relating to important oppressors; also, disgust in couples

I am trying to describe several processes for good relationships here. I am thinking particularly of the difficulties of heterosexual married/partnered women, and so this is written with them in mind. Certainly men have their own work to do in relationship -- the same work, although here I am regarding the challenges of relational tending for women. It's been my experience that at some point in marriage many women begin to feel disappointed and even "disgusted" by their spouses. I've heard "disgusted," which implies physical and emotional revulsion, often enough that I wanted to understand why.

But I need to start with some explanation of what, in an MFT's mind, is required for a healthy adult romantic/sexual relationship, which is two partners tending to the relationship -- the "third entity."

There is you, there is your partner, and then there is your relationship. Think of it as the space between you, what you co-create with your actions and reactions, your plant, your baby. Relationships, like plants and babies, need regular attention, attunement, caretaking, centrality. This centrality requires partners to be willing to take a "one down" position.

Reacting to our history of oppression, naturally resentful of women's culturally imposed burdens, reluctant to cooperate with patriarchal demands, and protective of our own centrality, it can be difficult for women in heterosexual relationships to take one-down positions, even temporarily, for the sake of resolving marital conflicts. By "one-down" I mean what therapists would call "empathic, reflective listening and validating." But often softening and opening to the other feels like coddling, accommodating, giving in, giving too much, shutting up and taking it. We may look at the face of our partner and see the mask of the oppressor, asking us to once again set our needs aside and elevate theirs.

Women in relationship with other women, too, can feel resistent to "one down." Women have been told to "one down" all our lives. We have to continually train ourselves up, guard against the diminishment, often with our unwitting permission, of our power. Call it a response to the trauma of womanhood.

Too often, we skip a step in wise relating. When we are oppressed, when we are injured, when our partner is injured and this causes us irritation or anger, the first step is to tend inwardly. The Buddha reminds us that, like a mother tending to her crying child, we must attune and respond lovingly first to our own trauma. It must be seen and heard, comforted, soothed. This is an internal process, or one we may share with an attuned professional. It must be our first response, to turn inwardly toward our trauma and say, "I see you, I will tend to you, I care about you." We center ourselves first, inwardly, relating to our [annoyance, aggrievement, sadness, hurt, anger] with compassion and comfort.

Then and only then can the relationship, the third entity, be seen, heard, mirrored, validated, soothed and comforted. This is outward-turning, turning toward our important other. It is vital that we be able to put our individual needs aside to tend to those of the relationship. Where it can feel oppressive to provide care and caretaking to the one triggering our trauma response, it may feel less so if we think about providing our nurturing attention to the third entity -- the relationship, as it is being expressed by the hurt/injured/angry other. We listen and receive, act in lovingkindess, and center the other's story for the sake of the relationship.

Although it can be difficult to see it in the moment, ultimately this is in our own best interests. When I think of saying to my partner, Beloved, you are in pain, tell me how and why, let me hold you and soothe you, my oppressed part may seethe. I may think, Why does this grown adult need so much attention, so much comforting, so much praise and validation? I am not this person's mother! Actual mothers may have an especially reactive part, oppressed already as she is by the needs of her actual children.

When we meet our partner in such an attitude, resenting their needs, ignoring our own, a destructive pattern can set in. While children may demand attention, acting out in a variety of unpleasant ways until the parents' eye is finally caught, it is unseemly in adults.

Moreover, it is unsexy. Many of my female clients say that they feel "disgusted" after prolonged exposure to a "needy," discontented, narcissistic spouse. Our partner is regressed, triggered, acting out as a child will. Our natural aversion to the incest taboo is unconsciously aroused -- one does not "desire" a child (or a parent; another blog post!). A feeling of disgust arises and sickens our bodies in order to prevent this transgression. And what is more childlike than narcisstic need expressed through acting-out behaviors?

Our spouse, feeling rejected, worsens the situation by sinking further into their child selves, pouting, acting out in anger, engaging in compulsive, sometimes reckless behaviors. My disgust part thinks, I see your needs as childish, inappropriate in an adult, I can no longer see you as a viable sexual partner; you in turn are triggered and behave in ways that only assert your "childishness." When sex disappears in a marriage, this is often the reason why.

I am not saying that women need partners who "man up" and swallow their emotional needs. Quite the opposite. What I'm saying is that women need to safeguard their perception of the other, in service of the relationship, and ultimately, of themselves. When adults need attunement, comforting, and attention, we do not respond to them exactly as we do with the real baby. We provide listening, we activate our empathy to stand in their shoes, understand their pain, validate what makes sense to us of their suffering. We express our sorrow at their pain, without becoming embroiled in it ourselves. We acknowledge that life is full of trauma, big and small, and we are sorry that our beloved other is suffering. We are not required, however, to treat them as if they do not have adult capacities. We remember we are only attending to a part of our partner -- the one that is hurting and in pain, confused, temporarily regressed. We are not responsible for changing anything for them or in them. We are adults, after all; our problems are our own and we will solve them, supported and nurtured by our attuned partner.

It certainly helps if our partner can talk for the child part instead of as the child part. Typically it is not the need that we respond to in disgust, but to the demand for attunement, attention and loving response that activates our disgust/resistant parts. If our partner comes to us and says, "Darling, I am in pain, and I need your attention and your love for ten minutes," most of us will be quite happy to put down what we are doing and bring out our curiousity and careful listening, or to agree to a time to do so later.

But possibly we have misattuned in the past. Perhaps we have been busy with something else, and dismissed our partnerd's (awkward, clumsy?) bid for attention. We may have thought, "Can't they see I'm busy? Can't it wait?" Our partner, injured by our inattentive response, conceives the idea that they were wrong to bring needs to us, possibly to have needs at all. The next time a need for our attunement arises, they will think, I will not get what I want. They will subconciously remember being a child, denied comfort, care, attention, validation -- as we all inevitably are, at some point in our childhood (we call this injury "developmental trauma"). Anticipating rejection, caught in a re-enactment of childhood trauma, they regress to that child-like state, behaving as they did in childhood in response to injury from an important caretaker: Protecting themselves from further pain, withdrawing, showing their displeasure through silence and injured looks, but never getting to the grown-up, assertive, confident "My darling" part. And, if they have any insight into their behavior, feeling ashamed of themselves (another childhood pain point) for doing so.

We must protect our image of our partner, in order to be able to give them the attunement and love that bonds couples together in loving adult relationships. We must wait for them return to the adult state, having integrated and synthesized our attentive care. We must wait for them to believe they will be met not with dismissiveness, minimizing, exasperation, correction, or judgment, as we may have mistakenly done in the past. When our partner fully believes they will be met with respect and care, they can stay connected to their adult self, the self that can express vulnerable needs in skillful, adult ways, knowing that they will be heard without having to resort to child-like behaviors. With fewer glimpses of the acting-out child and more of the adult, our taboo fear will slowly disappear. We will feel more secure that our partner will not subsume us or indulge their pleasures at the expense of our own. We will regain respect and adult regard for our other, and with it, desire.

IFS language works beautifully with this concept. When you are not blended with your fearful, rejected, demanding parts, when you are "in Self" -- calm, confident, curious, centered -- my disgust part (arising naturally from taboo anxiety) lies dormant, allowing me to also be "in Self" and allowing our relational space to maintain and renew its erotic energy.

And I hear you -- I do, believe me -- saying: "I've done this, a million times, I've put my needs aside to attend to theirs. I do not receive it in turn."

Then it is your turn to "My darling" your spouse. If you are both in the childlike demand state -- what we call "destructive entitlement" (another post!) -- it may be past the point where your third entity needs a third party (your friendly neighborhood couples' counselor) to help care for it. This is what I wish more people knew -- that you are 100% responsible for the health of your relationship, and it is so much better to get help caring for it before entrenched perceptions about the other have set in. If there is still goodwill and friendship, still humor and lightness, still a bank of generosity to draw from, counseling can be much more successful. Why do we allow ourselves to get to the point of nearly despising our partners before admitting we need help?