I hear what you and others say, but I still believe simply going through the motions to change behavior will not make a lasting change, at least not for us. We have tried it and it did not work. I now understand why. Going through those “motions” do nothing to address the underlying need for validation and comfort. To me it felt like I was supposed to just sweep my pain under the rug, deal with it and ignore it and W got off scot-free. As you would expect, in times of stress all those stuffed emotions come flying out and we take two steps back for the one step forward that took a month to do.
Pushing into the FOO just to relive the past is not my purpose, per se. Pushing into FOO for me was only a way to take down the walls that prevent both of us from responding to the good things we each did, and to admit that we each want to receive those good things. It had more to do with understanding what your objective is, what you really want, so that you can accept it when you get it.
Trying to arrest my decline into inferior states of functioning is Schnarchian, and it is one of the flaws I see in his idea of holding onto oneself. That part I agree with is that we each need to be responsible for our own behavior, not resort to physical violence, etc. But his ideas seem to ignore the fact that what the other person does to me affects me. Since we cannot control another’s behavior, Schnarch struck me as saying that if the other person does as s/he please, then we have to decide whether to take it or not. This is true, but the flipside of this teaching is that if the other person focused on my feelings, and I on the other person’s, there may not be a need to hold onto myself. In fact, in some cases there may not be a need to enter the crucible at all.
Attachment theory has this subtle shift in focus from Schnarch. It moves back toward IMAGO, yet it is different. IMAGO (at least what I experienced) seemed to focus on giving a false validation to the other, mirroring back the words necessary to placate the other. It felt patronizing and in this way was actually rather polarizing for us. We said we heard what the other was saying, but we also knew we did not have to agree with it. In fact, W got good at saying what I needed to hear and the went on her merry way as if I never existed. This did not help.
What we are tying to do now is to understand each other’s true needs, why we feel as we feel, and how we can help one another. I am trying to take a team approach in making her issues mine and vice versa. This creates bonding for us. The other methods did not. I can see that as we recover and become more confident in the marriage, we can move toward a higher level of differentiation and interdependence, but for now, that goal is simply too much to ask for. There is not the foundation upon which it can build.
