Think of your marriage as a “thing” all by itself.
Why bother?
When you think of the marriage as a separate thing, it takes away all blame and finger pointing from yourself and from your partner. <<< I like this reason.
So let’s look at what the Marriage, with a capital M, “should” look like when it’s healed, whole, happy, and works for you:
- It generates happiness for both people.
- It is a source of friendship, support, and validation for both people.
- It is a safe place, which means it is an intimate place.
- It is an incubator for personal growth and expansion.
- Your best friend lives there.
So let’s say that you have both gone through my program, Levels 1 and 2. That means you have learned to love your Self and recognize that your Self is the best of you – it has wisdom, intuition, perspective, love, and more.
It also means that you know that your lifetime inner helpers that sometimes (or often) cause trouble mean well and you love them too, but they are not You.
They are part of you, but not your Self. You now know that your Self is bigger than the sum of your parts.
Finally, it means that you enjoy being in Self energy and can talk to all the parts of you. The parts respect your Self and allow your Self to lead them.
Ditto all of the above for your spouse.
Now, let’s create a scenario in which we run the Marriage Test on how to decide what parts to listen to when situations get tense:
Mike and Melinda
Mike and Melinda have something deep in common: They both grew up getting the message that they weren’t good enough.
Melinda got it through the bullying she received in school. She came to the brilliant conclusion, as only small children will, that if she was perfect in every way, she would never again feel not good enough. Less than perfect wasn’t good enough.
Mike learned to be a people pleaser. He was terrified of someone being upset with him. Then he would surely take it to mean that he was rotten to the core, a piece of garbage.
But through the Love Yourself Love Your Marriage program, both Mike and Melinda got past this. They felt “enough” and surely “good enough.”
However, we always can get triggered. Triggers never go away. The question is: How do we handle them? What do we feel inside?
It was bound to happen because no one is perfect. One day, Melinda made a grave error at work. Her bosses got down on her. That old part of her that had to be perfect jumped out of no-where to start ripping Melinda apart.
But, having completed so much work on herself, she could talk to that voice in her head and calm it down. She explained that she really had done the best she could; she was learning something new and that’s how new things went, sometimes.
She went home, not feeling great, but okay, Maybe she was in 60% Self energy. This happens from time to time.
Mike, indeed, is her best friend. But when she told him what happened, the part of him that is terrified of displeasing others jumped at him from out of no-where. It wanted to rip Melinda apart so as to save her job.
That’s how little kids think and those voices in our heads that torment us are relics from our childhood.
After all, if the bosses could be appeased, then Melinda surely wouldn’t lose her job. Mike’s part even rationalized that Melinda would appreciate what he was doing because she didn’t want to lose her job either.
But now Mike does the Marriage Test.
If he rips her apart:
- Will it generate happiness for himself and Melinda?
- Will it feel like a source of friendship, support, and validation for them?
- Will Melinda feel safe? Will she feel she can share future intimate information?
- Will his people pleasing encourage both of their personal growth and expansion?
- Will he feel like Melinda’s best friend? Does he even think she would feel like his once he’s done that?
Putting everything through this Marriage Test made it easy. No, it would not create happiness and no, Melinda wouldn’t feel supported. She certainly wouldn’t feel safe to share in the future.
Mike got stumped on #4 for a while. Where’s the growth and expansion if he doesn’t rip into Melinda for what she did?
And then he knew. The clarity came quickly after all: If she lost her job over this, they would learn that they could survive. Together. As friends. He still had his job and she would maybe even find a better one.
And they would stay best friends. That’s #5.
A handy tool, isn’t it?