Below are two views of marriage that came out of an e-mail exchange. The first is a kind of of phenomenology of marriage, and of behavior within marriage. It is who we are by nature. It is bad news, very bad news. The second entry is what can be done about it. It is very good news. Wonderfully, very good news. Enjoy the reading!
First, here is the depressing truth for many…
Seriously, sex and communication, sex and communication. I have always found Tim from Home Improvement’s remarks during a fight with Jill to throw more light on the subject than anything I have ever heard. Jill is complaining that what they need is “more communication…” “Communication?!!” exclaims Tim, “that’s what got us into this mess in the first place.” Well, who can argue with that? The great panacea of “communication,” as it is practiced, is more often than not, water on a grease fire. It just spreads the problems and speeds them up.
Anxiety is the bane behind both shortages. The woman is filled with anxiety because she has deep memories about how Adam betrayed Eve in the original transaction with Satan. She is suppose to trust him, but doesn’t for that reason. In the mean time, he has lost his capacity for leadership, and has precious little clue as to how to do it, but his whole manhood is on the line to be able to. She should trust but can’t, he should lead but can’t, and that is a pickle. Hence, she is double minded (the definition of anxiety)not trusting, but wanting to, and being mad about it, and he has anxiety about her anxiety, knowing that she doesn’t trust him, but feels she should be able to and is mad about it. The more anxious she is, the more it fuels his anxiety. And she knows that he is anxious, which makes him even less trustworthy in her eyes (no one trusts an anxious leader), and that makes her more anxious which in turn makes him more anxious, which in turn makes her more anxious… Then, they try to fix it by “talking.” Talking means to expressing oneself, “getting it all out in the open” (self expression is suppose to ‘fix’ everything) He tells her how bad she makes him feel all the time by when he is around her, and she retorts that she has damn good reasons for feeling the way she does around him, and she expresses those feelings with a clarity and sharpness that is consonate with superior female verbal and psychic abilities. Being unable to match her sharpness, he yells louder. She comes back with forty three charges, remembering everything he has ever done from the time they met. He would love to hit her, smack her real good, because she has just annihilated him verbally. But, he is not in Saudi Arabia, so he can’t beat her. So he withdraws and pouts. Later, he leaves and slams the door real hard when he goes out, and goes and drives his car 25 miles, and hopes that when he gets back, she will feel real bad. She does. They both feel real bad. They have a “hearts and flowers time” and have some great sex. A few days go by, and she is anxious when he is around. He hardly ever says anything. They watch TV alot. He is aware that she is anxious, and this makes him more anxious.The whole cycle starts all over again. “Hearts and flowers” happen less often. There is more silence and more distance.
Sex is such a hassle, talking is even worse.
So, second, what is one suppose to do about such a sorry state of affairs?
Well, anxiety is the enemy. When anxiety begins to be conquered, all else is possible. One must tackle anxiety.
There are certain things that cannot be attacked directly. Everyone knows that a baseball player cannot combat a batting slump by trying harder. Tiger Woods is not playing bad golf because there is something wrong with his “work ethic.”. If one struggles against the quick sand, one sinks faster. And while there can be a certain kind of truth to saying that people must “work on their marriage,” it can at best be only a very incomplete truth. Marriage, and for that matter, all relationships, are not like digging a ditch or doing push-ups. Some things are only found indirectly, and “ensue” to us and that is the only way the blessings come. If we “pursue”, they ALWAYS outrun us. The harder you run, the faster they will elude. It is an iron law.
Victor Frankl invented a technique that he used with certain kinds of compulsive anxiety neurosis. He found using this technique often cured people for whom years of counselling had been useless. To a man who was terrified that he would die of a heart attack, he instructed him to lie down on the couch in his office and told him to now concentrate and focus all of his attention, and cause himself to have a heart attack. To a man who was afraid to go into public because he was afraid that he would perspire and the sight of sweat pouring off of him, and the consequent bad odor, would make him an outcast, he gave a similiar direction. “Try right now to start sweating, and sweat quarts and quarts, and smell as bad as it is possible for a human to smell. Make an outcast of yourself right here.” To a man who was afraid to sign into a motel because as clerk was watching, his handwriting would become a childish scrawl, and utterly illegible (he grew up in a culture where having a “fine hand” meant a lot), he told to write his name and make it such a terrible scrawl that he would become an outcast immediately.
In all of these cases, the effect on the patients was that they all burst into laughter. That was just the ticket.
The usual mark of all dysfunctional families is that they are serious. Very serious. Now, our problems are serious, very serious. God took them seriously and showed His grief in the Crucifixion. But the Resurrection is God’s laughter and God’s joy. And if our religion cannot make us joyful, and very light, and make us float with laughter, then it is not worth much. The Tea Party scene in Mary Poppins is a very Christian scene. That was a very Christian tea party. If we are not laughing often, then we do not have enough Resurrection in us.
Anxious, sexless, uncommunicative marriages need more Resurrection. Lots more Resurrection.
What I would suggest to someone in a bad marriage who wants it to be better, is that he or she must begin to seriously give thanks to God for all of the problems that are in that marriage. No sex? Praise God. All talk leads to misunderstanding? Praise God.
Am I daft? “Count it all joy, my brethern, when you meet various trials…” (James 1:2) Do you need spiritual weapons to fight spiritual enemies in your marriage? Then listen to the Psalmist.
Let the faithful exult in glory;
let them sing for joy on their couches,
Let the high praises of God be in their throats
and two-edged swords in their hands…
Psalm 149:5-6
Spiritual warfare must be done in marriages, but it must be done not by grim warriors, but very cheerful warriors.
Remember, Chesterton’s very great quip: “The devil fell through the force of gravity.”
An Age of Anxiety is a grim age. Far from being “gay” and far from being marked by pleasure and happiness, late modernity is full of grimness (think Heidegger and “being onto death,” and “anxiety is the essense of our being,” etc. etc. etc ), and we attempt to fix the problems of grimness through more grimness.
Learning to begin to be thankful for all of the problems in one’s marriage has a double effect. 1) It is a form of “paradoxical intention.” It takes ones mind off of the problem and brings relaxation. It can even bring joy and laughter. The very relaxation itself will make all kinds of other things possible (like sex and communication–both of which require large amounts of playfulness–exactly what the “serious” are incapable of) and 2) God comes in new ways when one offers praise, thanksgiving, and rejoices (note, “rejoice” is a command, it is something that is ameniable to will).
f one does not “rejoice in the wife of your youth” there will never be much sex.
New cycles need to replace vicious cycles. Vicious circles (such as I described in my first post) go down and down and down. Rejoicing and thanking circles are what reverse vicious circles. They gradually go up and up and up. Rejoicing leads to relaxation which leads to sex which then creates even more rejoicing, which then leads to more relaxation and more sex, etc. etc., the exact opposite of the vicious circle.
“But you don’t know what my wife/husband is like…you are whistling in the dark.” Hmmmmm… Sorry, I have been around a long time. I doubt I will hear any horror I have not heard. I have been down lots of dark alleys and into lots of terrible box canyons. And it does not require that both do this. The “motivated party” is the one who can in the end, change everything.
Rich, The Bringer of Very Good News
He is Risen!
PS Read Peter Leithart’s wonderful answer, in Deep Comedy, to both the ancient world and post modernity and it insistence on “death through rivalry.” It is answered by the Father and the Son mutually glorifying each other instead of the father having to murder the son, or the other way around…it is masterful, and has deep similarities to what I am saying here..
Richard Bledsoe is a Theopolis Fellow and works as a chaplain in Boulder, Colorado.