Once we had a plan for their social life together, we began talking about their social lives apart. This was a topic that John had been dying to get to and I knew it. His life was one of activity. Before he had gotten married not only did he go out with friends on a regular basis but he was also a part of a number or organized social activities. He was in recreational basketball league and softball league. During the appropriate seasons, he would go on weekend long hunting trips with family. Also, he was a part of a men’s group at church that frequently undertook charity obligations that required night and/or weekend work. After he had gotten married nearly all of this had been cut out. When I asked why this had all ceased, John stated that Jane had insisted upon it; a claim that Jane then fervently denied. As we worked together we were able to detect a pattern. It seemed that John would tell Jane about an obligation that he had with only a few hours notice. Jane would then get flustered because she had already made plans about the night (dinner, etc.). Further she would feel hurt because she thought that John’s decision to be elsewhere was a rejection of her. In turn, John would read Jane’s facial expressions and body language correctly interpreting her displeasure at his alternate plans. John, feeling guilty, would then cancel his plans but would be angry about the fact that he had had to do so. Jane then would feel both relieved because she had avoided the rejection and guilty because her desire for John to be home was causing him to be upset. Meanwhile the issue of the late notice was never addressed. Once we were able to map all of this out, we were able to begin to implement a different way of reacting. First, John recognized that he needed to give Jane sufficient notice of his plans so that she too could make arrangements and have accurate expectations for what her week would look like. Second, we worked on letting both partners have their emotions without the other feeling over-responsible for them. This was one of the more difficult tasks in our therapeutic relationship but one we had been working on for a while because of other issues that had come up. John had desired Jane to be happy for him when he was about to go do something that he enjoyed. He stated that it was “impossible” for him to be happy if it meant that Jane was unhappy. Via some very deliberate work John was able to see that Jane’s upset at not being with him was understandable. Plus he began to work on what it meant to care about Jane and take care of her in her upset without feeling compelled to alleviate her of her upset. For her part, Jane began to see that her feeling of rejection was her own trigger and not an accurate reflection of how John felt about her. This led to a very fruitful discussion for Jane where she began to elucidate for John and I her personal history of rejection. Lastly, we realigned the expectations for both John and Jane. John had to grieve the fact that he was no longer able to do as much as he was once able to when he was single. However, he did so in the light of a celebration over all that he had gained by marrying such a wonderful woman. Jane had to realize that for John to have truly meaningful social connections, it meant engaging in social activities more than once a quarter. However, she was able to do so in light of the celebration that her husband continued to prioritize her above everyone else (other than the Lord) just not to the exclusion of everyone else.
One last point here, Jane was an introvert. By introvert I mean that she was refreshed by being alone or by being around one or two very close family members. This didn’t mean that Jane didn’t like being around friends, it’s just that she found being around a large group of people draining. So though we had spent a considerable amount of time talking about what social lives looked like, for Jane the conversations often felt draining and overwhelming. John, for his part, had never stopped to consider that there were types of people that didn’t get energy by being around friends. He thought that Jane’s frequent hot baths with a book were a way that she pouted. The truth was that it was a way of taking care of herself when she felt emotionally drained, it was self ministry if you will. This was yet another part of the process that had gone so awry. John was trying to get Jane to go out with her friends as often as John was trying to go out with his. Of course he thought that this was taking care of her, but in actuality it was only making Jane more resistant to the idea of them spending time apart! Once John could accept that Jane could stay home and cuddle up with a book and that was every bit as refreshing to her as his going out with his friends, he was able to make plans without trying force something on Jane that she never wanted in the first place. As John went out with friends he was re-energized and as Jane was able to spend quality time alone, she was re-energized. The result was a pretty dramatic shift in the quality of the time spent together and the amount of energy they had for one another.
Next time John and Jane are acting different, join me in a couple weeks to find out why!
