Major Breakthrough-I am Freaking Out. HELP!

[MJontheMend]

I guess I'm making up for lost time this week with many posts today .

I went back and read some of my earlier posts and I figured something out. Going through the process of "differentiation" and into the "crucible" in your relationship with your spouse is kind of like going to war. You can avoid it forever if you are willing to constantly reinforce your fortresses or surrender territory. Once you decide that war is necessary, when you first go into battle you are terrified. You might lose everything. With each battle you learn combat skills and you gain respect for yourself and your enemy as long as nobody violates the Geneva Convention. At last, the war is over, new lines are drawn and free trade and cultural respect are restored. Will peace reign forever? Doubtful. So what has changed? I have changed. I no longer feel anxiety about going to battle. I hope for a long peace, but if my personal integrity is ever threatened in my relationship, I won't be afraid to leave the farm (comfort cycle) and take up arms (differentiate). I guess I've matured.

I keep coming back to the analogy or relationship of liberty to passion. On some level, my H felt like he had not freely entered into our relationship and that he was not free to leave it. His LD about everything from home repairs to sex was a semi-conscious form of "peaceful" resistance. From my perspective his LD was a way of taking away my liberty by making me his "slave" by making me do all the work in order to maintain the relationship. The only good thing about this situation was that neither of us ever blamed the children for our dilemma. I really shook things up when I basically told my H "Start working or leave.". This threw him into two different crucibles. First, he became completely resentful because his liberty was being even more encroached upon by my tough demands. On the other hand, he became anxious because he realized that I was telling him that he was free to leave the relationship if he didn't want to work on it. He could no longer tell himself that he was "trapped" in the relationship, so his protest was meaningless. My crucible was to realize that my fear and neediness was making me a "slave", not my H.

I guess you have to be free (boundaries and personal integrity intact) in order to be passionate. Otherwise, you're like an artist under a totalitarian regime forced to paint only acceptable themes or a writer whose works communicate nothing because they are so mutilated by the censor. The thing that you fear most is what you have to do to save your relationship. The thing that you fear most is also the thing that will set you free. Think about how terrifying it will be to tell your spouse "I will not tolerate a sexless/passionless marriage". Think how free you will feel once you've said it.