ilovemybrain Posted March 4, 2011 Share Posted March 4, 2011 Thought I'd give you an update since I haven't posted much in a while. And I know there are many of us out there in the "Unequally Yoked and trying to figure out what in the hell to do about it" club. Just when I think it's over, one or both of us decides to keep trying a little longer. And I think we're reaching a point of mutual respect and acceptance finally. I haven't posted much lately because it's been such a struggle and so "on and off." But I think we're finally starting to remember what we love about each other, which has nothing to do with religion. It may still take a lot of time and effort but we're talking again, more than just on the surface of things, so that's good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator buffettphan Posted March 4, 2011 Super Moderator Share Posted March 4, 2011 Glad things are looking up! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freedom from Guilt Posted March 4, 2011 Share Posted March 4, 2011 Glad to hear good things. I've been wondering about you. I hope things continue to go well! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator Margee Posted March 4, 2011 Moderator Share Posted March 4, 2011 Good stuff 'Brain'! Funny, how in a relationship, two people can have so many different interests and still make it. One likes sports - the other is not interested. One likes the beach - the other doesn't. One likes movies and the other could care less.One wants to bring up the children in one way - and the other bucks. BUT - They will and do tend to find common ground if they want the relationship to work. But , when it comes to religion, well that is a whole different story - and it shouldn't be! We clearly need to leave each other alone with our different beliefs and try not to let that interfere with a marriage. I sincerely hope you guys work this out because there is nothing more heartbreaking than two people who once loved each other, breaking up. Good luck hon! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Overcame Faith Posted March 4, 2011 Share Posted March 4, 2011 I'm happy to hear this news, Brain!!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
par4dcourse Posted March 4, 2011 Share Posted March 4, 2011 March must be "tolerance for the damned" month in religion-land. I've had it fairly easy too. Glad it's going better, Brain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MagickMonkey Posted March 4, 2011 Share Posted March 4, 2011 Good to hear it, Brain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MagickMonkey Posted March 4, 2011 Share Posted March 4, 2011 Good stuff 'Brain'! Funny, how in a relationship, two people can have so many different interests and still make it. One likes sports - the other is not interested. One likes the beach - the other doesn't. One likes movies and the other could care less.One wants to bring up the children in one way - and the other bucks. BUT - They will and do tend to find common ground if they want the relationship to work. But , when it comes to religion, well that is a whole different story - and it shouldn't be! We clearly need to leave each other alone with our different beliefs and try not to let that interfere with a marriage. I sincerely hope you guys work this out because there is nothing more heartbreaking than two people who once loved each other, breaking up. Good luck hon! And sometimes the differences are complimentary (though certainly not religious differences). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ilovemybrain Posted March 4, 2011 Author Share Posted March 4, 2011 March must be "tolerance for the damned" month in religion-land. I've had it fairly easy too. Glad it's going better, Brain. Good to hear that, Larry, but it makes me worry what the hell is on their agenda for next month? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MagickMonkey Posted March 4, 2011 Share Posted March 4, 2011 March must be "tolerance for the damned" month in religion-land. I've had it fairly easy too. Glad it's going better, Brain. Good to hear that, Larry, but it makes me worry what the hell is on their agenda for next month? Maybe next month is bash the damned month. They're being so nice this month to make the bashing seem that much more worse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mwc Posted March 4, 2011 Share Posted March 4, 2011 March must be "tolerance for the damned" month in religion-land. I've had it fairly easy too. Glad it's going better, Brain. Good to hear that, Larry, but it makes me worry what the hell is on their agenda for next month? Easter? (He has risen! He has risen indeed!) mwc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asanerman Posted March 6, 2011 Share Posted March 6, 2011 My first marriage was dead on arrival long before it ended because it was the arena in which the neurotic defenses of regression (a reversion to childish behavior) and progression (an attempt to conceal weakness behind an ‘adult façade’) battled to the death in romantic love. Our neurotic entanglement ended after five years when my wife refused to consciously or unconsciously collude any longer. She was first in realizing things were killing her. I, like most men, was late in realizing that the relationship was dead. We were both colluding, I sought satisfaction in regression while she brought the need for over-compensatory progression, but we were both caught unaware. The pathological neuroses had gone on to long for either of us to deal with it. "It was over!" Maybe your situation will take a different route. I offer this as a peek into what can only be described as a total collapse and a new beginning. It was a hot day in June when the phone rang, my wife on the other end, said, in no uncertain terms, “Its over!” It was on that day in 1975 that the romantic ideal that “togetherness may be found only in love” collapsed, along with it our marriage. Our marriage had lead to disappointment, frustration, grief and great suffering. Somehow we both believed that love would guide us, it did not. Through years of retrospection, experience and education I now realize as a couple we had been overburdened by the erroneous expectation that “togetherness may be found only in love“ and, as always one of the greatest difficulties is the acceptance of separation in love; the respecting of another’s individuality without sacrificing one’s own. As a couple we were representative of those couples who, through anxiety about loss of self, are afraid of intimacy and maintain a rigid separation within their marriage relationship. We talked, had fun and had great sex but we never made love. Separation in love frustrates the longing to rediscover--at least with one person--the lost mother-child symbiosis and to return to an undifferentiated, primal harmony. It also frustrates weakness behind an ‘adult façade.’ Many of our marital crises were fruitless attempts to somehow reach this elusive goal and arose out of a defiant protest against separateness. “The partner having caused the disappointment (the one unwilling to collude any longer) should now a least be made to suffer for it.” In our marital relationship, my wife and I consciously and unconsciously ‘built’ a protective barrier between ourselves within our marriage, while out side our marital relationship the boundaries were diffuse. Intimacy with a third person served to limit our extent of close contact with each other. By using friends or relatives as allies we insured that the barriers that we had constructed between ourselves were preserved. Now that I think about it, we would have used our children to insure these barriers but we were fortunate no to have had any. We had the notion that no other relationship (except maybe parent-child intimacy) offers such a complete satisfaction of the elementary need for oneness, for belonging to another, for caring and being looked after and for protection, safety and dependence. What we did not understand is that hardly any other interpersonal relationship requires such a high level of identity (that is, sameness, the perception of oneself as an integral, continuous and meaningful entity), stability, autonomy and maturity as that of the intimate, complete and committed couple. Each partner expects deep, human understanding for the other and achievement of real personal fulfillment. To find solutions to the multitude of problems facing them requires ability and insight, and in the event of personal difficulties and stresses the partner will be the first to be approached for help and advice. We were both too needed and the romantic love that had brought us together could not endure the poverty nor could it survive the rigger autonomy, maturity and separation in love demanded. Couples who have a healthy relationship benefit from being able to alternate freely between progressive roles--the compulsory drive towards tough, controlled, ‘mature and adult' behavior and regressive roles-- the helpless, child-like, dependent and irresponsible behavior. Each partner in turn can be helpless, crying on the other’s shoulder, or comforting, giving advice and support Since the compensatory behavior of the partner can be relied upon, it is possible to behave regressively without fear of embarrassment. Correspondingly, success in the role of helper increases one’s self-esteem. The reciprocal giving and receiving of support brings a high degree of satisfaction and is an important motive for forming a couple. That motive is exactly what resulted in my second marriage, now going on thirty-six years and counting. I’m an old “analytic,” I trust that the ability to regress partially and temporarily is an important prerequisite to personal growth--a sort of ‘regression in the service of self.’ I feel helpless and child like sometimes, and so does my wife. I feel dependent and some times irresponsible, so too does my partner. I loose it sometimes, so does she. I’m rational, so is she. She is sometimes tough and in control, so am I. And somehow through it all we have managed to meet one another’s needs without having to sacrifice our own individual needs. Sometimes we postpone gratification. We are not perfect nor do we want to be, we strive for human. We get by very well! I can agree with Michael Balint who suggested that the highest levels of maturity are reached in genital love because of the opportunity to regress temporarily during orgasm. For me a committed material relationship is much like genital love; both partners are flexible enough to experience regression without fear, secure in the belief that either will be able to come out of it. I may be wrong but, it has made for great practice, satisfying pleasure and intimacy, not to mention a hell of a lot of fun! It takes two to Tango with grace. I wish you a good dance with much grace! saner 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ilovemybrain Posted March 9, 2011 Author Share Posted March 9, 2011 ... Couples who have a healthy relationship benefit from being able to alternate freely between progressive roles--the compulsory drive towards tough, controlled, ‘mature and adult' behavior and regressive roles-- the helpless, child-like, dependent and irresponsible behavior. Each partner in turn can be helpless, crying on the other’s shoulder, or comforting, giving advice and support Since the compensatory behavior of the partner can be relied upon, it is possible to behave regressively without fear of embarrassment. Correspondingly, success in the role of helper increases one’s self-esteem. The reciprocal giving and receiving of support brings a high degree of satisfaction and is an important motive for forming a couple. That motive is exactly what resulted in my second marriage, now going on thirty-six years and counting. I’m an old “analytic,” I trust that the ability to regress partially and temporarily is an important prerequisite to personal growth--a sort of ‘regression in the service of self.’ I feel helpless and child like sometimes, and so does my wife. I feel dependent and some times irresponsible, so too does my partner. I loose it sometimes, so does she. I’m rational, so is she. She is sometimes tough and in control, so am I. And somehow through it all we have managed to meet one another’s needs without having to sacrifice our own individual needs. Sometimes we postpone gratification. We are not perfect nor do we want to be, we strive for human. We get by very well! ... It takes two to Tango with grace. I wish you a good dance with much grace! saner Wow, that was a lot of food for thought - thank you, asanerman! I'm not sure I really grasp all of that completely. But I think my marriage is more like that second example you said. Most of the time. When he spends too much time influenced by church he becomes more rigid in his thinking and in his expectations. But when he just allows himself to be human and look at this relationship apart from the lens of religion, he sees we both just have our weaknesses (which are also our strengths) and we need to lean on each other sometimes. And he seems to just plain old like me a lot better lately because he's seeing ME (someone smart and caring and loving and sexy and fun to be around) and not a "heathen disappointment of a wife" label. I think this is a huge leap for ANY fundy to begin seeing people as they are, without the labels. It's not all the time, but he's getting there. I hope. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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