The Exceptional Seven Percent. Gregory K. Popcak

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      The second type of Shipwrecked marriage is the Safety marriage, which is at the other end of the spectrum. Safety marriages occur when a woman who has had a deprived or traumatic past marries a nice, quiet man who will not threaten her. The main theme of this marriage is safety, in the form of avoiding conflict and pursuing a completely stress-free life. By her choice of a husband, the wife is assured that any arguments are likely to be on her terms, although she is usually just as happy to remain quiet because, “Life is too short to fight.” The couple tends to have more than their share of financial problems—they are hardly the corporate killer types—although wives in these marriages are more likely to be employed out of the home (usually from necessity). Also, because of the wife’s influence, they are more likely to be churchgoers than their Materialistic counterparts, though their faith tends to be shallow, celebrating either feel-good spiritual vagaries or rigid religiosity.

      This relationship goes along just fine until about ten years into the marriage when the wife finally becomes sated with safety and quietude and expresses a desire for more passion in her life and marriage. Unfortunately, she discovers that the same man who could not threaten her also lacks the skills and motivation to love her as well as she would now like. From this point on, there will be tension in the marriage—though it may not be voiced—as the wife drags her husband to therapy, church, support groups, anything that will “fix” him, and get her the husband that she needs. Even when it works, it is a painfully slow process.

      Finally, the Shipwrecked Rescue marriage is the more satisfying hybrid of the two Shipwrecked marriages you have just read about. Identified by Dr. Judith Wallerstein in her book, The Good Marriage (1995), both the husband and wife in a Rescue marriage usually come from severely neglectful, abusive, or deprived families of origin. But unlike other Shipwrecked couples who eventually come to desire more intimacy or greater identity strength (thus inviting the tension that either propels them toward the next stage on the pathway or destroys the marriage), Rescue couples are just happy to have survived their traumatic pasts and never learn to ask for anything more from life. As one Rescue wife told me, “I suppose I love him. Not like most people mean it, but, you know.... He doesn’t beat me. He doesn’t drink too much or sleep around. He makes a good living. What do I have to complain about?”

      Despite the relative “satisfaction” of Rescue couples, these marriages belong in the Impoverished category because they are still only about achieving the basics in life, are still seriously lacking in intimacy, still exhibit unhealthy levels of mutual dependency, still depend upon lives that are too sheltered from the world at large, and—generally speaking—are not marriages that anyone with a healthy upbringing would aspire to.

      Recommendations for Shipwrecked Couples

      In order for Shipwrecked couples to move to the next step on the pathway (Conventional marriages), they need to look at the following in their lives.

      1. Expect more from life. If you are in a Shipwrecked marriage, you have learned that it was either foolish or selfish to want more than “the basics” from life. To a large degree, this is what caused you to create a marriage that resembles the alien houseplant in the musical Little Shop of Horrors. That is, it sucks the life out of you to sustain itself. A healthy marriage is not a drain; it is a life-giving thing that empowers you to become the person you were created to be. The first step toward this marital ideal is to stop thinking of your dreams, goals, ideals, and values as something to take up one day after you win the lottery. Finding work or roles that are personally meaningful—as opposed to merely practical, well-paying, or even important—is essential to entering the next stage of your identity development and married life.

      2. Learn to meet your own needs. In order for love to blossom in your marriage, you have to rout out your dependency. What do you rely on your mate to do for you that, at this point, you are unable or unwilling to do for yourself? Earn a living? Clean house? Cook? Discipline your children? Make friends? Feel good about yourself? Get the training, practice, or counseling you need to overcome your neediness, because need chokes off love.

      3. Relate to your mate. Shipwrecked spouses spend far too much time standing around wondering what their mate wants from them. You have no excuse for this. Books like John Gray’s Mars and Venus series, Gary Smalley’s Hidden Keys to a Loving, Lasting Marriage, or Deborah Tannen’s You Just Don’t Understand, and programs like Promise Keepers, PAIRS, or Retrouvaille, etc., were meant for you. Take advantage of them. Also, seek individual or marriage counseling to help you be accountable for the changes you want to make.

      4. Challenge your addiction to comfort. If you have a chaotic past, you may feel you are now entitled a bit of peace and quiet. Unfortunately, this may make you obstinately unwilling to give any more to your mate than you decide is necessary. You may be blatantly dismissive toward, or passively ignoring of, your mate’s requests for more time, more attention, more anything. Likewise, you may tend to nag your mate about his or her faults as a way to escape dealing with your own. Both are recipes for disaster. If you wanted comfort, you should have bought a lounge chair, not a marriage license. Get to work on fulfilling your and your mate’s destinies now.

      If you are currently in a Shipwrecked marriage, I want to encourage you to do the work necessary to move to the next stage. The crisis these marriages encounter around the ten-year mark is not so much an interpersonal problem as it is an identity problem. Stop blaming your mate for your misery and begin working to find your own place in the world. Your mate may disapprove of your efforts, but in many ways, this is just the tension your psyche requires to build some identity strength. Let your spouse be the stone against which you sharpen the sword of your identity. For now, let your marriage meet your basic needs while you pursue your growth. In the meantime, try to encourage your spouse to grow as well. If he or she does, great. If not, then you can reevaluate your decision to stay in your marriage after you have achieved a position of greater personal, social, and financial strength.

      The next stage on the Relationship Pathway accounts for most marriages and represents what the Shipwrecked couple will graduate to if they successfully complete the work I outlined above.

      Conventional Marriages

      The marital theme of a Conventional marriage is generally to support and maintain a couple’s place in the world. Once people are capable of meeting their own basic needs, they become interested in finding a group with which they can identify and they are ready for a Conventional marriage. Even though Conventional couples exhibit some of the same qualities, attitudes, and skills as those couples farther along the pathway, they have not yet mastered them. Depending upon how the couples marital theme is played out, the Conventional couples will find themselves in either a Storybook or a Star marriage. Basic requirements for admission into either type of Conventional marriage are as follows.

      1. Both husband and wife must be relatively sure of their own ability to provide for at least their basic financial needs, even if they are not currently employed.

      2. Both husband and wife must have found personally meaningful work or social roles to play. For example, a physician whose identity is in the Shipwrecked category enjoys medicine because of the money, power, and prestige her work affords her, while a physician whose identity is at least in the Conventional category truly enjoys the art of medicine. In a similar way, to qualify as a Conventional stay-at-home mom (as opposed to a Shipwrecked stay-at-home mom), the woman must sincerely believe that by training or experience she is qualified to do something else, but has chosen to stay home because she finds the role personally meaningful and socially valuable.

      3. Both husband and wife must have at least a casual identification with, or membership in, some significant “values group”; for example, church or synagogue, professional organizations, political/community organizations, men’s/women’s groups. Such identifications are important because, as Abraham Maslow pointed out, being accepted by and belonging to the world at СКАЧАТЬ