When your spouse becomes more important than yourself, there are four common patterns of behavior that can negatively impact your marriage.
These choices arise when your sense of self is diminished, and you begin to rely excessively on your spouse for validation and identity, or seeking to maintain theirs.
These patterns represent unhealthy ways of coping with a loss of differentiation, and they ultimately hinder the growth of intimacy and passion within a marriage.
Here are the four choices:
- Bludgeoning: This involves attempting to control or manipulate your spouse to conform to your own needs and desires.
This can manifest as constant criticism, demands, or attempts to change your spouse’s behavior or personality. The goal is to reassert a sense of importance and control within the relationship. This approach is ultimately destructive, because it does not address the root of the problem, which is the loss of the your sense of self. - Withdrawal: This entails creating emotional or physical distance from your spouse. This might involve becoming emotionally unavailable, avoiding communication, or spending less time together. The purpose of withdrawal is to create space in order to regain a sense of individuality. However, this strategy tends to exacerbate the problem and often leads to further disconnection.
- Turning Oneself Over: In this scenario, you becomes overly compliant and dependent, sacrificing your own needs and desires to please your spouse. You may become a people-pleaser, constantly seeking your spouse’s approval and putting their needs above your own.
This behavior ultimately results in a loss of self-respect and resentment over time. - Desire Diminishes: When your spouse’s importance exceeds the importance of your relationship with yourself, sexual desire will decrease. This is a natural consequence of a loss of self and a reliance on external validation. When your spouse is more important to you than your own self, you become unable to show anything new to your spouse, because you’re are dependent on their validation.
The first three choices are considered unhealthy reactions that are driven by fear and a need to regain control. The fourth, a decrease in desire, is a natural outcome of lower levels of differentiation.
So what can you do?
Recognize your role in these patterns – then confront yourself honestly about your choices and expectations.
It is important to understand that these patterns are not necessarily conscious choices. They are often unconscious reactions to a perceived threat to one’s sense of self within the relationship. However, recognizing these patterns is the first step towards change and growth.
By becoming aware of these patterns, couples can begin to work towards a more balanced and differentiated relationship, where both spouses can thrive as individuals while also being deeply connected.
Sources: Dr Schnarch’s books Passionate Marriage, Resurrecting Sex
