There’s a popular belief that once a person gets married, everything will be smooth sailing.
Romance will naturally occur, your spouse will be your best friend, and there will be plenty of “Hallmark” moments between you.
If you’ve been married any length of time you know this simply isn’t true.
One of the main problems many couples face in marriage is they create a marriage that’s too close. They strive to capture the illusion of what they thought it would be like in the beginning by getting closer to each other.
This creates a fused relationship.
In a fused relationship system, your options for getting your needs met are limited to the people within the system, or to the ways people in the system approve of (read that sentence again).
When couples co-create a co-dependent relationship in which they strive to complete each other, they kill any chance of having any kind of evolving, passionate, fulfilling relationship.
The more couples become fused, the more they resent each other, try to change each other, push each other away, lose interest in each other, lose sexual passion, blame each other, and fantasize about escaping.
I believe that a majority of problems people experience in their marriage are the result of fusion.
In a fused system there is no “I”, only “we”.
There is an expectation that everyone should think alike, behave the same, have the same opinions, and want the same things. It is assumed that each member of the system will be there to meet the needs of every other member.
When this happens, the neediest and/or most anxious members of the system usually dictate how much pressure there is to conform and sacrifice self in a “Borg-like” manner.
Shortly after I begin working with a couple I ask them, “Do you believe that the source of the problems you’re experiencing currently are the result of you both being too far apart (living separate lives or drifting apart) or too close together (fused)?”
Without fail, the couple will reply – too far apart.
I then propose that it’s the opposite. That actually they’re too close together and that is what is creating all the problems.
If the couple will accept this view and begin to explore it more in detail as it plays out their marriage, they will begin to see dramatic improvement in their lives.
Fused systems fear change of any kind.
They also exist in a state of constant anxiety.
These rigid systems don’t like individuality, space, passion, integrity, or members having close friends outside of the system. They are characterized by guilt, covert contracts, emotional eruptions, passive-aggressiveness, isolation, secrets, hidden behaviors, and rebellion.
Also, unrealistic expectations are rampant in fused systems. Like these:
- Because you are my son, you should always be there to listen to my problems whenever I am sad or lonely.
- Because you are my boyfriend, you should always answer the phone when I call you.
- Because you are my girlfriend, you should never talk to other men.
- Because you are my husband, you should want to be around me as much as I want to be around you.
- Because you are my wife, you should want to have sex as often as I want to have it with you.
- Because a clean house is important to me, it should be just as important to you.
- Because I sacrifice so much for you, you should always appreciate me and never get mad at me.
- Because I work so hard to provide for our family you shouldn’t count on me to help out around the house.
Members of the system have to “push-back” to have space and hold on to themselves in any significant way. This often leads to acting out and self-destructive behavior (the reason most couples seek out therapy).
For example, one spouse in a fused system might want the other to lose weight. Even if it would be in the best interest for that person to drop a few pounds, they will have to push back (this is called “disengagement”). This is an unconscious attempt to avoid losing self to their partner’s control (they have probably been doing this since childhood), and to prevent their partner from “winning”.
Scoreboarding is actually rampant in marriages.
It’s the idea that since I did something for you and our marriage, you should return the favor to me. It’s the classic exchange based principles.
The simple truth – marriage (and life) is not fair. If you go into a relationship expecting your generosity, gifts, strengths, love, passion, etc. to be reciprocated in kind, you’re going to wind up severely disappointed or angry.
Plus, if you enter into a discussion or issue with the idea that you should win, then what does that make your spouse? A loser. And who wants to be married to a loser?
A mature adult is someone who takes responsibility for getting their needs met.
Let’s build upon this idea. Mature, growing people co-create a number of cooperative systems to help them do this. An intimate relationship is just one of these cooperative systems.
Great marriages are the result of two mature, grown up people – both of whom have full, satisfying lives – cooperating with each other to get their needs met. In this kind of differentiated relationship, each partner compliments the other, but doesn’t complete them.
It is this kind of commitment to living a full life that helps maintain the growth in a relationship that is so important for attraction, passion, energy and great sex.
For more on this idea, consider joining Blow Up My Marriage. Enrollment begins this week.
(photo source)
Ahhh, you got me on this one! Funny that I read it even though I thought “there’s no way this will apply to me!” Love the insights; I see myself here and it gives me more encouragement to continue the growth I’m striving for! Thank you!
Loved it. The “great marriage is…” is exactly what I was trying to explain my husband about my view on why I married. Thanks for helping me putting the feeling into words.
My wife and I initially started our marriage with the thought that we should spend every single evening together. We started getting annoyed with one another because it felt like we never had time to do what we wanted or we had to ask permission to enjoy activities that we could previously do whenever we wanted. Now we have a new plan.
Wednesday is date night and we always spend it together doing something fun. Weekends are either planned or not but either way, we know ahead of time if we’re spending them together or not. Monday, Tuesday and Thursday are “free” time. We can make our plans or not. It doesn’t mean we don’t hang out on those days, in fact we usually do, it just means we don’t feel like we MUST be together on those days. We have the freedom to be ourselves.
Pretty complicated philosophy, I’m going to have to absorb it for awhile before I decide if I agree or not.
@Corey:
In the last bolded paragraph, do you mean that “each partner complEments each other”? As in, “is the yin to his yang” rather than “says nice things about”, correct?
Yes- it’s not about verbal support, it’s about your spouse becomes a compliment to you and your life, as you do to theirs.
OK, I’m confused because dictionary “compliment” is “verbal praise” whereas “complement” is “completes or perfects.”
So if you mean the latter, your spelling in the post is incorrect, see?
Think of it this way (spelling aside).
When your spouse is a whole person, full and complete within themselves – and you are the same, they can take you places you can’t go on your own. Like scaffolding. They allow you to reach new areas and experience greater things.
This is a tricky one. I understand where you are coming from, and agree with what you say. However, let’s say, as an example, I don’t agree with gambling and think it’s destructive to a relationship. I could say to my husband: “I don’t agree with gambling, and I don’t want to be in an intimate relationship with someone who gambles for x, y and z reasons.”
My husband is free to choose whether to give up gambling or not, but he’s always going to feel as though he was pressurised into making the choice to give up by what he wanted to keep me happy. He may feel controlled. At the same time I have to make choices based on my own integrity and the family’s welfare. He will be giving something up to meet my need to have a gambling-free family (is that fusion, ie BAD?).
Or, looking at this quote from Corey: “In a fused relationship system, your options for getting your needs met are limited to the people within the system, or to the ways people in the system approve of.”
Okay – another example. Say a man believes his cheating wife should only get her need for sexual fulfilment from him (getting her need met the way he approves of?) and says to her: I want to be in a relationship with someone who is committed to monogamy – is that fusion? Won’t she feel she is being controlled by his needs / anxiety?
I pose these questions because I hate feeling like I am imposing my needs on my partner but at the same time there are things I do want from my relationship – eg often going to bed at the same time, monogamy, etc, etc. A partner might feel these are controlling wants, based on my needs and anxieties.
At what point does this become fusion?
You reach the point of fusion when what you want from your spouse steps beyond what you can control. You have every right to present your needs to your spouse, but you must recognize that you are responsible for your needs being met more than your spouse is responsible.
Great post, site, and class offerings. I’m a LPC in Missouri. Reading this post reminds me of Bowen Family systems theory. I’d love to talk to you some time about how you transitioning from local practice to global practice!
Love to talk some time. Send me an email.
I will. Thank you. I’m in the process of re-visioning/re-branding my practice, and know I’ll have questions along the way.
For the length of this blog, I believe it’s the best insight into marriage success I’ve ever read. (and that’s saying something!) I’m definitely going to pass it on soon in my own blog, which I plan to start next month.
I read this immediately after receiving it, mostly because my wife of 28 years and I have always had an unusually close relationship. I wanted to find out what scary things to expect because we’d “done it that way”. I DO absolutely agree with your premises, but at the same time somehow wonder if its not possible to avoid many or most of the negatives you spoke of while being so close.
I’ll have to read this a few more times. Somehow, maybe, we’ve intuitively done a lot of the right things along the way, even without your advice, so that we are a pair of the lucky few! Anyway, keep writing. I’ve been a “student” of good marriage for all of my 49 1/2 years of marriage. Maybe that’s why I feel impelled to try to coax a few others in the same direction.