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mstrauch-blog · 8 years ago

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open agreements v2.0

This is a fascinating bit of history. This was our agreement. The opening paragraphs still pull my heartstrings. That really is where I was and how I felt, totally honest, raw, authentic.

Trust & honesty are the cornerstones of this contract & openness between Steve & Melissa. Without continued trust & honesty that can be counted on by both partners, openness is not an option ongoing. Steve & Melissa each need to feel strong in the assurance that the other person will act responsibly, & will take responsibility for their actions.

Steve & Melissa will continue to check in with each other & reflect within themselves to make sure this is working, that it feels right, that it's appropriate & that it's benefiting the primary relationship. Both parties will bear in mind this is a learning process & an ongoing negotiation.

Letting your monogamous partner of many years be physically intimate with someone else isn't an easy or obvious path, & Steve & Melissa acknowledge that at times emotions are going to run high & disagreements may arise. This contract needs to be reviewed regularly & revised as needed as Steve & Melissa figure out what works for each of them & the health of their marriage.

Last but not least, Steve & Melissa are wonderfully, happily married. They love to spend time together. They want to grow old together. They are dedicated & loving partners & parents. The existence of this contract is by mutual agreement, & doesn't change these facts.

Ground Rules

Max once every 5 weeks (this goes for “dating” & one-nighters cumulative)

Steve & Melissa will have had at least one date (beyond just dinner locally) during that 5 week time span.

No protection = no sex. Melissa will confirm protection is available before entering anyplace she expects to have sex

Melissa will be home by 1pm the next day, ready to be an active part of the family

When Melissa is on a date & Steve texts or calls, Melissa agrees to answer or respond ASAP. This means having the phone charged & in audible range

Steve understands that immediate response may not be possible if the call/text is missed or doesn't come through right away

If Melissa is unreachable, for instance she lost her phone or forgot it, & there's no adequate back-up option for communication, she agrees not to engage in sex & will return home that night

Conversations with current or potential partners through emails, texts, Facebook, IM, etc. are an ‘open book.’

Steve can read through Melissa's communications at any time but will try to minimize reviewing communications. In reviewing communications, if Steve has questions for finds anything concerning or objectionable he will let Melissa know in a timely fashion, ideally within 2 hours.

Melissa agrees not to erase texts, IM’s, emails, voicemails, etc.

Additional date & situation-specific ground rules may be laid out & agreed to beforehand, ideally written down. If the agreements are verbal Melissa will abide by them as she understands them.

If Ground Rules are Broken

Melissa will divulge ANY mistakes or broken ground rule(s) within 24 hours. Melissa recognizes that holding back ANY information that may be taken badly by Steve is unacceptable and is a breach of the trust & honesty at the core of this contract, at the core of the marriage, & her wedding vow promises

If any ground rule is broken Melissa forfeits her right to see that person again in the case of a "dating" relationship

If any ground rule is broken Melissa will be banned from any more dates or one-nighters for 3 months

If any ground rule is broken more than once in a 6-month period, or on the first date after a 3-month ban (see above), Melissa will be banned from any more dates or one-nighters for 6 months

If Melissa has unprotected sex she will inform Steve before any sexual activity between them, & will get tested ASAP

"Dating"

Melissa will get permission in advance

Melissa will provide as much information about her partner as Steve desires & will be open to questions

Steve will endeavor not to cancel a prearranged "date"

If Steve wants to cancel a prearranged "date" he will be expected to fully explain the reasons & engage in discussion. Additionally the request is expected to be reasonable & not entirely emotionally-based

Melissa agrees to abide by Steve's decisions because the marriage is more important

Melissa will take responsibility for managing a "dating" relationship in a way that is separate & not intrusive on the marriage

One-nighters

Melissa will call or text to inform Steve what's going on & get permission

Steve can ask for 15 minutes to make his decision

Steve can say "no," however the expectation is that his decision will be reasonable and not entirely emotionally-based

Melissa agrees to abide by Steve's decisions because the marriage is more important

General

Steve has a right to voice concerns at any time, but will endeavor to keep in mind the benefits brought to the marriage by openness

Steve will keep in mind he is also free to have other partners - at which point this contract applies in reverse

Melissa will endeavor to set aside/organize consistent date nights, activities & special time with Steve. Steve will endeavor to do the same with Melissa. Melissa understands that Steve needs to feel primary, & that the majority of Melissa’s time & energy are going to him, the marriage & the family. This is especially relevant if Melissa is actively “dating” another person. This is an ongoing negotiation that will require discussion & checking in with each other.

It is agreed that if Steve is not feeling well, is busy or stressed with work, is running too tired for great date nights, or his primary energies are otherwise going elsewhere, that may not constitute for adequate grounds to cancel a date

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mstrauch-blog · 8 years ago

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it's not overthinking

Phenomenology is one of the qualitative methods of research I’m studying in advanced research. This post relates to my last entry about logic; about integrating the intellectual system and the emotion system. This is the key to leading the “superior life course,” to use the words of family theorist and therapist Murray Bowen, another favorite thinker and writer of mine who’s Family Systems Therapy informs my therapy work with clients directly. Superior sounds terrible, but he’s not talking about superior to others’ life courses, or people being better than other people, but about finding a healthy, enriching life course for yourself whatever that looks like for you. The idea is that as long as you can find a healthy back and forth between intellect and emotion—not allowing logic OR emotional reactions to run your life at your own expense, then you’re on that superior life course and many new possibilities in life—for enriching relationships, deepness, authenticity, living to your values rather than your impulses, open up.

This is the hallmark of humans that came with the evolution of the prefrontal cortex--- we are conscious of being conscious. We can self-reflect. As one of the founders of phenomenology Husserl “suggests that there is a quality within human cognition that allows it to improve itself and that consciousness can perceive itself as an experience-able object, accessible to a possible self-experience that can be…enriched, without limit’’ (1999:29).

One of the key terms in phenomenology is “intentionality,” which Husserl (1999) describes as the connection between the mind and the world of objects. Human consciousness is intentional in that it is a consciousness of something. The move from directly experiencing the world around us to focusing on our consciousness of that world is called the phenomenological epoche, or parenthesizing (Husserl 1999). This transition allows us to reflect on our own conscious activities and can help us achieve a greater sense of self-knowledge. Husserl proposes that such a self-reflection might be the key to not only knowing ourselves but to enriching our cognitive abilities.

I am grateful to be able to say that I’ve been able to experience that enrichment through a deep synthesis between emotion and intellect which I’ve had to develop out of necessity in my life. The journey continues with the intensive, continuous self-reflection and self-reflexivity that being a therapist requires.

In every situation a person faces, s/he can seek to determine what it is to be attentive, intelligent, reasonable and responsible, and this ability to choose is fundamental to humanity, it is our consciousness. The degree to which one fulfills one’s capacity in these precepts reflects one’s authenticity as a human. We can only progress on what is a quest.

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mstrauch-blog · 8 years ago

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Logic

Steve is more governed by logic in the classic style of men, than I realized. I learned this over years, as stress increased in our lives and our relationship. He retreated to where he felt safe and more in control- the world of logic. I retreated in anger and hurt to what I knew to do to regain calm and sense of control- stay I my room alone. This comes from my family of origin and upbringing. When my dad was emotionally out of control the way I kept from losing it and to feel safer I'd cloister alone or with my brother. The more withdrawn I got the more hurt he got because I wasn't doing the things he expected of me--doing what I "should" do and "should" feel as a wife. The more he put pressure on (unconsciously) of how I should feel, the more I wanted to withdraw. You see, he didn't start the cycle and wasn't to blame for it, it was of both our making in our (all too human) emotional reactivity.

This writing is the culmination of thoughts brewing for some time. In January of 2016- a year ago, Steve said something to me that I wrote down because it so summed this up. He said, in describing a coworker, "like me, he has trouble thinking outside of the box of what can be logically deduced"

So the logic-think came out more over time and manifested slowly, mostly at Steve's work. Steve himself recognized on a number of occasions as he moved into higher manager positions that his focus on logical sometimes caused him to miss the emotional aspects of things, especially with relating to female colleagues. This would affect work relationships in negative ways. He would talk about this specific trouble at home. He didn't apply these revelations in home life, though. It's perhaps easier to do that in a context of work versus home when home is an emotional/upset wife and a troubled marriage. At work he was better able to tap into the humble, I'm-learning, I-struggle-with-this and we-all-have-things-to-work-on frame of mind.

Steven would complain at home about how irritating and unnecessary having to attend to "feelings" and the "over thinking everything" tendency of women. He would also accuse me of this. He would have an air about him of how ridiculous I was and how I really just needed to get over it because if I was just logical it wouldn't be a problem. This was troublesome to me, I would feel looked down on and talked to like I was less; there was no more joy and wholeness from our complementary intelligences. I would explain my belittled feelings in a measure and logical way (this is SO hard when you're hurting!), connecting the dots between the logic and emotion points in my experience of this friction point, to what seemed no avail. So resentment grew on my part. He just wasn't able to see the validity of the emotion.

He speaks of his new partner in this manner as well. He has said to me twice that she's "not a perfect person either" (seems telling though perhaps it's more an attempt to soften the reality of our ended marriage, out of guilt maybe). He says she gets "over emotional" and the things she says "aren't rational." Anyway, because of what I've learned about relationships is the thing that concerns me the most for his new long term relationship. It's not that they met so fast or anything, as I know from experience you can live together for years and still have things fall apart.

Steve comes from a family of hyper-logical (mom, siblings) to the emotionally inept in their view (dad: who's babied, cared for and pitied for his depression and emotional problems. It's assumed in Steve's family and my in-law family (mom, siblings) that dad is an emotional mess and that's why he makes such bad decisions. His choice of new partner in Marian only aggravates this view of the rest of the family. But his choice of 2nd wife makes a lot of sense- finding someone was was damaged by her growing up and willing to be vulnerable with him on that, in a way Rose wouldn't or couldn't. Rose to this day scorns him for his ineptitude, trouble holding a job, etc. Although rose grew up in a deeply troubled family as well, she has spent her life avidly succeeding at everything. So of course when I was struggling with emotional problems she had no pity for me. If she can do it, anyone can do it. AND my unresolved crap (because of course her son, who she raised perfectly) was hurting her son's life. So I got the same treatment that Wayne got. And later and simultaneously, a similar message from her son, my husband: you have failed to get this under control and you are responsible for this problem, and if you don't get your act together (like my mom did). There seems to be no recognition on mom or son's part that the divorce of rose and Wayne probably had something to do with roses stuff too. In fact I know it did, I can say that as a couple's therapist.

For this it's not surprising steve chose me. I tend to be pretty in touch with logic. I am more in touch with logic than many women. That he felt comfortable with in a mate. As is normal, he saw that in higher relief during the Velcro and early years. The emotional side of me was in low relief, it's so normal to have the attractive parts of our chosen mate so obviously and clearly overshadow other aspects of their personality, without fully internalizing that those things may be just as big a part of who they are and thus will play a big role in your shared life of years. Anyway, I was attracted to Steve's logical, non-drama no-nonsense manner, but I really fell in love when he showed me a side of himself over the first months that showed what I read as emotional intelligence and understanding for people that surprised and delighted me. Looking back I realize that this side of him was coming out because if me and how in love he was, and with the normal passage of years the more-likely and more-comfortable aspects of each of our personalities were always going to be our primary ways of being in the world, me: sensitive and emotional, him: logical and distant.

The problem is when you retreat to the logical to survive you it gets further engrained. Even though it's hurting you and your relationship you don't see it. In fact, you cling onto it in desperation because it's what you know to do. And when your partner comes in full of big emotions you freeze and withdraw. You don't know what to do. You simply do not have the skill of navigating between the intellectual and emotional systems that is required. Steve didn't learn it from either parent or anyone previous in his life it or any previous romantic relationship. So I paid the price of his not even being willing to accept this was part of our problem, part of fueling our cycle. He didn't want to take responsibility. It's scary, and painful, and makes you queasy to jump into new territory. You push it all back and it becomes psychosomatic: hives, hamstrings, back, insomnia, multiple infections. And because the cycle is so intense and your needing to push away feels so critical to survival that successful marriage therapy at that point is practically impossible. You're just too entrenched, habituated and scared. The desire to blame it all on the other is SO overwhelming because you're so hurt, resentful, angry, feeling abandoned by your life mate and you're so desperately trying to survive the intensity of the daily stress in the way you know how...and that way of dealing it is only making it worse. It's classic. We do this all the time. It's practically why therapy exists.

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mstrauch-blog · 8 years ago

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blind spots

From course syllabus: “Growth in culture awareness is highly dependent on the student’s ability to critically examine his/her own worldviews and biases. This also includes being accept, validate and work to understand others’ positions, even if you vehemently disagree. This critical examination can only be fostered in an atmosphere of profound safety, trust, and respect for everyone’s views and attempts to critically examine those views. We are all works in progress”

My ‘Multicultural Therapy’ class professor is black, married, gay and the proud mother of a one-year old. She's putting out her identity and viewpoint right up front. That's cool. And, perhaps, this is how she can show us that she’s the best person to be teaching a multicultural class.

And…I wonder though if she would seem them as biases. In other words, by saying I’m white and high SES (although I’m not, I’m now divorced and my SES has changed, although still higher than many.) Anyway, my color and SES seem to mean, in the eyes of some including my teacher, that I’m de facto part of the problem just by my very existence. I’m humble enough and self-reflexive enough to be OK with this. I get where it’s coming from and actually agree to a large extent. By saying these things I’m admitting I have biases, some unconscious. I’m asked without being directly asked to admit that I have them. I’m sure I do. And DrMW assumes my blind spots and biases are ugly and even damaging to others. I don’t want to be hurting or damaging to others! So of course I’m motivated by a desire to be a person who does care about not being hurtful to others. That’s a value I hold dear as I’m sure many of her students do.

But I’m brainstorming here on whether we should question or open a conversation around this idea of bias/privilege/blind spots. Because no one who isn’t of at least some oppressed minority should ever be teaching (DrMW’s message in our first session that the previous teacher of the course, an Argentinian immigrant woman of high education and SES, didn’t really know what she was talking about, was clear and pointed).

But is it not also DrMW’s job to “continue opportunities to question what you know and assume.” We are taught to practice and respect an ongoing process and dedication to self-reflexivity in our practice as therapists. We are taught this in every class, be it theory or research. Will we be taught it in this class I wonder? If as a privileged white person I have to think through myself, my identity, my positions, my blind spots, my assumptions in this way, then why not you? Why do some people get a permanent pass on thinking to this level about themselves because their skin is a certain color? And we give her the space to do this because she’s black and queer. We give her a pass that we don’t get. She gets to be herself, be open and feisty about her opinions. We do not.

Part of me feels it’s not fair to ask the students to question what they know and assume without being willing to do the same yourself. It doesn’t feel fair to walk into the classroom as a teacher with the attitude that you’re there, you got hired, because you have The Answer. How can real discussion and learning take place in that environment? It becomes an “expert” model, which ironically is something we’re encouraged to reflect upon carefully as training clinicians---do we want to practice therapy methods that position the therapist as the expert? And if you do, you better realize you are. The idea is, basically, how can you be the expert on anyone’s life? Anyway, DrMW is the expert and the One Who Knows and we are to be deferential and accept her truth as the truth. It feels like we’re positioned in her eyes as the ignorant, over-privileged, white students (despite our age, training, life experience, efforts to know ourselves, etc) in direct proportion to how well we’re able to tow her party line in class. Maybe she won’t take it so far as to base our grades on that…although I don’t know.

DrMW is a cool person. She is very strong in herself, which is awesome and I love it. She’s been fighting the good fight for years, on the ground in her own life and in her community advocating for space in our culture, communities and relationships for her and people like her with non-mainstream identities. She is rebelling against a million status quos with passion and zeal. She talked about how she’s a rebel, always. (I am too as is evidenced by this writing!) And yet I wonder how much of her life choice are positioned in defense/offense against others’ positions. She’s living her identity, successfully. She’s higher SES, highly educated, married and a mother---all markers of privilege. She’s arrived in the life of her choosing and in a big way and I think that’s wonderful. It makes me proud to be an American. Yet her life’s work is to rant about how people aren’t getting the space to do those things. She sees the negative, but what about the positive? However imperfect, are not we ignorant, over-privileged white people starting to get it, a little? Aren’t your efforts paying off, a little? Can this open up hearts instead, even if a white person, for example, words something in a way that’s not-quite-right?

OK. Looking on what I’ve written so far it concerns me that I’m making all these assumptions about her when I don’t know her. My thoughts are based on her words in one class! And it scares me even more than that that I may be right in much of it. She may be so rigid in believing what is right and wrong that she’s not able to see past to any other way of seeing the world---at least the worlds of anyone heterosexual and white which feel by their very existence to be uncomfortable to her. Differing viewpoints or opinions become so much more than just…opinions. It becomes easy, even the easiest path, to see others’ opinions as a personal attack on who she is and what she believes in. Her life and identity may be keyed into the level of acceptance she perceives she’s receiving from those around her. Could it be that when someone unlike her says or does something that sounds unaccepting (or, god forbid, even IS) could become loaded and reactive very quickly. The tenor of the class is already loaded just one class in! And she has set that tone by her own choice and doing. I feel uncomfortable with the idea of challenging or reframing anything she says, even mildly and with cautious language. To speak up and honor my own desires and ways of learning would take courage. It’d take willingness on my part to make an enemy of yet another teacher who I respect and enjoy as a person and would like to get to know better. And this to me is a point of sadness; and missed opportunity to create and foster radical acceptance rather than cold avoidance.

OK. So I guess I need to reframe my own thinking about being a student in this class as questioning what I think I “know” and listening open-mindedly to what she what she believes she “knows.” and assumes. I need to try to focus on me, in other words. It’s an important personal value of mine to be continually questioning my own assumptions. And if I must do this on my own, like with this kind of writing outside of class, so be it. No need for me to be annoyed or angry about that, just let it be what it is.

I’m always sensitive, due to my personality and background, to unequal power relationships and one up/one down dynamics. I often push back on those to my own detriment, refusing to play power games and preferring to conduct myself respectfully with others but insisting on an equal footing. We are, after all, just people. So it’s loaded for me how much power it feels like she gets over us through her position as the professor, in addition to all I’ve written about. She gets tremendous power over us as we are the ignorant white people. I would argue she gets more power than a white, hetero professor would. She gets to shut us down just by being in the room; and that’s powerful. And she knows it. And she’s not interested in adjusting for it, or acknowledging it. Interestingly, we have a white, hetero, high SES teacher in another class who took it upon himself to acknowledge the power differential and discuss it openly with us in the first class. I thought this was great. It set a tenor of openness in the room that we all benefit from. He did it to because in our work with clients, ethically it’s our responsibility to be aware of, understand and adjust for the power differential between therapist and client. His job is to teach us how to be ethical, mindful therapists.

I would like to ask DrMW lots of things. I’m curious! Such as: How are you continuing to question what you know and assume? Do you think you have blind spots and in what areas? (We all have them, I believe this strongly.) Do you believe you have any privilege in your own life and what do you think about it? And then… Is this last question offensive? Why? What do you believe about the motives of the person asking it and how quickly to you jump to that conclusion? Are you able to give anyone the benefit of the doubt that they might not be as “racist” as they sound, for example? If you do give benefit of doubt, then with whom and when do you give it? With whom and when do you not give it, and why? What does a civil, open-minded (or at least open-hearted, curious) discourse with someone “racist” feel for you? Is there a way that it could feel less that way for you? Is it OK to walk away from a conversation feeing bad?

It’s as if there’s room to start a conversation or share opinions even if they’re radically different, if you give room to share an opinion that might be “racist” or “sexist” or “homophobic,” by the very act of allowing things to be even be spoken, there’s a visceral fear on the part of her and others in her camp that we open the door to losing everything that they (and me!) have worked for. There’s a clinging to the space that’s been created for other identities for dear life, or feel like we are especially post Trump election. What we may be failing to consider, however, is that perhaps by the very act of opening up a conversation may be the very thing that solidifies that space over time (it doesn’t have to be agreeable just civil at a basic human level; where you state your opinion and others have room to state theirs) may. There is great agreement, I believe, across the hearts of Americans of all creed and color that we can live and let live. We can be who we are and let others be who they are. This is repetitive, but what we fail to consider is that the very act of allowing others to speak their mind dissipates tension…it may be the only thing that allows us to move forward and create even more space for alternative identities—all of them from redneck, evangelist hunter to lesbian black woman. This is the great hope and promise of America and why I love this country despite it all.

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mstrauch-blog · 8 years ago

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Vows

Oh my.

Steve and Melissa have written their own vows, and would like to begin by saying a few words they’ve written to each other...

[Melissa speaks] Steve, meeting you is one of the most wonderful things that has ever happened to me. You have made me happier than I’ve ever been. Your positive outlook and approach to life have influenced me and changed me as a person. You’ve helped me develop a new confidence, and have brought into my life a solid, grounded energy – as well as a formidable match in any debate! You are a loving, caring, considerate and deeply committed partner, and I know to the very bottom of my heart that I’m making the right decision today.

[Steve speaks] Melissa, I am never happier than when I am with you. I love you with all my heart and I cannot wait to spend the rest of my life with you. You are the most caring, considerate person I have ever met, and I cannot remember the last time you did not treat me with the utmost respect, compassion and love. But I love you for even more…

I am used to thinking that I’ve covered all the bases; that I don’t need to listen to the other side because I’ve already thought through all the arguments, but you always challenge me with a new perspective, a view point I haven’t thought through before. You bring me new experiences and make me think about life in new ways. And you do it with a passion and fire that makes me listen. And when I do listen, when I am open to experience you, I am changed. And that is what I love most about you: I am always growing when I’m with you. I am always becoming a better person with you.

And now for the vows.

By entering a marriage, you are each willingly and joyously bringing each other into your repective families, into the circle of people you each love and cherish.

Melissa, do you promise to love and respect Steve always—to be Steve’s lifelong friend, companion and teammate in all things. To share with Steve your thoughts and fears, and to work with him through all the big and small decisions in life, and through all the challenges you will face together?

“I DO”

With these wedding vows, do you promise to do everything in your power to never let your marriage to Steve falter, to hold this bond above all things, and to set your mind fully on maintaining this strong and loving relationship with Steve?

“I DO”

Do you promise to support Steve in what he does, even if it requires sacrifice, and to do everything you can to build and maintain a life together with Steve that’s full of joy, peace, laughter, learning and adventure?

“I DO”

Do you promise to communicate instead of keeping things bottled up, to open your heart when you’re angry or feeling down instead of closing it off, to be supportive instead of critical, to celebrate and cherish what’s unique about Steve, and to try to improve yourself so you can become a better partner for Steve?

“I DO”

Steve, do you promise to love and respect Melissa always—to be Melissa’s lifelong friend, companion and teammate in all things. To share with Melissa your thoughts and fears, and to work with her through all the big and small decisions in life, and through all the challenges you will face together?

“I DO”

With these wedding vows, do you promise to do everything in your power to never let your marriage to Melissa falter, to hold this bond above all other things, and to set your mind fully on maintaining this strong and loving relationship with Melissa?

“I DO”

I give you this ring to symbolize my love for you —my hopes and wishes for this marriage —and everything this union means to us. With this ring, I commit to building a lifelong union with you —when it’s easy, but also when it’s hard. And with it comes the promise that I will offer my love— respect, support and acceptance— and my commitment to keeping our circle unbroken.

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mstrauch-blog · 8 years ago

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Accepting Steve and accepting myself

You can talk about self-acceptance and self-knowing so often, especially as a training therapist that it start to sound cliché. But I have renewed respect for the power of these ideas.

Anytime I explained to Steve, whether with intense emotion or not, that I felt this way or another when he did something I was doing the best thing I could have done. And in the middle of a marriage crisis intense emotion is understandable. Steve had them too but his style of managing anxiety is to push down tough emotions and even deny them. His distance further allowed a solidification of his stance toward me: “you have the problem, you’re out of control! Look at me, I’m calm and fine and you’re just coming in here and stirring up trouble! I can talk and think logically, you can’t.” He would often accuse me of being illogical, fighting about “orthogonal issues,” “overthinking” (which he views as the devil itself). I was “being on him.” This is about the unbelievably common-in-couples pattern called pursue/ withdraw which I’ll talk more about. In short, the more I pursued the more he’d withdraw and on and in a damaging, stuck pattern. The pursuer is emotional and the withdrawer is closed off. Two sides of a coin.

When I was thoughtful and self-disclosed to Steve about what I think the “why” behind some reaction of mine to something he did or a situation in our lives, I was doing the best thing I could have done.

The little talks I would initiate to check if we were on the same page or describe the reasons behind my positions where the best thing I could have done.

t’s not surprising that I was able to unstick my relationship with my parents after I separated permanently from Steve. When one important relationship is stuck so tend to be others.

It’s also not surprising that because I hadn’t worked out things enough with my first family (family of origin) that this impacted my own family. Unresolved emotional issues will play out in your current important relationships

I tend to overfunction which means I know what’s best or right for me and for everyone else. Steve tends to underfunction, handing his own functioning over to someone else. We tended this way, but as is often the case with couples we would go back and forth, sometimes I underfunctioned.

I tend to blame. I’m a blamer under stress. Blamers have short fuses. Steve tends to blame. He’s a blamer under stress. Blamers have short fuses. He would either deny or dismiss that he had a short fuse and if he did, it was because of me.

I tend to alternate between intense conflict with Steve and then retreating into discouraged distance. He needed distance too, although he never acknowledged such and blamed his not attempting to repair things with me after an incident as my fault because I was too difficult to communicate with. So why try? This is probably due to 2 things: 1) he’s more compelled by what one “should do” and “should be” in a marriage than I am. Partners are supposed to come closer and mend after conflict, in his mind, so his feeling unable or unskilled at doing this caused anxiety and avoidance of me, and 2)

I worry about Trace being under confident because of me and my mother. I worry about Trace being over confident because of Steve and Steve’s mother. When Trace shows signs of either I get anxious that he’s “turning into” one of those. I need to watch that and anything akin; it’s the kind of thing that’s absolutely ripe for self-fulfilling prophecy.

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mstrauch-blog · 8 years ago

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Crystallization

It's finally crystallizing in my mind, one of the things that is so troublesome and reactive for me in relation to Steve. When I interact with him, I find myself doubting myself. I not only feel like I'm being spoken to as a child or spoken down to, but that I find myself wondering "am I wrong to ask this?" "Am I being unfair? Am I being lazy or selfish? Am I being a bitch? Should I feel guilty about how I feel on this? It's about everyday little decisions, who does what, when it gets done, not just the big stuff. I realize now that I put all of this on myself. It was a constant battle not to let myself feel like I was lazy, bad, selfish. I had to continually remind myself that I'm not a bad, lazy, selfish person and because of that the decisions I make are right for me if I've thought them through with my head and heart. I just don't come up to the same feeling or resolution as Steve does. He and I are different, we inherited different levels of differentiation from our families and he had a higher expectation of marriage being about being on the same page, seeing things the same, and me going more with the flow perhaps against my own current and towards his. That's OK. This is normal. This is human. But when I tried to explain my line, to explain my positions and decisions on things that weren't to is liking, he would get defensive. I did those things the best way I could. And the reality just, remained. And recycled, and built resentment. I am just as much a part of our marriage going south as he is. It takes two. This is one of the patterns that fed into itself and we weren't able to escape from. I felt it all along, I acknowledged it, I talked it through in my head and talked about it with friends. But now I see how spot on I was, and how many other people struggle with similar power dynamics in their relationships. And in close relationships there's always an overfunctioner and an underfuctioner. They are complimentary. And because I was labeled the "angry" one, the one with the problem, the one who wasn't contributing and who was being supported by others, I was pigeonholed into a place where the things I asked for, the decisions I made, the feelings I articulated, the way I interpreted things, was seen through the frame of me as the problem one, the identified patient. So how could I be seeing things straight? Everything I did, every opinion I had, was tainted by my "problem" status and therefore more likely to be wrong than right-headed. I was in that boat and couldn't get out. I didn't put myself there on purpose and neither did Steve. It's just the kind of thing that happens in relationships through unconscious action. I became conscious and made decisions to put an end to it. And in the end, it put an end to the marriage too.

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mstrauch-blog · 9 years ago

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Marriage? Heck no

You might think I am writing this because I’m in the midst of a divorce. You are right. My feelings on the subject are very real and present these days. And ouch, I'm paying the price for getting married. My partner and I could have worked out another type of relatedness without marriage baggage, and I wish we had. There simply is no reason to attach oneself to another person, emotionally and financially in the way marriage wants you to. You can try to do marriage different, but that is easy to say and difficult to do; it’s fighting an uphill battle against what marriage is meant to be, and really is as an institution. It has requirements and rules and expectations and boundaries and limits. Better to save oneself from the mess and choose not to from the very beginning. If your partner cannot handle the idea of not being married, you need to question that. What does that mean? What are you really signing up for?

In the institution of marriage in western culture your partner is to be: your bonded mate for life, your emotional tether, your teacher, your motivator, the person always on your side, your best friend. It’s too much. You can know this and decide to get married, as I did. But knowing such things doesn’t mean you won’t get a divorce. If you don’t like how marriage puts these unrealistic expectations on people, the best way to show that is to not get married. I can’t think of a reason that would convince me to do it again. I already went with it for the one reason that was compelling—my partner wanted me too. If I had a partner who could not handle the idea of a long-term relationship without marriage, I would have to leave that relationship. I will not ignore my inner voice like that again.

We should know how to stand on our own two feet. That is the kind of person I want to be, so why did I ever get married? I loved my husband so much, I thought, so no big deal right? I’m not against celebrating our bond in a public way. The idea of marriage didn’t really resonate with my inner voice, but I wasn’t going to go a distance fighting the one I loved who simply wanted to proclaim and solidify our bond with a ceremony. But committing to marriage as an institution, which you are doing by marrying is so, so, so, so much bigger and has and will have such a pervasive impact on you, this idea of decades in a relationship with one other person…Duh! It’s living marriage day in and day out that is wearing and hard. And on the divorce end of a marriage, where many regular and well-meaning people end up, is where you get to see again the mess that is the institution of marriage and how it’s legally enacted and enforced. When you’ve mixed psychological and financial resources into one pot it is hard to disentangle even for the most loving and cooperative of divorcing people. Divorce constitutes such a major life change, such an upheaval and reworking of your life to adjust to new realities on all fronts, familiar, parental, emotional, financial, re-visioning the past, future and present. Not to mention the process almost requires lawyers and in my case financial advisors, etc. I did not know this when I got married. It is very difficult to avoid even with an uncontested, no-fault divorce between respectful, loving and cooperatively divorcing people.

None of this has anything to do with me shutting out or not wanting love, affection, acceptance, sex, partnership, etc. I can choose to have these things on my terms. And anyone who marries should know that romance and love are a temporary state. Even if you don’t have children, the flame wears down. This is normal. Evolutionarily the cyclone of infatuation, falling in love and deep-bonding is about procreation. This cycle takes about 3-6 years for one child. Many of us have another child, so that’s another cycle of 3-6 years. But after a child the natural order of things means the bond is showing wear. It not the same as it was before and will not be again. Falling in love again is a wonderful thing that can happen with some couples. I believe that. And it sounds awesome. For most couples post-young children they will gladly accept a more realistic goal—a revitalization of the bond that is frayed, a reconnection on some level. But you can’t force any of this. You can’t will it into existence.

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mstrauch-blog · 9 years ago

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Should've never been a stay at home mom

I think not going back to work after Trace was born was the biggest mistake I ever made. I should have gone back to work after the first year or two. Those old demons – low self-confidence, procrastination, stress overwhelm, I let them tie my hands. I have compassion because I wasn’t as strong then as I am now. I had good reasons to stay home, at the beginning. I felt that the stress of working and raising a kid was going to be too much for my fragile system. Good point. What I didn’t know, though, was that the way to build capacity and strength is to take on those challenges not to run from them. Back then I thought, I’m taking on having a baby and I want to do a good job at this. There’s no need to overdo it if I don’t have to, right? Steve was always supportive of me staying home. Early on working didn’t even make economic sense, although that did not hold true over time as I needed more and more babysitter and nanny support.

So the decision to stay at home was partly about lack of confidence, and fear. I had been let go from my last full-time job of 6 years without my consultation. It came as a shock and was painful. The part that hurt my confidence the most over the long term was that I never got closure on what happened. I think I was ready to take a break from the work world. I had a big new chapter to put my energy into so fuck it.

I not only backed away from working, I backed away from the world. I didn’t pull away from my community, family or friendships (always a vital support) but I did stop following the news, on purpose. I felt it was too stressful (Trace was born two weeks after the global banking collapse of 2008), and I needed to focus on the job at hand. But by not working and bowing out of something I care about, I took the wind out of my own sails. All along, Steve listened to my reasons and supported my decisions. He did so because he’s a loving husband and wants what’s best for me. But we both recognize now the more insidious undercurrent. It was—I won’t push back on Melissa’s decisions because I want her to be stable, because living with her when she’s not stable is untenable for me. Well I’ve got to say it’s no wonder we’re divorcing now. It was untenable that early on and over the next 7 years I continued to stay home, my difficulties with self-regulation increased and the whole situation only got worse; culminating in Steve becoming so stressed it manifested in chronic GI issues and other physical manifestations.

When I look back at memories of raising Trace I am filled with joy. We had so much time together. We had so many magical experiences together and formed a very close bond. We took trips all over the area, we spent lots of time with other kids and playing, the world was our oyster. I knew Trace was likely to be my only child, and damn it, I wanted to live it up. I wanted to be fully present and engaged with parenting. I wanted to be open to what parenting would teach me, as my big new challenging chapter that is parenthood. I took a mindful, thinking approach to parenting and for that I am proud. I thought about the kind of parent I wanted to be and the kind of things that were most important for Trace to know and experience, and everything I did flowed from that. I strove, mindfully and purposefully, to counteract the trends in parenting that I feel are damaging to children and parents, like helicoptering and risk-aversion. BUT if I had done less of any of this, it would have been OK.

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