Our Stories
Darrell
& Nevin
Kent
& Kari
David
& Maggie
Laura
& Chris
Laura and Chris's Story:
Of Bath-Time, Post-Its, and Truck Stops"
by Laura
We are a young couple in our 30's who have left the rat race behind to live in a log home in Idaho, where resident bear and moose stroll through the yard. Chris is a professor and I'm a writer, and we've been married 5 years. As with most couples, our first year together was bliss, that holy merging we all experience with new love that reminds us of the best parts of childhood: playing, touching, and being cared for. Then, suddenly, the bloom was off the rose and we didn't know why. We were so in love…We never thought that what happened to all couples would happen to us!
The beginning of the power struggle sounds innocent enough, and will ring a familiar bell for most of you. It all started when I asked Chris to share the romantic things that helped me fall in love with him in the first place. These differ for each couple, but for me it was having him draw me baths and massage me to sleep with Enya's lullaby-like music playing in the background. I felt that this would be easy, since my infatuation-induced memories of our first year included scenes like this every night! Chris had good intentions, pasting Post-It reminders on his computer as he worked on his PhD, but had trouble giving me this gift. He seemed to worry about how to do it "right," while I worried about why he was worrying. We became more and more at odds, secretly feeling that the other person didn't love us anymore.
Many couples are caught off-guard by the pain that develops when these small issues get out of control, and often assume they weren't meant for each other after all. But when you and your partner experience a roadblock like this over what seems like a small issue, it is because you ARE the perfect match!
It was only when we had given up, and I was alone watching PBS one rainy evening, that things changed. A video workshop featuring Harville happened to be on, and Chris came in the door from a run, wet and sad. We viewed the holding dialogue together, and something clicked. This reminded us of the one thing that had worked for us in the past, which had organically evolved from our own intuition…crying about our childhoods in each other's arms after fights. Magical moments of healing had arisen from this, but we didn't want to have to fight to get to them. Imago seemed to offer a less painful way to get there.
We bought Getting the Love You Want and practiced a few dialogues, and although this didn't "solve" things right away, our struggle began to make sense. I was surprised to admit that my attraction to Chris was as much about the idealistic dream of being loved by my family as it was grounded in the reality of our current relationship. I realized that during that first blissful year, Chris hadn't been the all-powerful giver of my fantasies, drawing baths for me every night and soothing me to sleep. In fact, I had drawn the baths and invited him in! And while we had often shared massages and music before bed, it was a give and take rather than the unconditional giving I seemed to be seeking. Where was this stubborn need coming from in me, and where was this fear coming from in him?
Like many people in our parents' generation, mine had trouble showing affection, so the only time I really felt loved was when they sang to me at bedtime. My father never hugged, cried, or seemed to express any emotion except anger. But when his voice strained in a high tenor, he seemed transformed into the passionate man I needed him to be. I imagined that the love in his voice was especially for me, although his folksongs were about the Scottish highlands. And when my mother came in to sing her three nightly songs, her hand sometimes brushed against my back by mistake, and I would soak up this semblance of a "massage." As for my big sisters, they teased me all day like most big sisters do, so the only time I felt close to them was when we played mermaid together in the bathtub.
Aha! The secret to the bedtime ritual, the music, and the baths! All my childhood needs for love wrapped into one incessant request (or complaint, as it often came out, since it came from the tender hurts of an 8-year old)! No wonder I sounded eight in some of our fights! And in turn, my requests triggered Chris's own childhood wounds of feeling unable to meet his parents' demands. As a boy, he had often stayed home weekends to help them clean the house instead of playing baseball with his friends. Even when he was a "good boy" and sacrificed entire, shining Sundays to do this, his parents ended up grumpily redoing his chores "the right way." Over the years, he decided that since his efforts to give to others weren't good enough, he might as well not try at all.
My need to be cared for completely without having to give back is what all children deserved, but few received. Chris's need to be accepted for who he was unconditionally without being pestered to do things right, was a similar childhood need. As adults, we were unconsciously seeking the fulfillment of these needs so we could become whole, and this colored our search for a soulmate. Because I had been neglected as a child, I was a classic maximizer, and because Chris had been invaded and criticized, he was a classic minimizer. This was an Imago match made in heaven…but one that could create enough conflict to drive us apart if we weren't aware of our patterns.
Over the next 5 years, we read more of Harville and Helen's books, listened to their tapes, practiced dialogs and caring behaviors, and met with an Imago counselor. And for our wedding present to each other, we even went to an intensive Imago weekend! (But for those who find the processes hard, you'll be happy to hear that even then, there were many times we didn't want to go on with it. Even during the wedding workshop, we were stewing over something)! Although magical connection can occur quickly, the entire process is a set of habits you develop for life. You may not always do it "perfectly," and may slip out of the process. But even doing a dialogue all the way through just a few times creates lasting growth. Imago is a deep, healing process that changes the whole person and their patterns, rather than simply putting Band-Aids on certain parts of us, like other techniques.
The many forms of the couple's dialog, whether the behavior change request, container days, or the childhood holding exercise, have not only obliterated the power struggle, but given us profound insight into our spiritual paths as each other's healers. And the caring behaviors and surprises we give each other as a result act as the spark that keeps the passion alive. Together, we can give each other what we always needed as children, and bond even more strongly than we could have with our parents, as best friends and lovers. Each time we share our secret wounds, release them, and fill the hole with love, our passion is restored more strongly than it was during that first blissful year. This bond restores the essential connection with others that we were born with, and gives us energy to help heal the world.
Although issues still come up, we try to welcome them now as a way to get close instead of resisting them. Although to anyone else they probably seem silly, they touch on ever-expanding areas of our pasts as we continue to heal the whole person. As our issues with our caretakers were healed, our sibling issues started to come up, so for awhile we were struggling over sharing blackberries for our cereal! And as our childhoods were washed clean, issues from adolescence appeared. Then we needed dialogues about feeling awkward, and caring behaviors to make up for all that adolescent angst, like slow-dancing to junior high music. Only this time, we're not wallflowers hiding in the ping-pong room during Stairway to Heaven! We've even share our tentative first kiss several times, instead of with the person we wish it hadn't been with. In this way, we've "redone" several areas of our lives and gained confidence. Infant issues are the hardest, since they're pre-verbal, but starting in a holding position has helped.
Fast-forward from the year-long struggle over baths and Post-It notes, to the wedding workshop where we still felt lost, to now, where we've taken that leap of faith, moved across the ocean, and bought a home together. Last month on a Sunday drive, we stopped at a gas station and I saw a little velvet fawn at the cash register. I don't know why I longed for it, or for my partner to get it for me instead of just plunking down the dollar myself…I'm 38 years old, after all! But I tried to honor that need and practice asking for what I wanted. Chris expressed surprise at why I would want a cheap souvenir instead of a fancy dinner, and I felt slightly annoyed. "Why can't he just get me the fawn to show he cares? It's only $1.49!" I said to myself in the gas station bathroom. I felt embarrassed that I was acting like a 4-year old, but tried to listen to that small voice inside.
When we pulled out of the gas station, the fawn was there, tucked in a protective nook on our dashboard. On the drive home, I shared the childhood memories that flooded me now that we'd honored that child inside. I was surprised to realize that during all those hard years with my parents, there were some shining moments…Finally, finally, the car actually stopped at the Enchanted Forest, an amusement park along the highway, after passing it by for years! Finally, my mother bought me a rubber frog from a gas station for five-day drive across the country, and I spent those days tucking him in over and over again in a Kleenex box, carefully folding the Kleenex sheet over him as she did to me. His vinyl skin felt the way I imagined a real person must feel, if anyone ever touched me. And finally, my father, who never gave me gifts, brought me a large, blow-up velvet fawn for my 4th birthday when he returned from a year-long sabbatical in Norway. Or was it my mother again?
It doesn't matter now. What matters is that the tiny fawn of today, the caring behavior given by my husband, opened my heart. I started seeing him as a Kind Daddy, the Daddy I either never had, or might have had but can't remember. I couldn't believe the wonder of lying down on the soft forest of his chest hair! And it opened Chris' heart too. He felt like a king, making me so happy instead of feeling like he was never good enough. That rainy Sunday, our passion returned stronger than the lullaby nights of our first year. We spent the afternoon in bed, listening to the rain on the roof. All the while, a 4-year old's happy chant repeated through my mind and energized my body with a connection to the universe that should have always been there: "Daddy got me the fawn! Daddy got me the fawn! He really does love me, after all!"
And the funny thing is, now I really feel that my father loves me, which I never felt before. My relationship with my parents has improved because of Imago's healing magic, even though their behavior has not changed. It's as if those old hurts don't matter anymore, because they've been filled with a new love. As two Imago matches heal together, we replace our primary caretakers, and forgive the ones we used to have. This is such a gift, since our parents are getting older and we have only a few precious years with them.
And what about the bath issue, that first power struggle that nearly broke us up? On our 5th anniversary, Chris not only drew me a bath, but built us a double Jacuzzi tub! Because he feels so good knowing he is healing me, he loves to jump in with me, and puts on Enya's lullabies and Scottish folksongs in the background. And I love to spend weekends playing outside with Chris and cheering him on at half-marathons, just like he wanted his parents to do. If he feels guilty and tries to do the dishes, I lead him outside, into the light of Imago. The little velvet fawn, the pure vulnerability of childhood, leads the way on our journey.