Why Marriage and Personal Growth Go Together
By: Vitae Bergman
Respect…respect…respect.
This is major to a long and successful marriage.
All too often, in my practice as a spiritual counselor, I
find couples have derailed their mutual respect in many
subtle and not-so-subtle ways through their style of
intimacy.
They mistakenly believe being married gives them license to
get into each other’s head. Too many married couples, soon
after tying the knot-or even before-begin to treat each
other the way each one treats him/herself. This is what many
of my clients think intimacy is about.
With this style of intimacy, we project on to our spouse all
the demoralizing, self-inflicting wounds we give to
ourselves. Whatever baggage we carry, we thrust upon our
partner. Hidden anger, self-doubt, and fear-to identify our
most common failings-get tossed back and forth between the
partners. In other words, we treat our spouse as badly as we
treat ourselves.
It is my impression, we are more kind to strangers. We ought
to treat our spouses as kindly as we treat a stranger.
Politeness is not the same as coldness or aloofness.
Civility is the beginning of positive intimacy. And that
sort of intimacy is worth internalizing. From treating our
spouse in a kindly fashion, we can learn from our own
behavior and begin to treat ourselves more kindly. By that,
I don’t mean pandering ourselves with over-indulgence of our
appetites or by avoiding challenges. I don’t mean taking the
easy way out.
By exercising kindness to ourselves, we discontinue
harboring negative ideas about ourselves. We stop self-
judgmental habits; we stop trying to prove we are okay be
resorting to perfectionism; we stop nursing past hurts; we
stop anticipating future insults. And by clearing our mental
house of negative self-intimacy, we are then more able and
willing to be kindly disposed to our beloved other.
Treating our spouse as politely as we treat a stranger makes
for an easier process when it comes to dealing with issues
and differences. Having grown to be more kind toward
ourselves, we have learned how to be an observer of our
inner as well as outer behaviors. We become a witness to our
actions and thoughts. We learn to understand ourselves
better. And thinking more kindly about ourselves, we have
enabled ourselves to move through our negotiations with our
spouse from a higher perspective. It is as if we were
standing at the top of a mountain looking down and seeing
with more clarity all that is happening below.
We have learned to see our emotions from some amount of
distance, enough to be open to hearing more clearly what the
other needs to say. We listen to each other without
defending ourselves, without seeking to change the other.
Just listening, just hearing without heavy emotional
involvement, makes all the difference in the world. This is
the way of polite negotiation. This is the way marriages are
sustained, are nurtured, and ripen.
Generally, people are attracted to an opposite type. We see
in the other characteristics and behaviors we secretly wish
were ours. At first, being with our opposite is a positive
delight. Until it happens-and it generally happens-that each
partner, to some extent or another, attempts to change the
others habits, behaviors, attitudes, and beliefs. Those very
attributes we were attracted to in the first place begin to
threaten.
The honeymoon is over when one partner starts working on the
other attempting to get the other to become more like him or
her. Because the partner harbors unconscious doubts about
her/himself, because of the negative intimacy the person
inflicts on her/himself, the need to change the other-to
take on his/her characteristics and attitudes-is a way to
alleviate some of that doubt. If she is more like me, then I
must be okay.
This is the path to a hostile environment. In such a
marriage, delight in each other dries up, the warmth and
love desired evaporates. The partners have a sense of too
many differences separating them from each other. If they
persist in remaining connected, their life becomes one of
quiet desperation. If the two are still civil with each
other, the civility is brittle. There is no kindness, no
loving, and caring feeling between them. Many marriages persist in this manner for various reasons, financial being the most prominent.
But if each partner practices self-kindness and a detached
witnessing of self, then each can allow the other the space
needed in which to grow. Gradually, the gap between
differences narrows; each has shifted somewhat in attitude
and behavior; each has miraculously become more like the
other. And then it becomes a joy for the two to be together.
Each has realized the pleasure of having become more like
that person they were attracted to in the beginning.
Such a ripening can be the consequence of a lengthy and
successful marriage. We become more whole. This is why we
do it.
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Vitae has been a spiritual counselor for over 25 years. He is an All Game Guide and has trained 22 new guides. All Game is a self-discovery workshop in the form of a board game.
Vitae is as well as master numerologist and teaches numerology online.
JoyfulNumerology.com