After having looked at our personalities, our scripts, and their resolutions, it seems that the picture would not be complete without examining our relationship, past, present, and future. I would be a very poor story teller indeed if I have not conveyed the message that I have a powerful commitment to the phenomenon of Allyson and Carl, both as husband and wife, and as parents for our lovely child. Since the purpose of this book has been mainly to come to understand and to begin to solve the complex difficulties that have evolved in my life, I have spent a great deal of effort detailing negative experiences. On the other hand, I feel compelled to say that, just as my relationship with my father has not been all bad; there having also been moments of closeness and sharing, my experiences with Allyson include many wonderful and unforgettable moments which, for me, far outshine the painful ones.
Though we came together first in an atmosphere of mutual need, we quickly found that each very much liked, admired, and found the other a fascinating person. We have so many similar interests, personal proclivities, and viewpoints. We have enough differences to keep it interesting. Before my drug problem began to interfere, we used to spend hours captivated with just talking to one another, casually, intimately, easily, and without pretense or boredom. Even though the conflict of our scripts and their associated games has brought about some spectacular pyrotechnics, there exists a fundamental rapport that is remarkable and unique. Due to the expressive nature of our personalities and due to the fact that each of our personalities shows somewhat nonstandard sex-role development, we may have achieved communication of a greater depth than is common in many relationships.
In Scripts People Live, the effect of sex-role programming upon a couple's ability to communicate is given in graphic form similar to the diagrams below.(1) Truly liberated communication, shown on the right, is a rich matrix of sharing between all of the various ego states of healthy personalities. Common sex-role programming leaves so much of the combined ego state development weak and incomplete that there is generally a severe reduction in the number of available choices of transactions, as illustrated on the left. Broken lines indicate weakness both in the development of the ego states and in the quality of the resulting communication. Solid lines, conversely, indicate strength.
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While we still have quite a ways to go, the unique mixture of events and circumstances has resulted in a relationship with considerable depth of communication. This provides a tremendous positive basis from which the relationship can mature. It is really only in the Parent to Child transactions that there is a profound weakness. Unfortunately for us, as Amy and Thomas Harris state in Staying Ok, (New York: Harper and Row, 1985)., the most important rule in successful relationships is "protect the other person's Child, his needs and his self-esteem."(2) By and large, this problem has resulted from the fragmentation of our Parent ego states and the exclusion of their nurturing sides. We both have frightened, angry, and confused not-OK inner Children that need understanding, protection, affirmation, and nurture from the Parent of the other. The processes described in this book will hopefully open these doors. Below is a diagram representing how I see that communication has evolved between us up to the present disruption that my problems have caused.
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Most relationships (ours included) are initiated from different aspects of the Child of each partner. This, I suppose, is natural and fortuitous, since the Little Professor is probably best equipped to spot a potential soul mate. Everything would be just peachy if this were quickly followed up by the forging of strong bonds at each of the other levels and an understanding of the importance of each. The eminent transactional analyst, Dr. Thomas Harris, demonstrated the reality of this when he reported a staggering 84% of the seriously troubled couples, that he treated over four years, saved their relationships by committing to a course of P-A-C group therapy of average duration.(3) And this was thirty years ago, during the infancy of TA!
The unpleasant reality is that most couples have never seen a good marriage, since they are exceedingly rare. As a result, they commonly lay the foundations of their expectations upon romanticized nonsense, gleaned from fictitious sources. With the Child in control, in one or both partners, failure is virtually guaranteed; the only variable being how long it takes. The Child doesn't understand the difference between disappointment and disaster. The Child cannot maintain the mature ambivalence to accept both the strengths and the shortcomings, which all people possess, simultaneously. It needs to see the other as perfect and the answer to all of its hopes and longings. The partners faults are ignored and acknowledgment is repressed.
Dr. Harris, in this same work, states that some couples hang together in a kind of mutual illusion of "us-against-the-world" of their parents, of the system, of their disappointing friends, etc., breeding bitterness. At some point, the limit of repression is reached. "It's all them," he says, becomes "it's all you," and all the repressed unpleasantness comes frothing back up to shatter the illusion. The Child, still in control, still incapable of ambivalence, has no choice, at this point, but to view the partner now as overwhelmingly unpleasant. Sadly, this is the point where over 80% of all of today's marriages end.
Such incredible delusion. Such unnecessary pain. The sick and ugly irony is that, by the very act of not mustering the courage to resolve the situation, they are doomed to repeat it, at every attempt, and, worst of all, to pass the dysfunction along to their children, whose scripts, as we have seen, develop by early internalization of dysfunctional images of their parents.
One of the pivotal illusions of the faulty and subconscious contracts, which underlie most marriages, is that human love relationships somehow resemble 50/50 business partnerships. When the Child's accounting ledger shows an uneven distribution of effort, all bets are off. This, of course, is absurd. A marriage is not a competitive economy. It is an attempt at the cooperative coexistence of two human beings for the sharing of a lifetime. The not-OK Child, as Dr. Harris points out, fails to comprehend what he calls the "more profound principle, that of unlimited liability for the other person, where one does not hold back at 50%, but is willing to be blind to the score and to give totally to the partner, all the time, in a community of purpose, established by the Adult".(4) The nurturing Parent understands this and the weakness of this ego state, in both Allyson and myself, is responsible for the rift that has been caused by failure to recognize this cornerstone principle.
Claude Steiner posits that the three enemies of love are: sexism, power plays, and addiction to the drama triangle of social games, in place of the spontaneous and creative sharing of intimacy. Allyson and I are enlightened enough to be aware of the evils of sexism and to try to limit the damage that any such programming we've received can cause. We are not always successful, as these influences run quite deep, but I am confident that this is one battle that will be won. One commitment I have made is to eliminate derogatory references to women from my vocabulary, even in jest, because they reflect the not-OK, and because she resents them.
Games and power plays, however, are a significant problem which must be given up by both of us if we are ever to build satisfying relationships with anyone. Fear, anger, and confusion, from the not-OK of each inner Child, have fostered legendary episodes of Courtroom, Uproar, and Now I've Got You - You SOB, along with power plays that have had truly frightening and harmful outcomes. These must be seen for what they were: involuntary responses, prompted by our script imperatives. They must be forgiven, in the light of understanding and love, and must be replaced with more effective ways of relating.
In his book Sex in Human Loving, Eric Berne assigned each of the basic types of marriages, which he had encountered as a psychotherapist, a letter of the alphabet which seemed to symbolically depict its structure:(5)
| A | - initially apart, find a common bond, and grow closer |
| H | - initially apart, find a momentary bond, but never grow closer |
| I | - the bond starts strong and stays that way |
| O | - goes in circles until it ends |
| S | - wanders, seeking happiness. Good candidate for therapy |
| V | - begins close, then diverges |
| X | - begins like "A" but overshoots |
| Y | - begins like "I" but increasing problems drive them apart |
These are not mystical formulas of great meaning, but rather, represent common types of choices made by couples, these days, about their relationships. One, that appears one way initially, may become another before all is said and done; as when "A" becomes "X". I believe it can be seen that our marriage resembles the "Y" type. I am, through my efforts here, transforming at least the quality of my own contribution to our partnership. If my goal could be seen to be represented by a symbol, I would give it the designation of the Greek letter phi, (Φ), to symbolize the excellent "I" type of partnership that develops a hiatus through which continues ahead a central theme. The meaning I wish to convey is that of a couple with a strong bond that experiences, simultaneously, a seriously disruptive crisis and a childbirth.
The child of this union, represented by the central vertical line, has needs and expectations which continue forward independently from the difficulties experienced by the husband and wife. The couple is intelligent, resourceful, and not a little romantic. They refuse to be beaten and work to a common purpose to solve their problems, bringing their diverging paths back into harmonious alignment, saving themselves, and thereby, also saving their child and preserving its chances for a healthy and hopeful future.
This has been my constant goal, upon which I have unwaveringly fixed my sights from the beginning, though I have stumbled and fallen in my efforts along the way. I have never lost faith and this, more than anything, I hope I have made clear throughout this book. I believe that our potential is of the highest order, and I believe that our daughter can deserve no less than our absolute commitment to her and to the limit of our considerable combined abilities.
Allyson shouldered an immense and difficult burden while I have fought for my answers. Since I've had nine years more accrual of pain, a more serious and immediate threat to my survival, and since I had already begun the process, I saw it as falling to me to follow this thing through to resolution, while she attempted to "contain the blaze," so to speak. Now, to achieve a closure of our purpose, and to reaffirm my vows, I must do the same for her and I will most certainly and gladly do so to any degree she will permit.
Healing for our relationship must also come, as it does for the individual, from giving up faulty ways of relating and relearning new, more effective ones. The same Love-based System of Thought that I have chosen to be the basis of my personal ethic and world-view can provide a foundation upon which Allyson and I may begin to build a richer and more harmonious partnership. The following comparison is offered by Lee Jampolsky in his book Healing the Addictive Mind:(6)
| Thoughts Based in Fear |
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If we have to work on our relationship, something must be wrong. Two people who love each other don't have to work on their relationship. |
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When we have an argument, somebody has to be wrong. I should try my best to prove that something is your fault. I should also keep score, making sure that I am right most of the time. |
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It is better not to talk about negative feelings. If I pretend that everything is OK, everything will be. If I don't talk, I won't have to feel. |
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If I make you feel guilty, I will feel better. Blaming is always a good defense. |
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Whenever I give to you, I should be able to expect something from you in return. |
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| Thoughts That Encourage the Growth of
Love |
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In our relationship, it is my goal not to hide who I am from you. At times, this is not easy, and in these times, I will ask for your help |
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Knowing who I am involves honoring all of who you are. If, together we look beyond fault, there is no dark cloud that our love together cannot banish. |
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Love cannot be found alone. When I withhold feelings, I turn my back on the opportunity to learn of love and deepen my relationship with you. |
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My goal, which I share with you, is to overcome guilt, not reinforce it. We do this through forgiveness. |
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Every loving thought reinforces itself. Giving and receiving are, in truth, one. |
I await, with hope and curiosity, her response to what I have accomplished here. Both of us have a strong streak of the romantic in our hearts, and among the many things I see in this work, is the incredibly romantic gesture that it represents. What a wondrous thing to be loved so fiercely by someone that he would go to this length to become the very best person possible for the well being of the love bond and the keeping of the promise.
In closing, I would like to borrow some profound sentiments from the awesomely talented pen of Ursula K. LeGuin, which appear as a sort of mental soliloquy of the central character in her novel The Dispossessed.(7) These words express my feelings regarding the meaning of the partnership choice and the marital bond more exquisitely that I could ever hope to imitate. My additions, in brackets, transpose these sentiments to the context of our marriage.
"[one can] go in a promising direction or [one] can go wrong, but [one does not] set out with the intention of ever stopping anywhere. All responsibilities and commitments, thus understood, [take] on substance and duration. So the mutual commitment of [our] relationship [remains alive during our separation]."
"[we have both suffered but it has not occurred to me to] escape the suffering by denying the commitment. For, after all, it [is] joy we were both after, the completeness of being. To evade the suffering is to deny the chance for joy. Pleasures you may get but . . . [not fulfillment]. You will not know what it is to come home."
"Fulfillment is a function of time. The search for pleasure, [however], is circular, repetitive, and atemporal. The variety seeking of the spectator . . . thrill hunter . . . or promiscuous always ends in the same place . . . and has to start over. It is not journey and return but a closed cycle, a locked room, a cell. Outside [is] the landscape of time, in which the spirit may, with luck and courage, construct the fragile . . . improbable roads and cities of fidelity."
"It is not until an act occurs within this landscape of past and future, that it is a human act. Loyalty, which asserts the continuity of past and future, binding time into a whole, is the root of human strength; there is no good to be done without it."
"So, looking back on the last [2] years, I see them, not as wasted, but as a part of the edifice [Allyson and I have been] building with our lives. The thing about working with time, instead of against it . . . is that it is not wasted,
. . . . Even pain counts."
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