How the Separating Self Drive Intimacy in Marriage

Part 1 of a 5-Part A Christian Counselor on Becoming Series

“Sanctity is becoming who I am … discovering my true self.” (Thomas Merton)

 

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“Our lives are mostly a constant evasion of ourselves.” (T.S. Eliot)

People choose Christian counseling for many different reasons: to find healing, to fix a situation, to figure out a relationship. What’s initially hidden amid all the finding, fixing, and figuring is a much deeper, more significant work:

The emergence of a core Self.

This realization of this Self is a process of relational maturation, by which the contours of an inner person – your desires, views, values, character, and personality – becomes more fully embodied.

Psychology refers to this process as “differentiation” or “individuation.” It’s the growing, separating Self-awareness of where one person begins and ends, in relation to another person.

As we’ll see, this is no simple matter.

Elbow Room for Self

Spiritually speaking, personal growth is sometimes explained in strictly oppositional terms: decreasing Self to make more room for God. The reality is more nuanced, however.

Often the problem isn’t simply selfishness. Rather, it’s that we don’t have enough Self.

More precisely, we don’t trust the Self authenticity that already is, and that’s seeking fuller expression. We resist becoming the person we most truly are in God’s eyes, the “core Self” in union with Christ.

This series will flesh out the distinction between our fragmented, controlling ego-selves and our core Self. Without a functional core Self, we cannot love or serve others well. Real Christianity is not self-less. As Jesus demonstrated, the only Self you can give is the one you fully own and embrace. (More on this in Part 5.)

The Solid Self – Separate and Together

The question is, how evident are these boundaries of core Self in a person’s life? Are the lines too easy or difficult to locate? Rigid and dense? Blurred and eroded? Or, in the healthiest sense, firm yet flexible?

What’s important is this: Under stress or conflict, healthier people are able to find and hold onto their deeper core Self, so they can more effectively love and listen to another – without losing themselves in the process.

This ability to be simultaneously separate and together, to hold the vital tension between autonomy and attachment, is the heart of real intimacy in any adult relationship.

Ghosts and Glory

It is also a risky venture. In Part 2 and Part 3, we’ll explore a passage from theologian C.S. Lewis’s classic story The Great Divorce (which isn’t referring to marital status). Lewis makes a beautifully poignant distinction between two types of people who meet in the foothills of heaven – the “Ghosts” and the “Solid People” – which for me describes the growing Self-in-relation.

The Ghosts visiting from “the grey town” are threatened and pained by the solidity of their new surroundings, everything from the sharply defined splendor of a blade of grass, to the weighty transparency of the Solid People they encounter in heaven. The wispy, opaque visitors must decide whether to relinquish the (false) security of old ego grudges and anxieties. Only the “thickened up” Self (in Lewis’ words) can withstand the weight of glory, and journey into the highlands of heaven.

Reflecting and Propping

Psychologist David Schnarch views relationships, marriage in particular, as “people-growing machines.”

Schnarch believes the inevitable friction of relationships forces one person, and hopefully both, to solidify his or her own boundaries and sense of Self – instead of seeking a baseline level of security in the other.

Relational tension exposes where people are overly reliant on others for what Schnarch calls a “reflected sense of self,” needing others to validate and mirror back to them a self-image that coincides with how they see themselves.

I’m OK, You’re OK?

This “reflected self” is how babies first come to know themselves in the world. In adult relationships, however, it’s prone to unhealthy co-dependency. This weaker ego “self” – a poor, distorted reflection of the deeper core Self – subtly maneuvers for and insists on affirmation from others. This neediness may in turn prop up a partner’s “reflected self,” which enjoys feeling useful.

The message both ways is, I need you to tell me that I’m okay, to regulate my anxiety for me. The reflected self’s attempt to “merge” with another person eventually suffocates the necessary emotional space between two people.

When there’s no effort to hold onto core Self, and to preserve this sacred space-between, then there’s no room for safe and intimate relationship.

Fusion and Desire

Early in a relationship, the back-room anxiety brokering and ego-stroking between two reflected selves might be seen as ‘compatibility.’ Over time, however, this collapses into expectations and demands on one another. The ensuing emotional merger or fusion actually increases anxiety, because when the Self’s boundaries are obscured, both partners feel alone or marginalized.

People operating with a limited sense of choice and control tend to control others. The result, Schnarch says, is “emotional gridlock.”

Without a differentiated Self, desire dies. Surrender gets reduced to submission. And the core Self is hidden beneath the hubris of our ego selves.

The Paradox of Person-hood

In Part 5 we’ll explore some of the theological and psychological interplay of “Self” revelation – a mystery which finds meaning in everything from the relational or “social” Trinity, to the incarnation. As the Trappist monk Thomas Merton put it, “We cannot be saints unless we are first of all human.”

For now, we’ll pause at this profound paradox:

• Biologically, psychologically and spiritually, the “Self” becomes known only through relationship with others.

• We can only enjoy intimate relationship to the extent that we embody a defined or “differentiated” Self.

Differentiation goes by different names. What Lewis the theologian describes as a “Solid Person,” Schnarch the psychologist refers to as a “solid but flexible” or “separate and together” Self.

Christian Counseling: Becoming Who You Are

The Christian’s calling is to conform to the unique Christ-in-me “Self” you were created for – but not by cutting off the false, fleshly, or frightened “ego selves” that are very real parts of you. Instead, Christian counseling serves to help “integrate,” refine and heal these less developed selves, to bring them into the light of consciousness. To call them “home,” as Christian mystics and ancients were fond of saying.

To paraphrase Merton: health and holiness involves becoming aware of your truest Self, surrendering to a deeper communion with the imago Dei within.

Part 2 of this series will introduce you to Frank and Sarah Smith, two fascinating characters in Lewis’s above-mentioned novel who illustrate the Self-in-relationship.

As a Christian counselor, I will work with you to discover a more wholly relational Self-attuned to both others’ needs and your own healthy boundaries. You are welcome to contact me here.