I'm just responding to your post from my last thread, as I have been reading Passionate Marriage. It is a great book, a lot of really insightful stuff in there. It isn't a light read, you have to read it with concentration but I wanted to share a few things.
You said
Quote:
this stuck out:
Quote: but I am now learning that life is about compromise and that while having ideals is great they are not always achievable - it goes back to the being right or being happy thing.
I might be misunderstanding what you wrote... but I am starting to realize that compromise is actually not what marriage is about. Everyone/everything in our culture/society says that's what marriage is, but I'm starting to think it's something else.
I don't think I expresssed myself very well, I found this in Passionate Marriage that expressed it better.
"Integrity is the ability to face the realities I just mentioned. It's living according to your own values and beliefs in the face of opposition. It is also the ability to change your values, beliefs, and behaviour when your well-considered judgment or concern for others dictates it. Putting your partner's goals on par with your own and delaying your agenda accordingly takes (and makes) integrity." Passionate Marriage, D Schnarch pg 47-48
Also a paragraph that really stood out to me was this
"Emotional fusion deceives us into thinking that we're not connected and move away in defense. But the deeper truth is that we have to move away to counter balance the tremendous impact we feel our spouse has on us." Passionate Marriage, D Schnarch pg 57
Maybe this is what some of the WAS's feel and also why darkness and dimness is a good thing for the LAS. We have to feel it to move on from it, sometimes it is overwhelming and suffocating. It reassures me to understand that it is the 'tremendous impact' rather than what we naturally take for granted (or I did) as a LAS that it is because we have no impact.
I also love the question that he poses to the couple who are resenting the issues that they are facing by asking 'What makes you think you shouldn't have the problems you are having?' That really made me think and although I do feel I have let go of this now, it kept me bound up for a long time.
