Stages of Intimacy: 1+1=3

Remembering that anything which grows does so through stages, and that each stage builds upon the ones before it, and that each stage is more complex than the ones which precede it but which make our circumstances simpler when we master them; let's look at a three-stage map of the development of primary intimate relationships.

1+1=1: Symbiosis

When we are seeking to build a primary intimate relationship we first have to identify someone to create it with us. We cannot do it alone. We have a map, a template, an imago, which guides our search. When we find someone who fits the imago, we hope that we are a good match for the other's imago too. We try to discover who the other is looking for and then try to be that person so the other will choose to be with us.

If we are a close enough match, we choose each other, and we try to construct a relationship in which we are each who the other wants us to be. We fall in love.

When Jane's best friend from work invited her to a neighborhood picnic Jane hesitated knowing she wouldn't know anyone there but her friend. "Come on," her friend chided, "There will be a lot of cute guys there."

Jane hadn't dated anyone steadily for months and she did want to find someone special but she really didn't have high hopes that this would be the place to find Mr. Right. But one of the guys playing softball caught her eye. He was vigorous in a way her dad never was. Her dad had been sick most of her life and she knew she wanted a partner who would be an active father.

Joe was at the picnic at the request of a buddy of his who hoped they could gather enough interest in softball to field two teams. "Besides," he said, "there will be lots of good food."

Joe noticed Jane. It wasn't until months later that he realized that her face was like his second grade teacher, the one who had been so gentle and kind to him when he told about the summer and how he couldn't play ball because of his broken collar bone.

Jane and Joe happened to sit across a table from each other at the picnic and over potato salad got to talking about fishing and Joe mentioned how much he was looking forward to going fishing with his son. Jane was smitten.

Joe and Jane each have a mostly unconscious image of who they are looking to pair with to construct a primary intimate relationship. Over the weeks and months that follow they get to know each other better and test out more and more to see if the other is who they are looking for. But since they each want the other to want to be with them, they are trying to be who the other is looking for. They are each trying to match the other's map.

When we are able to do this with someone, we fall in love. We believe we have found our soul mate. This feeling of infatuation is intense and wonderful. It is better than the best drugs. But it is a fantasy. The other is not my imago. The other is a person in his or her own right, and not the perfect screen for my projections.

Sooner or later, I discover that the other is not who I want the other to be. Sooner or later, the ways in which my image of the other is not who the other really is become apparent. This may happen after a few minutes or a few hours or days or weeks or even years. I had a client who discovered that he had kept this fantasy alive for the whole eight years of his marriage. When it collapsed, he was devastated. The notion that there is a perfect person out there somewhere, and when we meet we will be perfect for each other, and be in a profoundly intimate relationship which will be easy and fulfilling--the notion that we each have a soul mate--is a fantasy. And sooner or later we discover that.

1+1=2: Partnership

If the other is close enough to what we are looking for in a partner we begin to look to what the relationship is like that we create together. Having discovered that the other is "good enough" we consider whether the qualities of the relationship we are creating are what we are hoping for. We form a "we" that is a manifestation of what we each bring to the relationship.

Joe and Jane dated for six months before they got engaged. They moved into an apartment together which they furnished from items they had each collected but they also began to buy together. They wanted to get a house as soon as they could because they didn't want to start a family in an apartment. They had a shared vision of the family and the life they were going to create together.

We can weather the disappointment that the other is not who I want the other to be as long as we can trust that we are together creating the relationship we each want. We become partners in the pursuit of a common dream. We divide up the responsibilities for creating our common life and as long as we each hold up our end we have a stable and durable relationship.

Jane and Joe saved enough during the first two years of their marriage that they were able to make a substantial down payment on a three bedroom house in a good neighborhood. Joe set himself to creating the garden and doing some landscaping while Jane repainted one of the bedrooms as the baby's room.

The plan was that they would wait another couple of years before starting a family so they could afford for Jane to stay home, but she went off the pill and one night in a moment of passion, Jack was conceived. Two years later Jesse was born and Jane was up to her elbows in diapers and Jack was working all the hours he could get just to keep up with the bills.

While this felt a lot like what they said they wanted, Joe wasn't prepared for having so little time with Jane. He didn't think of himself as emotionally needy, but he found he was getting lost in the busyness of their lives. They would pour themselves into bed exhausted after getting the boys to sleep. Those days when they would make love for hours were long gone and Joe missed both the physical and the emotional intimacy.

While a 1+1=2 Partnership can create a durable framework for a shared life and future, it may not sustain the kind of intense intimacy and passion that a 1+1=1 Symbiosis generates. We thus may find ourselves longing for the old days or even for a new relationship.

About this time Joe was assigned to a special project at work which was a collaboration between his department and another one. His counterpart was a perky young woman who was playful and quick with a smile and Joe could tell she liked him. He began to notice that he would think about her when they weren't together.

Joe might create those feelings in his relationship with the colleague at work, but they would last a few weeks or months at best and they would trash what he has created with Jane.

1+1=2: Partnerships can be very durable and can sustain a relationship well into a Fiftieth Wedding Anniversary. But it may not generate a deep level of intimacy. Even couples who remain sexually active may lose emotional intimacy. While having sex he may be thinking about the men's magazine he just bought and she may be lost in thoughts about the romance novel she has been reading. They may be physically together but emotionally in separate fantasies.

So how can we sustain a durable partnership and have a deep intimacy which doesn't deny who we really are in all the ways we are not who the other wants us to be... indeed, how we are not who we want ourselves to be?

1+1=3: Mutual intimacy

A mutual intimacy is constructed from three parts.

1. I am a fully functioning autonomous individual. I can take care of myself. I am not looking for a relationship in which the other takes care of me. I am looking for a relationship in which the other joins me as a full partner.

2. My partner is a fully functioning autonomous individual. He or she can take care of him or herself. She or he is not looking for a relationship in which the other takes care of her or him. He or she is looking for a relationship in which the other joins her or him as a full partner.

3. We create together a relationship in which we both find a context for intimacy and growth. We are each fully responsible for deciding what the relationship is like and for doing what it takes to create the relationship.

No two people want exactly the same things. As we each describe what we want the relationship to be like we are going to discover differences. We are going to have conflicts. But we must have enough agreement about what we want that we both remain committed to creating this shared relationship.

To be able to do this there are some skills we both have to utilize. We have to discover what we want the relationship to be like, that is, we have to talk about the relationship. We have to manage our own anxiety when we see that the relationship is not what we expected. And we have to remain curious about what we are each doing to make the relationship be other than what we want and be willing to address and change our own behavior so that we are acting consistently with our own needs. Let's look more closely with each of these.

Talking About the Relationship

Whenever we are approached by our partner who says, "Honey, I want to talk about our relationship," we typically go into a major flinch. We pull back from what we expect will be a complaint about what we are doing. It seems that the only time we talk about the relationship is when there is something wrong.

Be that as it may, we will not agree on what we want the relationship to be like if we don't talk about it. And this is hard not only because we typically do it when we are under duress. It is always hard. It was even hard to do when we first started talking about it.

Once Joe and Jane started dating they spent nearly all of their time together. They would spend some nights at his place and some at hers but rarely apart. This went on for a couple of months before Joe decided to suggest that they get a place together. He was pretty sure he wanted to marry Jane, but he wasn't ready to have that conversation. But he thought he could suggest they live together.

He didn't know why it was so hard for him to bring it up. They already pretty much lived together. And he was almost certain that Jane would choose to do that. She had already mentioned casually that her lease was almost up and she wasn't sure she wanted to extend it. Still, to bring it up was to make a commitment.

To be able to talk about any of our feelings--sensations, thoughts, emotions or wishes--we have to know what we are feeling, have words to express how we are feeling, and believe it is safe to say what we are feeling. Further, to talk about what I want for dinner is a 2° skill. To talk about what I want our relationship to be like is a 4° skill. Much more complicated.

Managing Our Own Anxiety

Because this is so hard, we tend to pull back when we consider talking about something as important as our primary relationship. We put off talking about the relationship. Most often when we are having a conversation it is when something has happened which puts the stability of the relationship at risk. We are thus understandably anxious. We aren't sure what is going on. We don't know clearly what we want and we are afraid that our partner wants something different from what we have and perhaps different from what we want. This is a minefield.

To negotiate it we have to calm our own anxieties enough that we can actually hear what our partner is saying over the din of our fears. We have to calm ourselves enough that we can actually know what we want.

Addressing Our Own Issues

Remembering that we all have issues and that they are most likely to surface in our relationships with those who are most significant to us, it is absolutely certain that our own issues will emerge in the context of the primary intimate relationship we construct with our beloved. Absolutely certain.

These patterns of conflict which arise again and again in the context of these most important relationships are always constructed by the issues we each bring to the relationship. Nothing is only the other's fault. We always have a role to play. But it can be very hard to see our own part. When we can see our own part and name it, address it, and resolve it, the conflict ceases to be a source of esuba for us. (This is not the same as saying we are able to get the other to change to be as we want them to be. If that is how we are constructing our map of the problem, then that is at least one of the issues we are bringing to the situation.) When we address and resolve our own issues, assuming we could ever fully do that, what remains is only what the other is bringing to the situation. By doing this we get our own junk out of the way and create an open space in the relationship in which they can do their own work.

Remember back to the vignette in Chapter Seven where Jane spoke to Joe about his dirty clothes on the bedroom floor as he was watching a football game? Let's look at what it might take to restore their relationship in the wake of such an event.

(I offer these scenarios with some hesitation because I don't want anyone to assume I am suggesting these are right things to do. There are many things they can do. I only want to offer that, among the very many things each might choose to do, here are a couple that suggest themselves to me.)

Jane retreats from the living room as Joe returns to watching the game. She notices that she is really steamed about this event and decides to pay attention to what she is feeling.

She notices that under her anger at Joe is a fear that their relationship will turn into one like her parents had in which her mom was always nagging her dad and her dad became more and more sullen and withdrawn.

She also notices that Joe seems to feel entitled to just watch TV when there are so many things that need tending to around the house.

She notices that the work is never done so she never gives herself permission to spend time doing what she enjoys and resents that Joe can give himself that permission. But she wants a relationship in which they each fulfill their promises to each other and when Joe promises to pick up after himself and then doesn't she feels underappreciated. She recognizes that she needs a relationship with Joe in which they honor each other by honoring their commitments to each other.

She decides she wants to talk with Joe about this. As she comes to this, she also notices that the times she tries to talk with him are the very times he is least available. It is as though she sees football as her rival and she wants Joe to pick her over the game. So she tries to woo him away with her anger and that never works. So she decides to try to let Joe know about what she wants in their relationship at a time when he is fully available to hear her.

She goes back into the living room and waits for a commercial and then says, "Joe, I know you are in the middle of the game now, but I would like a chance sometime today to talk about some things that are bothering me. I am wondering if we could get fifteen minutes to talk later. Would you let me know when a good time would be for us to do that?"

Or another option might be:

Joe watches Jane retreat from the living room and he is aware of her anger and his own, and notices that he resents that she resents his attachment to football. He likes the fact that he is a fan, and that he is willing to get into the game instead of having to be busy all the time the way Jane seems to. He notices that he is worried that she seems so driven.

He also notices that he is giving her more work to do when he doesn't take care of his own obligations and so recognizes that his own choices are creating the opposite of what he needs. He feels guilty and also notices that the distance between them scares him.

He notices that he may be giving Jane the sense that football is more important to him than she is. He realizes that is not the case and he gets up and goes into the bedroom and puts away his clean clothes and puts the dirty ones in the laundry.

Then he goes to find Jane and say, "I'm sorry honey, I do want to be responsible for my own things and not make more work for you. I wish you could slow down and relax more. Is there anything I can do to take some of the load so you can have some time to do what you want to do?"

I want to stress here that either one of them can act in ways to heal their relationship in the midst of the conflict by acting in ways that move either of them toward what they need. When they each get what they need they both get what they need. They have the same needs and the more they each act to create those qualities in the relationship the more they both win.

Now you may be thinking to yourself, "people aren't really like that. No one is that introspective and gracious." If that is what you think, you are mistaken. I grant you that such people are rare, but they do exist. Do you want to be one of them?