Digital Marriage

Sexual intimacy as a bridge to emotional attachment (Harold's response)

Though a gender stereotype, the old adage is true. For men, physical intimacy is the bridge to emotional intimacy. For women, emotional intimacy is the bridge to physical intimacy. Sex is a powerful motivator--one that is wired into the deepest recesses of our brains. In other words, God wired us that way.

Rob wants to feel close again to Celia. And, he wants sex to be that bridge. We have yet to see Celia's response. But, I give credit to Rob for the efforts he has made to re-connect after the conflict over Celia's needy mother. Celia, like many wives, will have to decide if she is willing to share her body with her husband to foster a reconnection beyond just the sexual act itself.

We all have to be thoughtful about how we use our sexual power with our spouse. Irreparably harm can ensure when approached cavalierly. On the other hand, the strongest bonds can be forged when approached in a spirit of authentic sharing.

Sexual intimacy as a bridge to emotional attachment

Previous episode

Rob has started the ball rolling in the right direction by apologizing to Celia.  “Today has been quite the family adventure,” he continued, as they sat in the cold car and prepared to drive home.  “I guess that is one way to look at it,” she had said. 

Current episode

Now that Rob and Celia were married, Rob’s parents had put a full-size bed in Rob’s old room for them when they visited.  Rob reclined flat on his back in it, trying not to fall asleep before Celia returned from the bathroom, but he was in the last stage of recovering from his drinking binge – still a little woozy – and in the early stage of his hangover at the same time.  All he wanted to do was sleep it off. 

He could hear the water running in the bathroom across the hall.  They had not talked on the way home much, except to comment on road conditions and when Rob asked to stop at a gas station mini-mart, at which he bought a gallon of water and drank three quarters of it in one shot. 

At some point, Celia is going to have to apologize to me for her part of this, he thought.  Is that why he was trying to stay awake, to hear her apologize before he went to sleep?  No, he was afraid that she had not yet accepted his apology, he realized, and he did not want to appear rude and complicate things by falling asleep on her, in his parents’ house.  

Then the room was getting light and Celia was asleep beside him.  He had fallen asleep despite himself and it was now morning.  The house was still quiet, so it did not appear that his parents and younger sisters, one of whom was home from college, were awake yet either.  Maybe he wasn’t the only one who had partied ‘til the wee hours following Grandma’s birthday party.  His parents were usually early risers. 

He rolled toward Celia and put his arm around her.  She stirred and rolled on her side away from him, and resumed what sounded like very deep sleep.  He moved closer, tightening his arm around her and spooning himself behind her.  Celia was one who is cold all the time, especially her hands and feet, except in the morning before she got out of bed.

Maybe we’ll have make-up sex this morning, he thought.  When he and Celia had taken a premarital class at her church the teacher had talked about make-up sex and thought it had a place in good relationships.  But maybe Celia needed to apologize before that.

Then Rob realized he no longer cared.  Last night seemed like a long, long time ago, and he was happy to be in his family’s home with everyone, including Celia, there.  He would love nothing better than make-up sex with Celia right now.  He found the bottom of her nightshirt and moved his hand underneath until it rested against her warm skin. 

Celia stirred again and rolled onto her back, toward Rob. 

What happens next?

Recovering from marital lows (Harold's response)

Rob said the magical two words, "I'm sorry." In my experience as a relationship educator at least 90% of marital conflict could be resolved quickly if these two words were offered genuinely. It is the "holy grail" for recovering from marriage challenges. And, I think that it will be the bridge that brings he and Celia back together emotionally.

Recovering from marital lows (Joanne's comment)

In the previous chapter, Rob could not remember why he had even wanted to marry Celia.  Yet here he is, though still drunk, trying his best.  He has apologized.  He has not allowed Celia's funk to discourage his efforts.  Celia recognizes what he is doing but so far she has not offered any encouragement.  I am wincing:  there is a narrow window here but Celia needs to step through it, soon, lest Rob stop trying.     

Recovering from marital lows

Previous episode

Rob and Celia have hit the lowest point of their marriage so far, as neither can remember why they chose to marry the other at all. 

Current episode

Celia was cold and tired and dressed for a party, not for walking laps around a junior high school track in the middle of the night.  She was no longer crying and in fact did not care anymore about any of it.  For the moment it seemed wise to just drive back to Rob’s parents’ house, get some sleep, and drive home to Columbus tomorrow morning as planned.  Maybe this would all go away, but if it came up, she would deal with it then.

She glanced over at Rob; he was walking beside her silently, matching her stride. 

“Celia,” Rob said.  “I’m sorry I had so much to drink.  Especially when I knew how upset you were about your mom.”  They walked several more yards.  Celia heard the words but they did not sink in, as if her emotional machinery had simply shut down for the night.   So she nodded in acknowledgement that he had spoken, but said nothing. 

Suddenly Celia was too tired to walk one more step.  She stopped, turning to look back at Rob’s car parked in the lot next to the track.   They would get back to the car faster if they turned around and retraced their steps on this lap, rather than rounding the loop again. 

“Let’s just go,” she said, her voice hoarse from the cold.  As she headed toward the car, she felt Rob take her hand as he turned with her.  Even through her thin knit gloves she could feel that his hand was warm.  Rob’s hands were always warm, even in cold weather.  Celia smiled inwardly.  So were his feet, which was helpful when getting into a cold bed together.   

They crunched over some old snow at the side of the track.  Rob held the chain up so Celia could slide under, then squeezed himself through, taking Celia’s hand again on the other side.

“I’m still not in any shape to drive right now,” Rob said as they approached the car.  “But I’ll drive us home tomorrow.”

Rob was trying, and Celia softened as she sensed it.  She nodded as Rob opened the driver’s side door for her.  She got in and started the car as Rob walked around the front of the car and got in the passenger side. 

Celia turned on the interior light as the car idled.  She turned and looked at Rob.  Rob looked back at her and smiled. 

What happens next?

A sobering picture of marriage (Joanne's response)

When we agree to "for better or worse" we do not get to choose the form that "worse" will take.  At wedding vow time, we imagine ourselves standing back-to-back against the world when transition and tragedy strike.  Most people I know do not realize until well into marriage that "worse" tends to take the form of relationship problems -- that the very person you married becomes part of the "worse."  This is indeed sobering,and Rob is right when he realizes that real marriage begins now.  I have been known to ask couples in premarital counseling what they think they will do when they realize they do not even like the person they are supposed to love.  The couples who cannot even imagine that are the couples I worry about.  The ones who can entertain the idea and understand that there will be some serious work to do at that point are the couples I believe will make it to the finish line.  

A sobering picture of marriage (Harold's response)

Rob and Celia are showing us just how fast the honeymoon can wear off. The romanticism fades quickly when the challenges of working a marriage set in. The challenges can sometimes be sobering.

This past weekend I had the opportunity to talk to a room of brides-to-be. My appeal was simple. Invest at least as much in your marriage as you invest in your wedding. Too often divorce papers are being filed before a couple even finishes paying off the wedding debt. 

Fortunately for Rob and Celia they did invest in their relationship even before the wedding. And, I'm confident that this will reap dividends in this current "crisis". They both need to listen from an empathic stance. Like so many conflicts in our own marriages, they both have strong and weak aspects to their respective arguments. 

All it takes is for one of them to be unselfish here and things are likely to correct themselves. 

A sobering picture of marriage

Previous episode

It is after midnight.  Rob and Celia are having a tough time trying to balance Rob’s family needs with Celia’s, and neither is able to fully grasp the other’s position.  Rob has had way too much to drink, in Celia’s opinion, and Celia is being way too dramatic in Rob’s.  Celia is walking the track at her old junior high school, trying to stop crying enough to continue the drive home.  Rob is watching her from the bench.

Current episode

As Celia rounded the far corner of the track and headed toward him, Rob chewed on his own cud.  So this is marriage, he thought.  Maybe the crazy in Celia’s family had been a red flag to which he should have paid closer attention.  But it hadn’t been that crazy before, he realized.  Her mom is crazier now because she couldn’t handle Rob and Celia being married, which meant that Celia could no longer react to her mother in the same way.

But here Mom had manipulated the situation so that Celia had little choice but to react, though it had been a grand manipulation and Celia’s response could perhaps be understood as proportionate, not merely dramatic.  Celia wasn’t a drama queen.  She had been genuinely worried a few hours ago, and now that she realized she had been manipulated, she was angry at her mother.  As was Rob. 

But she’s mad at me, too, Rob remembered; right, because she thinks I had too much to drink.  He checked in with himself.  His last margarita had been almost two hours ago.  Admittedly, he had been three sheets to the wind when they left the restaurant bar with his cousins, but the nap in the car, the adrenalin of the confrontation with her mother, and now the cold damp air were helping.  OK, he thought.  I probably did not need the fourth margarita.  Or the shot of Cuervo with the beer chaser.  Rob winced as he realized he had likely spent a ton more money than he had planned in addition to drinking too much.  He could not recollect paying the bill and feared that in a fit of sentimental spirit he had treated everyone.  Oh, well, his cousins were cool and he could email them and ask them to pay their parts.  They could send checks, and if they sent them this week he could have the money before his next credit card payment was due--

Rob realized he needed to worry about that later as Celia approached.   She appeared intent on continuing to walk, so Rob stood up and walked with her.  He found that he had to focus hard to match her stride, so he was probably still drunk as Celia had assumed. 

Celia did not seem to be crying any longer, but she did not say anything, either.  He thought he would say something, but he did not know where to start, because he had trouble remembering why he loved Celia.  Somebody, somewhere, at some time had given him this advice about marriage:  The day you can’t remember why you married this person is the day the real marriage starts. 

Yikes, he thought.  Cold hard reality hit his veins and accelerated his sobering process. 

What happens next?  

Bridging Emotional Separation in Marriage - Harold's response

Sometimes we want our spouses to feel the way that we feel. If we are upset about something, we want them to be upset about it too. If we are excited or joyous about something, we want our spouse to share our enthusiasm. This is natural. Most of us want to feel like our spouse empathizes with us. And, empathy in marriage is usually a good thing.

The problem, however, is that sometimes we hold our spouse's guilty because they draw boundaries--refusing to sulk or be irrationally exuberant just because we do. We can't expect our spouse's to be holden to what is oftentimes our individual pathology. 

In this current episode, I think this is what is going on with Celia. She is bothered that Rob refused to wallow in worry with her about her mother. In fact, he had the audacity to actually enjoy himself with his cousins (even drinking a little too much) instead of fretting over the condition of Celia's mom.

There is certainly a place for sharing the concerns of our spouses. But, there is also a place for drawing reasonable boundaries. Rob drew his boundaries. And, now he has to deal with the consequences with his wife. Hopefully, they can use this episode to learn how to create a bridge to emotional engagement rather than being driven by hurt and anger.

Bridging Emotional Separation in Marriage - Joanne's response

Celia drove down to Canton to check on her mother and her mother infuriated her, but interestingly it is not Mom with whom Celia is angry right now.  Either she had low expectations for Mom or she said her piece sufficiently to discharge her anger at her before she left the house.  Celia is angry at Rob for drinking too much and therefore being no help to her.  Whether Rob considers this valid or not remains to be seen, but marriage has a way of making a person expect certain things from their partner that they don't expect anymore from others.  Sometimes this is part of what Harold has called the "imaginary marriage," the unconscious expectations we have about our partner's perfect intuition and availability to meet our every need.  Celia's regrets about marrying Rob show that her expectations and reality don't add up, but I hope she gets Rob's perspective before she blames either of them for making a bad choice in getting married.  This is the first time since their wedding that Celia's needs and Rob's needs have genuinely clashed, and it might take a good argument to get them back on track.  I believe they can do it.