Elizabeth and Mark have nothing in common. They cannot communicate. Both feel a sense of loneliness, disappointment and injustice. As they have completely different interests and opinions on just about everything, one would wonder why they got married in the first place. Infatuation or in some cases the attraction of opposites can bring us together because we have something to learn from each other. When the effect of that first enthusiasm passes, we find that we are involved with or married to a person who embodies many behaviors which annoy us or who has significantly different needs or a unique value system. Their problem is aggravated by the fact that Elizabeth has begun to search within through self-analysis and awareness seminars. She has begun to move in new directions, which Mark rejects. Thus the gap between them is widening. Both feel cheated because they both want to be with someone who agrees with them and fits their mold of what a man or woman should be. He wants her to be at home more, to attend to him and the children exclusively. He wants her to pay more attention to her appearance and to agree with him on every issue. She wants him to be more sensitive and more expressive of his feelings. She would like to be able share her psychological and philosophical discoveries with him. He is not only disinterested, but also intimidated by the fact that she has something else in her life besides him, and that she may even become better at something than he is. This is unbearable for him as a man and thus he tries through the role of the "intimidator" to stop her. Elizabeth, after playing the victim for a number of years, has now with her psychological skills become the perfect "interrogator," attacking back with her analysis of his fears and complexes. This makes Mark even more irate, and he becomes even more intimidating, to the point of threatening her with physical violence if she doesn't stop that "psychological stuff." Where will this end if each does not learn his and her own lessons? What do they need to learn? Elizabeth: Is her lesson to try to help her husband feel secure with her? Perhaps she should show more interest in his interests. Are they both playing the game of who is right? Does she need to stop playing this game? Does she need to learn to use her analysis on herself only and not as weapon against her husband? Does she need to learn to occasionally lovingly sacrifice her own needs so she can help him feel more secure and loved? Or does she need to pursue her own interests and let him be responsible for his reality? Or both? Does she need to remember that he is exactly the husband she needs for her growth process, that she is not the victim and that no mistake has been made, and that she couldn't evolve better with someone else? Mark: Does he need to become more secure in himself? More understanding and less fearful of his wife's needs and activities? Does he too need to approach his wife by partaking in her interests? Does he need to show her more affection and love? Does he need to reevaluate his prototypes for what a wife must be like so he can accept his wife for what she is rather than try to make her be what he would like her to be? Both: Perhaps both need to remember that the other is their teacher; to approach each other with love and an open mind and open heart. Both might need to let go of the game "who is right," and put listening and loving above being right. Perhaps both need to be able to feel close to the other even when the other does not agree. |
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