What make us feel loved, the illusion of fusion, destroys marriage, sex,
intimacy and love.
The 1960s free-love ethic that
"it's unrealistic to expect one person to meet all of your needs" subtly reassures us that we can have everything we want (all we have to do is spread our needs around to several people, which is not how a two person marriage works).
Decisions, commitments, friendships and integrity only become meaningful in a world of finite options.
The two choice dilemma, hitting gridlock as a couple, happens in most marriages. The tough question,
"Face the anxiety that things will change, or the anxiety in that things will stay the same."
Don't forfeit the 'taste of life' for anxiety.
Going through the trauma of maturing as a couple---differentiating as a couple---opens up the possibility that we may yet become adults. Digesting and self soothing marriage's restrictions
ripen intimacy and eroticism. Choosing between gut wrenching anxieties and options makes us more differentiated, more capable of truly loving.
Such dilemmas, as the need for differentiation, comes from our human nature. We are fundamentally separate life forms who value both attachment and autonomy.
Walking together in life as partners and individuals relinquishing fusion which is
"togetherness and control."
Anxiety comes with differentiation. Anxiety is inherent to growth. Sexual and otherwise. It plays a productive and necessary role in sexual development and pleasure. Sexual novelty always involves anxiety and ambiguity. The real problem is our intolerance and fear of anxiety. The long term solution, which doesn't kill sex, involves becoming more mature.
That doesn't mean "keeping a stuff upper lip" but it does involve learning to self soothe.
Passionate Marriage - Schnarch
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