don’t want things that are too big, or too small, too shabby or too youthful.  Similarly, I’m looking at belief systems that no longer serve….whole ways of looking at the world in fact, and even people who used to be a part of my life… but its time to let some of them go too.

The up side of this is that life will always come in and fill in the void that is created when something is taken away… even in those times when you cling desperately to the way things are and don’t want them to change.  I don’t know why this works, but I believe that it does.  Just…be open.  Listen and watch for new life to grow in those fallow fields….It will happen.

Fresh Air

Many of us can identify a key relationship, often formed early on in our lives, that has been profoundly influential.  For me, that relationship was the one I had with my mother.  My mother has been dead now for 31 years, but only very recently in my 63^rd year can I honestly say that I am free of the grip she has had on the manifestation of my personal identity.  Let me explain the long journey.

Make no mistake, I was a well-loved child.  I see myself actually as a child of great privilege with theoretically limitless possibilities for my education and ability to be successful in whatever I chose to do.  All of this was just “theoretical” though.  I also knew, from a very early age , that my mother had in mind a very specific blueprint for me. In reality my “choices” were much narrower than they needed to be.  I was limited by the way she saw me, and what I needed to do to keep her pleased and happy.  That’s the truth.  I wasn’t strong enough emotionally to rebel against my mothers projected image of me, except on a few important although exceedingly rare occasions.  In retrospect, I don’t even blame my mother for the reality of my childhood and adolescence.  In many ways it was a golden time.  But….it was what it was…. It was co-created by a whole cast of characters.

Fast forward to my 32^nd year, when I lost my mother tragically to breast cancer.  Although the loss at that time was devastating, I have gradually begun to realize that I lost so much more than my mother herself in 1982.  As the years went by and I faced the monumental task of raising my own daughters, the full extent of my loss came into focus.  Here is how I view the loss of my mother now:

My mother died before my eldest daughter had her first birthday.  I had always imagined that my mother would be thrilled to be a grandmother, and I looked forward to bonding with her in a new way around our now shared experience of “motherhood”.  Obviously this experience was mostly denied me, but even more importantly, as I think back on it now, I was also denied the opportunity to separate and individuate from my mother in a whole new way. Ideally, when I became a mother I could have demonstrated to my mother that I understood “motherhood”, but I was going to be a different kind of mother than she had been to me. My new motherhood could have been a chance, at last, to find a way to rebel and be different from my mother. I could have come up against her, so to speak.  I was not conscious at the time of the far-reaching effects of this loss, but I became more aware as the years went by.

Flash-forward again to 2003 and I am dealing with my own rebellious teenage daughter.  She is telling me that I’m controlling and suffocating, and that she can no longer live her life in such a way that I am always pleased and happy with her.  Oddly, although her words are vaguely familiar to me, I cannot really make the connection to my own thwarted teenage self. It does not even occur to me that I have become my mother.  I’m mostly just suffering and focused on how unbearably anxious and worried I am all the time. My mental state at that time was indeed a total “energy drainer “ and left no room for anything else.  I was actually at this time suffocating as well, and I see now that the inner experience of suffocating  actually quite literally is the inability to bring “fresh air” to a situation. It’s no coincidence to me that an anxiety attack is literally the experience of not getting enough air. That’s what I felt then, and it prevented me from seeing the “bigger picture”.  I think my daughter and I were both feeling that way.

My final “flash forward” brings me to the present day.  My daughter has ventured out on her own now and had adventures that I would have never have had at her age. Me…. somehow I was forced to “let go” of the way I had become with her…and this was really the “inner work” for me. In “letting go”, painful as it was at times, I was finally able to actually gain a much bigger perspective on what had gone on between my daughter and I, and how closely this was related to my relationship to my mother.   The insight allowed me to “let go” even more and realize it wasn’t sustainable for us to go on the way we had been.  In the end the relational paradigm kind of let go of itself. One of us had to be the one to make the move, physically away from the other, and fortunately she had the courage to do it.

So, what does this have to do with my mother?  The way I see it, the “mother/daughter” healing  I have experienced with my daughter has healed my relationship with my mother  at the same time.  There is in fact no distinction or separation between the two. What I have experienced is a change in all of my relationships with women…. friends, sisters, older and younger women alike…all of them. In a larger sense, I think there has been some “fresh air” brought to my personal and archetypal female lineage, and I’m hopeful that this will carry forward to future generations.

Subjectively, I know that I breathe fine now.  The air is clearer, the colors are brighter, my voice is louder and carries more authority, and my life feels infused with new energy and excitement.  For me the lesson is a hopeful one.  The damage done “in relationship” can best be healed “in relationship”, it is never too late, and new opportunities are always presenting themselves.

The kiss that symbolizes the ultimate betrayal

The picture above depicts Judah bestowing a kiss on Jesus Christ. This “kiss”, often referred to as “the kiss of death”, symbolizes Judah’s betrayal of Jesus. As the story tells it, with the “kiss”, Judah is revealing to the Roman soldiers the identity and whereabouts of Jesus. The information leads directly to Jesus’s death.  Judah’s kiss is an apt metaphorical illustration of the nature of betrayal in our culture.  In the worst acts of betrayal, you find subterfuge and deception, as is the case with Judah who “pretends” love and loyalty while planning the ultimate “double cross”.  When betrayed in our intimate personal relationships we feel both “stung” and outraged.  How could we have been so wrong about someone we loved and trusted?  We may doubt ourselves and/or imagine that the next “Judah” is right around the corner.

The Devastation Of Betrayal In Relationship

John Gottman is a relationship expert who has been studying long term committed relationships for over thirty years.  His goal is to discover the secret ingredient of “relationship longevity”.  Dr. Gottman’s research is unique in the field of  “relationship” study because of the large body of data he has amassed in longditutional studies of the same couples over a 30 year period.  Gottman’s findings about the role of betrayal in relationship disintegration are particularly interesting and offer some valuable insights about how to recognize “betrayal” as it insinuates itself into virtually every relationship at some point in the relationship. The good news is that a small betrayal can actually be repaired if “caught” early enough.  A small betrayal can be worked through to strengthen the relationship…thus avoiding “the kiss of death”.

     Anyone who has been betrayed in a long term relationship by the unfaithfulness of his/ her partner can attest to the profound and long lasting nature of this particular type of betrayal.  Almost by definition an “affair” starts out in secret…and at least in my experience…. restoring trust when there has been this ultimate breech is close to impossible.  How do you even begin to do that? assuming both partners even want to.?

A Sligthly Different View About Affairs And Betrayal

Dr. Gottman takes a slightly different view about how and why affairs begin, and then seem to gather momentum and flourish in some marriages.  Many of us, myself included, have  always assumed that some men and women, for a myriad of reasons, are prone to have affairs.  Dr. Gottman thinks this is usually not the case. Although he agrees that “extra marital affairs” are huge and often insurmountable  betrayals, he has also found that he is able to predict those who are prone to the most egregious of betrayals because of the many smaller betrayals that preceded them. The small betrayals begin to add up and form an atmosphere where larger betrayals can more easily flourish. …especially when an opportunity presents itself.  What does he mean by “small” betrayals?

The Importance Of Trust

To understand the nature of betrayal it seems important to add the word “trust”…that is to say “betrayal” means “betrayal of trust”. If you’re talking about trust between people it implies there is an agreement of sorts between them. Each partner in the agreement has to trust the other to abide by the terms of the agreement. The agreement may be  verbally explicit and/or written….or it can be implied, unspoken, assumed.  In marriage and long term relationships I think this is where the trouble comes in.  Many details of the “agreement” may be quite vague .  If you have an actual legal marriage you may have verbalized some vows about, say love. Honor…respect.  But…what do these things really mean, operationally?  Your idea of what you may expect from me in terms of honor and respect is very different from what I think honor and respect are.  

In Gottmans research he actually watched the interactions of couples as they stayed for weeks at a time in apartments he had set up for them.  He had video equipment set up to record everything they said and did and he also made minute observations of facial expressions.  He even recorded heart rate and other measures of high emotional arousal.

After analyzing his data, Dr. Gottman concluded that couples spend a large amount of time in their day to day interactions trying to figure out what the other person expects of them, and being disappointed that they are not getting what they expect. For some of the couples, the constant sniping at one another, the angry “flare ups’ the “stonewalling”  and constant criticism of one other means that each member of the couple actually feels quite profoundly disappointed and betrayed.  This marriage was just not what was expected, and nobody is talking about it.

Dr. Gottman found that the couples that had more resilient  marriages also had deep disappointments in each other and betrayals did occur.  The difference was that a small disappointment or betrayal was actually talked about.  Gradually the couple was able to form new agreements with each other based on issues that would just “come up” spontaneously.  When I read this, I thought of one specific instance where my husband and I had been having coffee with a couple that he knew, but I was just meeting for the first time.  In the course of our first casual conversation, my husband described an issue in our marriage that is yet unresolved and very private and tender for me.  I was furious!  In this instance I felt betrayed and told him so later on.  The key point here is that he was totally stunned. I had to educate him that this issue was not open for public discussion.  So…that became a new agreement between us.

In closing I think it’s important to note that Gottmans conclusions inevitably oversimplify the complex matrix that is a long term relationship. What is not clearly elucidated, I think, is the fact that both partners in the relationship have to be willing to recognize and understand the importance of the constant “tuning in” to each other and the communication that is necessary. One person can’t do it solo.  I have always felt that whatever is created is in fact “co-created”…which means that whenever one member of the couple feels there is trouble…the other member has to be willing to look into the situation and do the “work”. The hopeful message in Gottmans research is that it is not the betrayals per se that are the problem…quite the opposite. The betrayals, or you could also say misattunements  actually provide the solution if you bring them into the light, and “speak out” about them.

By Leslie Kays MFT

Are You Tired Of being Brokenhearted

Are you at a time in your life when it seems that relationships just don’t seem to work out?  Maybe you have experienced repeated rejections, or maybe you just can’t seem to find the right person to make a commitment to.  Whatever the particulars of your story, you may feel “cursed” or just “unlucky”.  Its easy to feel that its time to just give up on the discouraging pursuit of finding the right “person”.  I have another idea.  Maybe there is nothing “wrong” with you at all. Maybe there is nothing  “wrong” with the people you seem to meet either.  Maybe its just time to consider your “readiness” to recognize and receive your true “soul mate”.  Here are some questions you might want to consider about your “readiness”. These are questions you can ask yourself.  The order of the questions is important. You will find that the answer to each question helps you to answer the next one.

1. Do You Like Yourself?  It seems like an easy enough question, right?  This is the most important question to start with though, because the relationship you have with yourself is foundational to all your other relationships.  To put it simply, how can you expect anyone to want to be around you, if you can’t stand to be around yourself?  True self-esteem means the ability to take a fearless inventory of yourself and honestly face your strengths and weaknesses.  In spite of all of who you are, (0r you could even say because of all you are),  you  love yourself unconditionally.  This is not to be confused with narcissism, which appears to be “self” love but is actually an emptiness inside that can never be filled enough.  If you can’t love yourself, you may be always seeking a partner who can love you enough.  It will probably never be enough, and the relationship won’t last.

 2.    Are You Still Holding Onto “Baggage” From Previous Relationships? Maybe you have been married and there was a bitter and painful divorce.  You have truly been “done wrong” and you are understandably hurt and angry. You simply are not ready to “forgive” the person who hurt you. Or maybe you simply haven’t taken time to grieve that which has been lost.  You have not been able to “let go”, for whatever reason.  In either of these cases, its helpful to take time to work through what went wrong, and to look at the part you may have played.  This can be a painful and humbling experience, but it is well worth the time spent. It is my own bias that its important to work toward forgiveness of the person who hurt you in order to give your next relationship the best possible shot at success.

 3.    If You Have Been In Previous Failed Relationships, have you been able to Identify Any Patterns?  Identification of relationship patterns is essential in order to have that “aha” moment regarding  the part you may be playing repeatedly in the failure of your relationships to be sustaining and fulfilling.   When you find a pattern…. such as, for example, “I seem to get hooked up with handsome, womanizer types who cheat”, then you can become curious about this.  Curiosity is essential because it is the first step toward self-awareness.  Self-awareness is the gateway to change.

4.  Once you have Identified Patterns, You Can Go The Next Step And Consider Your Lifelong Attachment Patterns.   This is where things get really interesting.  You may feel that you are not consciously choosing the people that you end up attached and attracted to, but in fact there are unconscious forces at work that have to do with the relationships you had with your early caregivers. Couples therapists have found over and over again that attraction patterns in couples have to do with unmet childhood needs. Unconsciously you fantasize that “the right person,” will absolutely and completely fulfill and take care of you in a way that either you never have been, or never got enough of.  Figuring this out can be really helpful because it can explain how the initial “attraction” you felt may have been informed by this fantasy. An attraction informed by fantasy often doesn’t last.  There is an inevitable disillusionment that can feel baffling and can crush the spirit.

 5..It is my belief that the “inner work” of self-awareness, along with a conscious bolstering of self-esteem, and taking time to look at childhood attachment patterns, will serve you well as you make yourself available for a truly miraculous soul connection. You will know who you are, and you will find that the qualities you seek in a relationship are the qualities of a person who is actually healthy for you.  I’m going to go one step further on this and say…. this is exactly when the right relationship will show up.