I don't know if anyone could claim to really understand Schnarch. His analogy for fusion is when you let the rocking of your partner's boat rock your boat emotionally. So, I would say that it is to some extent unavoidable. Severe fusion would be somebody saying that they will die without you or stalking you. The ability to maintain a strong sense of self in a relationship might be regarded as the hallmark of differentiation. OTOH, selflessness can lead to a sense of entitlement as in "I'm such a wonderful wife, I do x,y and z. He should want to have sex with me more often" Differentiation might replace this thought with something like " I am a wonderful person who loves sex. I should have sex more often." and one's actions would follow logically from this thought while maintaining one's personal code of "fair play" So in my situation, as I became more differentiated ( or something - lol), I made it clear that I would divorce or openly take a lover in order to have more sex.
Anyway, I've decided that if I get into a LTR again it will probably with Schnarch's brother, if he has one and if he is a bit taller than Schnarch appears to be in his photo.
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
Of course, too many of us get married for fuzzy headed reasons: I don't think I can get anybody else; I'm so lonely when I'm not with her; I'm supposed to grow up and have a wife and kids, aren't I; et cetera, ad nauseum.
But I always thought the big selling point of marriages was to overcome the rough patches. "In sickness, as in health," as they say. Marriage is to life what the "buddy system" is to the swimming pool. When you have cancer, when your house burns down, when your kid gets arrested, when you have that bout of depression, when someone you are really close to dies...
If you have a lifemate on whom you can really rely, you can live life day to day without worrying about whether he is going to take a powder should the feces hit the fan. Of course, just because you are married doesn't guarantee that your mate will help you cope with any of these things. I've heard too many stories of soldiers losing their spouses while they were in Iraq or Afghanistan. And if your husband had been the kind of man who had the emotional resources to be there for you when your Dad died, you might still be married today in spite of the lousy sex life.
The other thing, is that marriage holds out the greatest promise for radical acceptance. This is the key to an intimate relationship. However, this is also an ideal that is frequently not achieved in marriage, let alone in a short term relationship.
Marriage will always expose a person's vulnerabilities, weak spots, annoying traits, and vacuum sucking needs. People tend to hide these things until after they get married. The fewer issues a potential partner has, the better a partner they will be, but it can be hard to put your finger on these things until after you've been with someone. Another reason marriage gets a bad name.
I can't blame you for thinking it is totally nuts to get married. LTRs, however happen naturally. I think they even sneak up on people (see Lilliepearl). If you are with someone you enjoy and they feel the same way, I think you will find yourselves going back to each other like a healthy habit.
SM
"If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find compensation in every disappointment." Henry David Thoreau
Interestingly that you should mention this fearless because that is exactly what H and I have said to the MC on several occasions, thinking it was a "good thing" when in fact, it is a bad thing because MC said (and I am quoting here) that if one is up and one is down, you never have a chance to really connect and understand the other person because you are always in two different places in your R.
I think Schnarch would agree. You can see all the sex-killing dynamics that can develop along these lines such as placator/placatee, parent/child, moper/cheerer-upper, or plain old HD/LD etc. OTOH, if you think about any sexual dynamic that operates from the same level such as being naughty kids together or sophisticated adults or grinning muscular animals it's much hotter and more connected. Although, it almost certainly would have bespoken a different sort of dysfunction, it would have been a lot more "sexy" if in response to my 2bx's comments like "you are too nerdy to f*ck" I had responded by saying "Yeah, well you are too f*cking uptight to f*ck. I guess I just forgot for a moment. My bad." because then we would have been on the same level.
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
And if your husband had been the kind of man who had the emotional resources to be there for you when your Dad died, you might still be married today in spite of the lousy sex life.
True enough. I guess I agree with you because I would say "What's the point of being married if you can't count on somebody for that kind of support."
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The other thing, is that marriage holds out the greatest promise for radical acceptance. This is the key to an intimate relationship. However, this is also an ideal that is frequently not achieved in marriage, let alone in a short term relationship.
I'm pretty sure that I don't want radical acceptance anymore. I might actually want the opposite. If you find me even slightly unpleasant on your tongue, spit me out. Don't swallow and then bellyache for eternity. Don't confuse the sugar-coating with the sweet center or vice-versa or you'll be sorry and so will I.
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If you are with someone you enjoy and they feel the same way, I think you will find yourselves going back to each other like a healthy habit.
Interesting theory. However, it seems to me that people return to their sad vices or Pavlovian triggers more frequently than their healthy habits.
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
Interestingly that you should mention this fearless because that is exactly what H and I have said to the MC on several occasions, thinking it was a "good thing" when in fact, it is a bad thing because MC said (and I am quoting here) that if one is up and one is down, you never have a chance to really connect and understand the other person because you are always in two different places in your R.
I guess I just wonder about the context of what you said to your counselor. I don't see my parents as having a perfect marriage but at the same time they are still happily together after losing a farm and some serious health problems on my mom's part. In my parents case the "up and down" feelings were based specifically on the fact that they were losing the farm and not on how they felt in their relationship. They had already been married over 10 years and my mom's point was that what kept them getting up at 4:30 and milking the cows every day and working 12+ hour days was that at no time were both of the point of just giving up because one of them was always "up." However they were very connected. They did look to the other for support when they were down. I mentioned this before on the boards but growing up Dad always brought wild flowers to mom and still does. They also made time to go on walks together in the late summer evenings - I remember because we would start to run after them and they would tell us it was THEIR time.
So for me it is about context. It's about not getting sad just because your spouse is sad. it doesn't mean you don't feel sad FOR them necessarily.
But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads? ~Albert Camus
His analogy for fusion is when you let the rocking of your partner's boat rock your boat emotionally. So, I would say that it is to some extent unavoidable.
Hmmm. That's where I am still trying to understand this. To me if you are connected to someone then you would feel sad for them when they are sad about something that affects only them - say something at their workplace upset them. The difference between that and fusion is that if you are fused with the other person you don't feel sad for them, you ARE sad. Also I think it would not be good for a relationship if there was not a connection so that if you saw your spouse sad, you felt NOTHING.
The issue gets more complicated when something happens that really affects both of you so as a couple you are each dealing with it plus possible fused issues??
Severe fusion would be somebody saying that they will die without you or stalking you.
Well that would certainly be sever. I also think it would be severe if your emotional state was completely decided by your partner's emotional state.
I think my XH was fused to me somewhat and I did not even recognize it. When I would be upset or crying I felt like he did not connect with me at all because he would yell at me or walk away. After talking to our marriage counselor, it turns out that when I cried he felt like it was his fault and his way of dealing with sadness is to get angry and leave. Who knew?? It never occurred to me that he might feel my sadness about something so deeply without letting me know!!
The ability to maintain a strong sense of self in a relationship might be regarded as the hallmark of differentiation. OTOH, selflessness can lead to a sense of entitlement as in "I'm such a wonderful wife, I do x,y and z. He should want to have sex with me more often"
??? Since selfishness leads to the same conclusion, right? This is where other factors come in. if you are selfless, you are selfless for yourself and not for others, so you don't expect sex, gifts, AOS, etc. for what you give freely.
All these same issues are at play, to a lesser degree, in really good friendships. I give of myself freely and to the extent I can in my friendships without any expectation that a friend "owes" me anything.
But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads? ~Albert Camus
Although, it almost certainly would have bespoken a different sort of dysfunction, it would have been a lot more "sexy" if in response to my 2bx's comments like "you are too nerdy to f*ck" I had responded by saying "Yeah, well you are too f*cking uptight to f*ck. I guess I just forgot for a moment. My bad."
Yes it certainly would have!!
But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads? ~Albert Camus
I think Schnarch would agree. You can see all the sex-killing dynamics that can develop along these lines such as placator/placatee, parent/child, moper/cheerer-upper, or plain old HD/LD etc.
Since my parents had none of those dynamics AND had a healthy sex life, I guess they handled things was okay???
But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads? ~Albert Camus
Hmmm. That's where I am still trying to understand this. To me if you are connected to someone then you would feel sad for them when they are sad about something that affects only them - say something at their workplace upset them. The difference between that and fusion is that if you are fused with the other person you don't feel sad for them, you ARE sad. Also I think it would not be good for a relationship if there was not a connection so that if you saw your spouse sad, you felt NOTHING.
I think that maybe the line of dysfunction is crossed when you in any sense take responsibility for your partner's emotions. It's just natural fo people to feel emotions that other people reflect to some extent(For instance, I am frequently amused when I take my dog for a walk because he's such a funny looking dog that passerbys often start spontaneously chuckling when they see him.)If I examine my own marital fusion dysfunction it would have gone something like - My H suffers from severe anhedonia therefore he doesn't feel like anything would be fun. I would like to do something fun with him like have sex or go to a movie, therefore I need to take responsibility for changing his emotional state in order to get what I want. Clearly, what I needed to do was take responsibility for my own emotional state instead of trying to get a down dog to dance and ending up with bite marks for my trouble. Frankly, I still struggle a bit with trying to figure out to what extent my desire for more sexual or social interaction within a relationship is healthy and what is reflective of my own slightly manic edge - kind of like trying to feed a healthy hunger rather than encouraging a voracious appetite. Another dangerous thing about being slightly manic is that you do attract depressives. I really need to watch out for that. You seem like a very balanced person to me. Do you have a brother? - lol
Last edited by MJontheMend; 07/26/0712:22 PM.
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
Interestingly that you should mention this fearless because that is exactly what H and I have said to the MC on several occasions, thinking it was a "good thing" when in fact, it is a bad thing because MC said (and I am quoting here) that if one is up and one is down, you never have a chance to really connect and understand the other person because you are always in two different places in your R.
I think Schnarch would agree. You can see all the sex-killing dynamics that can develop along these lines such as placator/placatee, parent/child, moper/cheerer-upper, or plain old HD/LD etc. OTOH, if you think about any sexual dynamic that operates from the same level such as being naughty kids together or sophisticated adults or grinning muscular animals it's much hotter and more connected. Although, it almost certainly would have bespoken a different sort of dysfunction, it would have been a lot more "sexy" if in response to my 2bx's comments like "you are too nerdy to f*ck" I had responded by saying "Yeah, well you are too f*cking uptight to f*ck. I guess I just forgot for a moment. My bad." because then we would have been on the same level.
But on the other hand, people do get down from time to time; there's no getting away from it. If the partners take turns "pulling each other up", then you don't get an entrenched sex-killing dynamic like parent/child, etc. If one partner's always down and the other's always up, on the other hand, then bad things start developing. Of course when each individual partner is healthy enough to minimize their "down" time, the relationship is better.
Can one partner "pull up" the other and at the same time really want to have sex? I would guess not, not to the same degree as if both partners were at the same level. So it's best if they're both "up" most of the time. But both being "down" at the same time is a whole lot worse than one being up and one being down, and having them switch back and forth is a whole lot better than having them frozen in unequal roles.
a fine and enviable madness, this delusion that all questions have answers, and nothing is beyond the reach of a strong left arm.
