 |
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
Chaotic Couples
by Thomas P. Schmierer
June 28, 2008 |
|
 There is no doubt that the decision of whom we choose to date can have serious and enduring positive or negative consequences on the rest of our lives. Even if we do not eventually marry the person whom we have chosen to date, we will walk away with either a few more emotional scars or a more positive outlook on life and love. Once we begin to investigate our dating history, we may see that when our past relationships can be termed "chaotic" they have added to our emotional baggage and when they can be called "calm" they have had a healing effect on our lives. This article compares the difference between chaotic and calm relationships.
Accepting Responsibility for the Chaos
If you have related in a chaotic way or dated a chaotic-creating person, you must accept at least a portion of the responsibility for the chaos. A chaos-creating person is full of drama and frequently creates a rupture out of a pinhole. If you have had chaotic relationships in the past and you would describe yourself as a chaotic person, then you are going to need to change this about yourself if you are ever to find and marry a quality Catholic Christian and experience everlasting love.
If you do not consider yourself a chaos-creating person but have dated many chaos-creating persons in the past, then you need to make better dating decisions in the future. While you may blame the chaos-creating person for the drama in your failed relationship, you must accept responsibility for choosing him/her since, in the end, you were one part of a "chaotic couple."
If you have had chaotic relationships in the past, then you have been involved in a chaotic way of relating. This is true regardless of who in the relationship has been identified as a chaos-creating person. A chaotic way of relating needs to be replaced with a calm way of relating in order to establish and maintain a true emotional connection.
Chaos and Emotional Unavailability
People who create chaos often display an inability to express their true emotions. A person who is able to express emotions may say something like, "I know that it might seem silly, but I sometimes feel jealous and lonely when you talk on the phone with your mother when we are together."
A chaos-creating person will not share his emotions of jealousy and loneliness, but rather negative feelings permeate him until he has an overall negative attitude. After you hang up the phone, he will look for opportunities to blame you for something, anything! He keeps his emotions hidden and keeps you guessing at what is wrong.
The chaotic person may seem to have intense emotions, but since he does not communicate them effectively, he is actually emotionally distant. This emotional distance is called emotional unavailability. If a person chooses to blame someone else rather than communicate his/her emotions, then that person is emotionally unavailable. This emotional unavailability is the source of chaotic relating and destroys all chances of positive relations.
Chaos and Extreme Thrill-Seeking
One type of chaotic relating that leads to emotional unavailability is extreme thrill-seeking. Thrill-seeking couples may experience exhilarating emotions together, yet they sacrifice emotional intimacy regarding the subtler emotions. These couples are more likely to literally climb Mount Everest or go sky-diving together than to spend a relaxing evening in a local park holding hands while watching squirrels bury acorns.
In her book, Emotional Unavailability: Recognizing It, Understanding It, and Avoiding Its Trap, author Bryn C. Collins, writes:
People who are drawn to relationships on the edge are attracted by the danger of it all. The danger can come from either the physical or emotional realm, but the effect is the same as the couples attempt to destroy in vicious ways those things they say they love.(1)
Often the destroying that occurs in vicious ways is not something that one can see. It is true intimacy or emotional connection that is destroyed. Thrill-seeking couples are energy junkies who think that they are in love with an actual person, but who are in reality in love with intense feelings of all kinds. They often seem to find themselves in thrill-seeking, emotionally-distant relationships without even realizing that they are choosing to relate in this way.
Chaos and Long Distance Relationships
Chaos can also be created by choosing to enter into long distance relationships. There is no quicker way to bypass subtle emotions and intensify all relating than by choosing to date someone who does not live locally. The physical distance intensifies feelings, but these big feelings keep the couple emotionally distant regarding the subtler emotions.
Couples in long distance relationships often essentially choose to remain emotionally unavailable rather than to experience a less-exciting, local relationship with someone who is physically and emotionally available. These couples may refer to past local relationships as "boring" or "lacking chemistry."
The emotions within long distance relationships are intensified because of time limitations. The members of the couple are physically distant and they may overcompensate for this lack of physical time together in other ways. They may increase their acts of physical affection during visits in order to "make up for lost time together." By choosing to enter a long distance relationship, the couple is essentially choosing to increase the intensity of emotions beyond a normal level and to relate in a chaotic way. While it is possible to experience a calm way of relating in a long distance relationship, calm relating is the exception rather than the rule for these couples.
Chaos and Keeping Too Busy
Another way of using chaos to remain emotionally distant is at least worth a brief mention. Sometimes we cut ourselves off emotionally by keeping too busy with work, extracurricular activities, sports, etc. By keeping extremely busy, the emotionally-distant person is not engaging the subtler emotions that are only uncovered through relatively uneventful and continual contact with a loving other.
People who keep too busy do not have to engage with their loved ones nor experience them emotionally. A very busy person often chooses his extreme behavior because it is his way of running away from overwhelming, angry, or stressful feelings. Someone who would go to extreme lengths to avoid his feelings by keeping too busy is likely to feel trapped in a marriage. He will often unknowingly sabotage his marriage when his enormous, suppressed feelings inevitably explode to the surface in chaos-creating ways.
Short Courtships and Domestic Abuse
One less obvious example of a chaotic relationship occurs when a woman gets swept off her feet by Prince Charming and marries him after only knowing him for about four months. Many whirlwind weddings have turned into horrifying nightmare marriages when one of the spouses discovers that the other has been hiding his/her true self during the short courtship. These marriages often include severe domestic violence of all sorts.
Sometimes these courtships are hurried because the couple does not want to sin by engaging in premarital sex but they do not know how much longer they can "hold out." Extremely strong sexual impulses are often a telltale sign of chaotic relating. Collins writes, "Sex is often a part of the magnet that draws edge-living couples together again and again."(2) If the chaotic couple wants to wait until they are married to engage in the marital act, they may find themselves coming very close to "crossing the line" on many occasions.
It is noteworthy that perceived biological time limitations also may artificially intensify a relationship. If a woman believes that her "biological clock" is ticking, she is likely to approach a relationship with an intense amount of fear. Her fear will increase as she chooses to think thoughts like, "I had better hurry up and either ‘make or break' this relationship before I am too old to bear a child." While these fears may be partially based in reality, they display a sort of spiritual immaturity and a heavy reliance on self as opposed to God.
It is through patience and trust in providence that our fears lessen to appropriate levels and our way of relating shifts from chaotic to calm. God has a plan for us and we will discover it one day at a time as we seek to know His will and act according to it. Our lives will turn out as they should and we will rest eternally with the Father regardless of whether or not our current relationship leads to marriage and children as long as we follow His will.
Whereas the emotions in a biological clock-watching relationship are intensified by time limitations, the sexually-charged relationship is intensified because of a combination of both time limitations and lust. The sexually-charged couple is saying, "Let's hurry up and get married before we fall into sexual sin and risk going to Hell!" The way to combat exaggerated feelings that are caused by time limitations and/or lust is to approach dating and courtship from a Christian perspective.
Christian Courtship
The Christian approach to dating and courtship emphasizes knowing, loving, and serving God and others. In order to know and love an other, we must first know and love ourselves. If we are engaging in chaotic behaviors, we must identify this and seek God's healing grace through prayer and reception of the Catholic Christian sacraments. This process not only helps us to know and love ourselves, but by seeking God's grace we will know and love Him more.
Once we know and love God and ourselves, we will be ready to know and love an other. One problem with the short courtship and the long-term distance relationship is that we do not truly know the other person. We know that we feel big feelings about the "other," but this "other" is often largely a figment of our imagination. Knowing someone takes a large amount of time and involves doing some things with the other that may seem boring to some.
Christian courtship prevents relationships from becoming sexually-charged and chaotic. There is a difference between pure physical affection and sexual activity. Christian courtship involves pure physical affection whereas engaging in any sort of sexual activity before marriage is a confessable act. It is in the best interest of those who engage in these types of acts to undergo the cleansing process of receiving the Sacrament of Reconciliation with a humble and contrite heart. Proper reception of the Sacrament also involves a firm commitment to avoid the near occasion of sexual sin in the future.
It is difficult to outline Christian courtship in detail in one article, thus I advise you to listen to my presentation located at http://www.vaticanvalues.com/singlesadviceaudiorecordings.html.(3) The presentation explains something that I call the "Prudent Progression," which is a calm, as opposed to chaotic, way of relating.
Regarding a calm way of relating, Collins writes:
Having the ability to be comfortable without getting to the edge comes with awareness and communication and from practicing keeping your balance in the middle of the road.(4)
The "awareness and communication" mentioned by Collins refers to emotions. The negative emotions we inevitably feel when experiencing true intimacy are not the ultimate evil, thus we must learn to be comfortable in the presence of these emotions. We need to be aware of these emotions and effectively communicate them verbally without blaming someone else for them. This will help us to replace our chaos with relative calmness. Christian courtship, as opposed to secular dating, is one of the most effective ways of achieving emotional balance in a romantic relationship.
By utilizing the Christian approach to dating and courtship, you will reduce intensified feelings by avoiding thrill-seeking dates, sexual activity, and unreasonable time limitations. Reducing the intensity of these feelings takes the pressure off the relationship and allows you to relate in a calm, rather than chaotic, way. By making wise dating decisions and utilizing principles of Christian courtship, you will enjoy calm, emotionally available relationships that have increased potential of leading to everlasting love!
Footnotes
- P. 120 of Bryn C. Collins' Emotional Unavailability: Recognizing It, Understanding It, and Avoiding Its Trap (1997).
- P. 122 of Bryn C. Collins' Emotional Unavailability: Recognizing It, Understanding It, and Avoiding Its Trap (1997).
- Click on the "Listen for free!" link at http://www.vaticanvalues.com/singlesadviceaudiorecordings.html. The audio file will take some time to load, thus patience is required.
- P. 125 of Bryn C. Collins' Emotional Unavailability: Recognizing It, Understanding It, and Avoiding Its Trap (1997).
Thomas Schmierer is a Catholic counselor, writer, and evangelizer for V2C®. Visit www.vaticanvalues.com to learn more about Mr. Schmierer's work.
|
|
|
|
|
