If you had been there to interview me, I would have said, “Same ol’ damned issue over and over again! I’m sick of it!” It was around eight pm when Lisa and I squared off… two radio stations broadcasting, one AM, one FM… impossible to get on the same channel. And then, some phrase, mercifully forgotten, suddenly imposed a silence that was not golden… firm as a fixed jaw… tight as the muscles in my stomach. We stood helpless, staring at one another for who knows how long? A plaintive downstairs child’s crycame to the rescue. Act of service and comfort delivered, I found busy work at the kitchen sink, all the while attending to a familiar ache that was growing right above my solar plexus. It accompanied a collage of memories all spinning around the same theme: my mom and dad’s intelligence-free, marriage-suffocating fights. Did I notice my throat tightening first, or was it the tears? Hard to say. I know that I prayed out loud. “God help us figure this out! I don’t want to get divorced!”
Less than two minutes later, there stood Lisa, inviting me to turn around. She extended nothing more than an index finger my way. I remember that it looked a whole lot like an olive branch… a lot like an ET finger extended from a being that maybe wasn’t such an alien after all. As our index fingers made exquisite, tentative contact she offered me vulnerability, “I’m not your enemy. I’m your friend.”
Somehow I managed to believe her and miraculously locate an inner store of forgotten grace, “I’m not your enemy either. I’m your friend.”
What snagged up Lisa and me that night, is what Marriage and Family Therapy (MFT) calls, “perpetual problems.” In every good or even great marriage, there are one or two issues that never fully get solved, but have the power to solve you. The periodic surfacing and resurfacing of the problem provides the straw, that if handled with care, can be spun into the gold of self-transcendence, and relationship intimacy. The fundamental skill required for this kind of alchemy is the capacity to soothe one’s heart down. This, in turn, creates space for the possibility of creative flexibility and responsiveness to the tacit invitations to growth that these perpetual problems invite over-and-over again. What’s your ongoing issue? For some, the call to further formation arises time-and-again in the snags that show up on the playground of physical intimacy. For others, something so prosaic as household chores creates the periodic threshold for development. The list could include almost anything from differences in personality, parenting, or even epistemology (i.e. how reality is perceived, and how meaning is made from those perceptions).
When it comes to perpetual problems, the temptation is to think of marital growth as linear, like a department store escalator. With a mindset like this, each time you and your spouse’s pesky problem surfaces, it would seem like all your previous work on it together has gone for naught. The inner sound track that goes with this viewpoint could sound like one or more of the following: “Here we go again!” “Back at square one!” “We’re no better off than ten years ago!” It’s not hard to imagine the exasperation, even despair that would result in thinking of your ongoing reemerging problems in this way.
Rather than thinking of this linearly, it’s much more useful and accurate to think of it “spirationally.” Imagine a spiral staircase where you’re making upward progress with your partner. While you’re ascending, from time to time, you re-encounter your reemerging problem. Remembering that you are not back at square one makes room for a normalization of this universal experience. There is a huge difference between, “Not this again!” and “What are we supposed to learn this time?” It is the difference between despair and inactivity vs. hope and new lessons to be learned.
Just to be clear. There are some problems that shouldn’t be normalized. Some species of recurring issues kill marriages and harm family members. That list includes: untreated addictions, abuse, ongoing infidelity, and patterns of escalating conflicts. Should you find yourself trapped in one of these repeating loops, consider getting the kind of assistance that will help you find the off ramp.
I’d like to return to the notion of these kinds of problemsproviding the raw material for self-transcendence, and relationship intimacy. Below you’ll find some practical tools to assist you and your spouse on your spirational journey. See what you think. How does this square with your experience?
The ABC…’s of Handling Perpetual Problems.
Accept this moment as normal and inevitable. Try to view it as a calling to grow. Part of your choice to accept and allow this moment will have to do with how you soften your body throughout the process to avoid fight or flight states.
Breathe deeply and intentionally. Engage any kind of spirituality that you can to soothe your heart down, that givesyou just enough room to eventually make contact with yourinner stores of compassion. The use of a sub voce mantra can be helpful. I like to use the mantra, “just enough,” which is short for “God give me just enough grace for this moment.” I sometimes purse my lips so that my in-breath makes the sound of a small wind tunnel. I then imagine that I am breathing in Spirit. The mystics in many traditions hold the conviction that God’s Spirit is nearer to me than my own breath. I want to draw on that resource for this moment. Even if your spirituality diverges from this viewpoint, your intentional breathing will interrupt harmful cognitions and an amygdala hijack.
Connect. Research strongly suggests that staying connected with your spouse is more important than solving your problem. Lisa’s extended index finger did not resolve the initial problem. It did keep us married. Study the micro ways that you and your spouse normally connect. What are the characteristic phrases that bond the two of you, including pet names? What is even a minimal amount of physical contact that your partner is likely to accept in the midst of a conflict? Do your level best to accept their bids for connection.
Decelerate. Which is to say, take it slowly. This is not a problem you are likely to solve in one conversation. Sometime in the next week, a course of action, and a new understanding will emerge. For now, connection and deep listening are your primary goals.
Empathize. In the words of St. Francis of Assisi, “Seek to understand more than to be understood.” Listen with as much intention and depth as the intentional breathing you are engaging Try to breath in their words, and their meaning-making. Periodically say in a nutshell your spouse’s view-point without giving your response to it right away. If you catch yourself listening just long enough to arm yourself with a new argument, return to your intentional breathing with even more intention.