Find Yourself in a Passionate Marriage: An Interview with Dr. David Schnarch |
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Schnarch: I'm referring to our ability to validate our own perceptions, feelings, and self-worth, and soothe our own heartache when the inevitable marital disappointments, frustrations, and misunderstandings occur. These aspects of our "relationship with our self" determine how we handle the good and bad times in our relationships with others, how intimate or erotic we can be, how much we can afford to love someone else, and whether we feel like we're losing our self or even just bailing out when the relationship becomes more important or more difficult. Paradoxically, the better we are at soothing and validating ourselves, the less we need our partners to "be there" for us and the more we can "be there" for others. Likewise, we can let ourselves be influenced by our partners, taking their needs and opinions into consideration without feeling like we're weakening our own position or interests in the process. Our ability to self-validate and self-soothe is absolutely vital to maintaining long term passion in marriage as well as expanding our sexual relationship.
ThirdAge: You use the term "marriage" in a unique way. What do you mean?
Schnarch: I use the term "marriage" to refer to any emotionally committed relationship. Marriage creates a complex system, and part of loving and living with someone involves dealing with difficult conflicts--where simple solutions just won't work. These conflicts will surface around issues like kids, money, in-laws, and most especially sex and intimacy. What makes these issues unique is that common solutions either don't work or destroy sex. As long as we're simply focusing on feelings, everyone's entitled to their opinions, and we can communicate and "agree to disagree." But when the issue involves behavior, disciplining the kids, spending, having in-laws visit, or having sex, the solution is more complex because one partner's behavior dramatically affects the other. For instance, you can't "agree to disagree" about having intercourse, and "compromise and negotiation" usually destroys desire, eroticism, and passion. We refer to these aspects of emotionally committed relationships, which intensify when people become legally married, as the people-growing machinery of marriage.
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