Paradox of Marriage

In going over my notes I read my notes of Karen's account she shared in practicum group of the couple weeks we'd gone through. This is when I "held onto myself" (self-soothed, feeling fragile myself) while listening to Karen's account of the 2 rough weeks we went through. I had experienced her as falling apart, blaming our marriage, and me--caught in my hot button of "shame based exclusion" fell down trying to have her see me for who I am and trying to reach her. I lost myself trying to "show" her either myself or herself. It can't be done. So I followed her falling apart. Interestingly, when she left in the middle of it to spend a couple nights at a gals birthday party overnight (rented home on waterfront) I felt instant relief as she left. I regained myself...the self I'd lost trying to see myself in her. I think I was tasting a morsel of what she was probably going through in large doses. Within minutes of her leaving I felt settled, felt in my body again, and had my creativity and sense of humor return big time.

Enmeshed? You bet. What was different, however, between her and myself is that I could quickly relocate myself. I think this points to the depth of her process. Nevertheless, it was painful to watch Karen continue to not differentiate her experience...her feelings...and me. This was why I "held onto myself" (around the pain) of hearing Karen's inner experience in our practicum group.

My opinion in retrospect is one of paradox. When a committed relationship provides safety and heart we open up to what we haven't been willing to face before. The sludge from childhood, perhaps abuse (or in my case, neglect of parents who are stuck with very limited capacity), may now surface. And when it does--I've experienced this firsthand at certain crossroads in my life and somewhat this past weekend around shame--it returns as the shadowy mess that we once had to force into the recesses in the first place. When the sludge arises--certainly for me--it is experienced from within the sludge.

For example, on Saturday night when Karen helped me with some breath-work I returned to elementary school and all the shame I experienced. As it came up I felt as it I was there again...just as ashamed as I turned to Karen to tell her the truth of where history intersected the present: "I don't know how to need another." "I am fucked up such that I either become ruggedly independent or I get "fuse-y," either aggravated with expectation from another or clingy. Both loaded expectation and clinging are dependent in such a disgusting way." At this I felt extreme shame and had trouble looking Karen in the eyes. Fortunately, she called me to look at her. She loved me enough to see me. Although I was experiencing myself in horrible, black and white terms, Karen could see my heart and courage to go to this place and own my shadow. Trust was, paradoxically from my perspective, greatly enhanced.

You see, in my opinion our marriage was healthy enough to allow our crap to surface and be dealt with. And that doesn't necessarily feel great at the time. In fact, we may become scared and get lost for a while. I think that Karen's stuff around an abusive mother surfaced, I was clueless as to how to help and instead made things worse, and Karen couldn't differentiate between what was surfacing from a horror in her past and the present. That's my best take on it. I can say for sure that I've done it myself--collapsed distinction in the midst of surfaced old stuff--many, many times.

And Kurt, this guy who was up against challenges in his life, feeling overwhelmed with performance anxiety all out of the fear that "failure means exclusion." Fearing shame, perfection had raised it's head. And Kurt could not differentiate between his surfacing past--some emptiness around sense of self confidence--such that he could not differentiate between his shadow and the present. Karen's process, requiring her to pull in, to re-establish independence, looked, smelled and tasted like distancing...exclusion, Kurt's perfect trigger.

It seems to me that this trust and heart and opening of real relationship that paradoxically leads us through the shadow-lands is not for the faint of heart. I'm thinking that what we see everywhere is the immature notion of the perpetual honeymoon. And that is why marriages fail, or become completely stale-mated.