We continue the story of John and Jane as they struggle to define for themselves what it means to have a social life in the context of being married.
The next two sessions of therapy were spent convincing Jane that having a social life outside the marriage was acceptable. It seems that Jane had thought that really all a social life was intended for was meeting a spouse. This meant that she didn’t understand the necessity of a social life once a person was married. Also it meant that every time John expressed a desire for a social life Jane was interpreting it to mean that he wanted to go out looking for someone to replace her. John’s need equated into Jane’s failure and that is a bad place to be. I helped Jane to see that though she was both John’s friend and his spouse, she could not be ALL of his friends and his spouse. I showed Jane that there were four general categories of resources for a person: personal, familial, social and spiritual. Additionally, I explained that each of these categories is like a leg on a stool and the more legs you have, the more stress you are able to carry. Lastly, I demonstrated that via their marriage she had gone from being largely considered a social resource to becoming a familial resource which meant that if she wanted John to have the best chance at continuing to be happy and functioning when they were going through stressful situations, he needed to be able to have a social life of some sort. Once Jane stated that she could sign-up for having a social life, we turned our attention to what that looked like.
We broke down their social life into two key components: joint social life and individual social lives. As you might be able to imagine, Jane was none too happy about the idea of having individual social lives. Now, some of that was the fault of John and the fact that his friends were engaging in behaviors that were unacceptable for a married man. But even after John stopped engaging in those behaviors, the idea of John having time with “the boys” seemed to be unacceptable to Jane. Again we went back to the idea of legs on a stool. I showed her that she was his primary familial support. Then I showed her that the way she wanted it, she wanted to be his primary social support as well. Which meant that if anything ever happened to her (accident, illness, etc.) or when the two got into a fight, it left him with only two legs. A two legged stool can’t stand! Again, let’s be clear here. I’m not condoning going out with guys bar hopping. Nor am I saying that every time he got into a fight with Jane, that John should call a friend and complain about it. Absolutely not! Gossip can kill marriages! However, if you get into a fight, it can be a life saver to have a friend that you can go catch a movie with or play a game basketball with or any number of activities that can help you calm down and give you the strength you need to continue communicating in the midst of a difficult topic. And if you can find a friend that can help you to be self-focused and help you to find what it is that you are doing to create tension in the marriage, then the Lord has truly blessed you. My point for Jane was that having that social support outside the marriage was not a deficit but rather was an asset that would help the quality of her time with John be better which in turn would help her experience of their marriage to be better.
Does Jane believe me? Find out when I post next time!
