Episode 15. Striking the Perfect Balance: Mastering Individuality and Intimacy in Marriage
In this episode of Marriage IQ, we dive into the delicate balance of maintaining your individual identity while building intimacy in marriage. We've all felt that tension before - wanting to "find ourselves" yet still prioritize closeness with our partner. It's confusing! But don't worry, we break it down in simple terms.
Self-differentiation is key. This means having a solid sense of self, managing your own emotions, and respecting each other's differences. It's about being your own anchor amidst the storms of marriage so you can weather challenges while staying connected. We share practical tips too, like scheduling "me time" and trying "I feel" statements when communicating. We also cover common pitfalls to avoid like withdrawing or lashing out when stressed. Overall this episode is perfect for any couple wanting to transform stinky marital moments into scintillating ones!
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Welcome to Marriage IQ, the podcast for the intelligent spouse. I'm doctor Heidi Hastings. And I'm Dr. Heidi Hastings. We are two doctors, two researchers, two spouses, two lovers, and two incredibly different human beings coming together for one purpose, to transform the stinky parts of your marriage into scintillating ones, using intelligence mixed with a little fun.00:00:36
I feel so confused. I feel so frustrated, so disoriented. I don't understand. Wait, what? We talk about the importance of being a strong woman or a strong man.00:00:54
The importance of wanting to find myself, become the true person I was meant to become, to know unflinchingly who I am, and yet I am also to be completely intimate with my spouse, totally connected, to create all these intimate moments together, like emotional, physical, financial intimacy, blah, blah, blah, and have this really great intimate relationship. I feel conflicted because these are two polar opposite messages. What gives? Is this hypocritical? We're touting to be a strong man or a woman out of one side of our mouths and out of the other?00:01:38
We're saying, be intimate, be together, be connected, be one. How can I be connected and be an individual at the same time? Are we just a couple of two faced, fraudulent podcast hucksters paddling snake oil? Who on earth am I? Seriously?00:02:02
Am I a person swallowed up in my wife's desires, wants, and needs? Or am I a person who lives my life completely independently? As a young husband, I don't remember intentionally asking myself any of these questions. I just reacted to life because, hey, that's what everyone else did and that's what my parents did. I didn't know how or had the tools to ask myself anything like this.00:02:29
We do see that quite often in couples that we work with and even in my own research. But I think it's even more important to tell those who are listening today that we do, often still, even though we're aware of this, see it in ourselves and in our personal relationship. I grew up believing when you get married, you become one with your husband. So my interpretation of this was that you're the leader in our home, and I love you and I serve you, and I sacrifice for you and for our children. Yeah, all of those are really, really important aspects of making a family and a relationship, a marriage relationship, thrive.00:03:13
At the same time, it's also really important to hold on to ourselves as individuals, to make choices deliberately and to fully embrace our own free will or agency, whatever you want to call it. This is something like you that I definitely didn't understand until in the last few years. Yeah. At the time you and I got married, I had a great career in academic administration, and I was planning to start grad school. It was not really very hard for me to give up all of those things to move to another state with you as you started medical school, and I could stay home as a mother, something that I'd only dreamed of doing after the birth of my first daughter in my first marriage.00:03:59
So making the decisions wasn't hard, but what was hard was living with those decisions. It was really distressing to me when there I was, sitting in our little apartment, used to having important roles, and instead, I felt like I'd lost my career, my ambitions, my friends, my ability to make some independent choices with money, because I had my own income, or because at least I was contributing to our family income, and my family was kind of further away from us. So, again, I made those choices. They were intentionally the way that I wanted it to be, but I didn't really adapt well by intentionally putting things into my life that allowed me to continue to grow and develop as an individual. So some of those things happened naturally over time, but that was a really, really hard time for me, a time when I really struggled with who am I?00:04:57
Yeah, life transitions are one of the ways that this really comes to light and that we're able to see it. But today, we're going to tackle the concept of differentiation of self within our relationships. This can really make or break a relationship, but even for relationships that are good, solid relationships, the development of differentiation of self can really make those relationships better, too. Okay, so what I hear you saying is it can work well in people in crisis and in people who aren't in crisis. Right?00:05:37
So we prefer the non crisis route. Right. You listen to podcasts like this, so it doesn't take a crisis to create real meaning. Yeah. I love coming from a concept of prevention in this podcast.00:05:49
So, differentiation of self is a term that was popularized by a family therapist and researcher named I, doctor Murray Bowen. He refers to it as the ability to maintain one's sense of self while also staying emotionally connected to others. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. The ability to maintain one's sense of self identity while staying emotionally connected to others. Intimacy.00:06:17
Okay. Two of our foundational cornerstones. All right, that's big. I think it's worth repeating there, so. Yes, go ahead.00:06:24
Sorry. No, I appreciate that you did that. He used this concept to explain initially our relationships with our family of origin or parent child relationships. Doctor David Schnarch is my favorite researcher and therapist working with an expansion of this idea. He takes it and applies it to romantic relationships, as do other theorists.00:06:52
But I like his concept really a lot. Exactly. It's about balancing your individuality with connection with your partner. Right. This can be particularly challenging in a marriage where emotional entanglement can sometimes blur our personal boundaries.00:07:13
Do you have any examples of what. What do you mean by emotional entanglement? Well, let me tell you a story about a couple we worked with. They had a solid marriage. There weren't any serious red flags.00:07:24
But there seemed to be a lot of angst from the husband. He really needed constant validation from his wife. His wife, on the other hand, felt that he was very needy and couldn't understand why he was. She felt that she was validating him plenty and couldn't understand why he kept needing to be comforted, needing to be reassured that everything was okay in the relationship. Need, need, need, need.00:07:55
When we taught this one principle of self differentiation, the idea that I can be both strong and flexible at the same time, that I don't need constant validation from my wife in order to be truly intimate with her, it created a complete shift in his mind. He was blown away. Once he saw that perspective, he realized he didn't need to depend on his wife's validation of his self worth. He could do that on his own. Right.00:08:25
That's moving from a reflected sense of self, where we get our self worth being propped up by someone, or we rely on it being propped up by someone else, to then being more autonomous with our emotions. The moment that I saw that change in him, it was this big rush. Like, I get a huge rush out of seeing people. Like a light bulb goes on, like a light bulb in our logo. Boom.00:08:52
Insight. It's wonderful. I love it. Insight. Yes.00:08:59
So anyway, the end result is not moving away from each other, but moving toward each other in a seemingly paradoxical way to achieve even greater intimacy. Right. Because besides realizing that we're in charge of our own taking care of ourselves emotionally, we accept the fact that our partner may be different than us and that flexibility with our differences is really powerful. Lack of self differentiation over time just chips away, chips away, chips away at a foundation of a marriage relationship. There's a huge body of academic research on this topic, but let's break it down a little bit.00:09:45
To be simplistic, we're using parts of a lot of different studies here, but ultimately, differentiation includes the key aspects of being able to think for yourself, being able to manage your own emotions effectively, and not letting your partner's emotions, words, or behaviors dictate your own. So that doesn't mean you can't work together. It just means you realize you're more in tune with your own self and respectful of your partner being different. I like that. This is really crucial because self differentiation helps partners navigate emotional challenges without becoming enmeshed, without losing their identity and relying on their partner to help, again prop them up.00:10:39
And it keeps them from being overly dependent on each other, but more independently responsible for ourselves. Using our own agency, it fosters healthier communication styles. It helps us reduce our conflict within a relationship and allows both of us to grow individually while maintaining a strong, supportive connection with each other. So if our listeners out there, or even ourselves, are seeing room for improvement in communication, in conflict, in personal growth, this is a concept that can be part of all of our solutions. Scott, this is something that you and I talk about all the time.00:11:20
Sometimes we're better at it than others. Yeah, we got to be honest. Sometimes we're not great at it. Right. But when we realize that not great at it, we're able to come back to this concept over and over.00:11:32
We figure it out very quickly. Right. We're getting faster at that. So that's a way to determine if you're getting better. Self differentiated is when you can realize when you're not.00:11:41
That's the first key. Yeah. So self differentiation is like being firmly anchored in your own values and beliefs while still being able to empathize and connect with your spouse. The challenge is finding that sweet spot where you're not sacrificing your identity for the sake of harmony. I like to find patterns everywhere I go.00:12:04
I'm a pattern seeker. It helps me make more sense of the world around me. I love to quote one of my favorite philosophers of all time, Muhammad Ali. Wait, I thought Muhammad Ali was a heavyweight boxing champion, not a philosopher. Au contraire.00:12:22
Yes, he was a heavyweight boxing champion of the world multiple times, but in my mind, a fascinating philosopher when he coined the phrase float like a butterfly, sting like a bee in 1964 before becoming the heavyweight champion of the world. I think this phrase perfectly describes what we're trying to accomplish in developing self differentiation or strong, flexible self. It allows us to be strong, but yet nimble and flexible. Some other examples I think about are these little pansies. They look so gentle and tender, and yet they're the ones that survive the cold, the hard frosts, longer than any other flower that I know of.00:13:16
Anyway. When partners aren't well differentiated, though, they can become overly reactive to each other's moods, opinions and behaviors. And that really is key to what causes a lot of conflict in relationships and even internal emotional turmoil, whether or not there's conflict. And when one partner is highly reactive, the other might feel pressured to conform or suppress their own needs and feelings, which can create a cycle of frustration and resentment. The first thing I would ask is, am I the highly reactive one in this relationship?00:13:55
Because if you do, you are exhibiting significant self awareness and emotional intelligence. Ah, insight. Cornerstone of insight. So it truly is balancing act. And Scott, your example earlier was from a long term view of what happens over time.00:14:15
Now, let's take a minute and look at some practical examples on a small scale, a daily chipping away at it. So imagine one partner has a really demanding job, and you bring home stress after a hard day or several hard days. And if the other partner is poorly differentiated, they might absorb this stress, leading to a shift in the entire household dynamic. This can create a situation where the second partner, or me, in the case of you being the one that's stressed out, might feel overwhelmed and neglected, even though the stress from work really has nothing to do with me and the stressful situation. It's like secondhand stress, something like that.00:15:04
So this is an example of enmeshment or a reflected sense of self on a smaller scale, yeah. And it's important to recognize that differentiation does not mean emotional detachment or independence in the sense of isolation. It's more about maintaining a healthy emotional balance. It may sound like a huge paradoxical dilemma, but stick with us here because it's going to be a common theme throughout this podcast. This theme of self differentiation, being a strong, flexible self, it seems like a contradiction, but we'll try to solve this together.00:15:41
That does make sense, I promise. Right, because this is about being able to offer support without losing ourself in the process. If I see you coming home from work, stressed out or distressed about something, rather than letting it impact me and my emotions and getting upset or feeling like I need to fix you or fixed the problem, a lot of times one partner or the other feels constant need to fix the situation. Instead, I might ask you, do you need to talk about it? Do you want to be distracted from this?00:16:18
Maybe we could go on a walk. Do you want to find a tv show where we can laugh? What can I do to best support you without taking that on myself allows me to offer support without finding a solution for how to fix you. So how can couples work on improving their differentiation? That's such a great question.00:16:38
Again, our four foundational cornerstones of identity, insight, intentionality, and intimacy, all built on the bedrock of integrity, are really strongly tied to developing self differentiation. Okay, so let me give you the core components of self differentiation based on a conglomerate of different research. First of all, we have to have a clear understanding of who we are and what we stand for, even when other people, including our spouse, are pressuring us to do something else. Okay. A differentiated person has a strong sense of their own values, beliefs, and goals.00:17:16
They also need to understand their own emotions and triggers and be aware of how do I react to my spouse's emotional states, words, actions. So a lot of self awareness helps us increase our self differentiation. We know those core values by which our decisions are made. We have a sense of our own self worth that preserves even through hard times. We can maintain our viewpoints and our sense of direction.00:17:48
We can draw on our sense of personal stability and values and direction from within ourselves. That comes really from confronting our own self, spending time determining who we are and what's important to us. And we also need to admit that sometimes we can be wrong. So I'm just sitting here thinking about all the people who I talk to, and I mean, I'm a medical doctor, but I talk about emotional health as well. And it's fascinating how many people tell me how wrong their partner is.00:18:27
I get so I just drained. Can't anyone have self reflection anymore? It's endemic. It's always someone else's fault who's creating this problem. And I think in my mind, I can't help you.00:18:45
I can't have. I mean, I don't tell them that, but. But until we can have that self awareness, we're not going to start moving forward. We also have to realize in that self awareness that we don't always have to be right, that we can be wrong sometimes, and we're not going to crash when we're wrong. We're not going to crash or emotionally fold up or go into crisis mode when we learn that we're wrong or when someone else tells us that we're wrong.00:19:13
Right. All of those are parts of emotional maturity. And if we can't get a grasp on those things, then developmentally we'll stay in those lower levels of development. So the second thing we need to be able to do is manage our own anxiety. Right now in the world, anxiety is so crippling for so many people, but it really does start with knowing who you are.00:19:41
Differentiated individuals can manage their own anxiety without projecting it onto others. This doesn't mean that people can take medication for anxiety or that it's not a real thing, but it means that we can manage it without creeping into all of our relationships. So they understand that their own emotional reactions are separate and their feelings are separate from those around them. So even with people with pathologic anxiety, which exists and they need to take medications, they can still benefit, right, from what you're saying here, but managing their own anxieties, their own fears in ways that are healthy. Right.00:20:25
And doctor Schnarch refers this to calming our mind and quieting our hearts. For me, this has been most effective when I look back at the first stage of having a solid, flexible self, when I'm finding my emotions running out of control. My mind is not calm, my heart is not quiet. I have these intrusive thoughts constantly. I've learned I gotta go back a step and start looking at who am I?00:20:59
Am I letting everyone else around me project how I see myself? Do I have a reflected sense of self? Am I comparing myself to others? Am I listening to what other people say about me? Or looks they give me?00:21:16
Or stories I tell myself that all have to do with other people? Or am I able to say, okay, I know who I am, these are my opinions. I'm a person of worth. I have a divine nature. I am a good person.00:21:33
I have value. And so what other people say, what other people think, or what I think other people think is not a reflection of who I am. And so then I'm able to bring down that anxiety, control it better so it doesn't run away with me. Because if I have thoughts like that, it's going to impact my emotions, which will then impact my behaviors, which may mean I'm going to crumple up and become paralyzed and not do anything, or I may lash out. But if I can quiet my mind and heart because I've gone back to that, who am I?00:22:08
Then I can do that and makes that identity. That's a real, real strong core cornerstone. And this includes being able to soothe my emotional bruises that come from others. Maybe, yes, my initial response was a little bit of overreactivity, or maybe even a lot of overreactivity, but then I'm able to pull that back, think about who I am, is this really true? And soothe over those emotional bruises and monitor my body and my emotional responses.00:22:38
Am I flooded? If I am, what am I going to do to pull down that emotional flooding that leads to emotional regulation? Differentiated individuals can manage their own emotions effectively, then can respond to emotional situations with clarity and calm, rather than reacting impulsively. So if I can calm my mind, if I can quiet my heart, I can respond to others without flying off the handle, without feeling like I want to die, without feeling like the world is against me. One of the best ways to do this is with curiosity.00:23:21
Once I've been able to calm my mind, quiet my heart, I can use curiosity to explore, why am I feeling this way? What is it that's been triggered that's making me fly off the handle? Often you and I talk about what core value has been triggered. Do I feel like it's been put into question or attacked that would cause me to do this? I think, as we said last week, too, we want to, perhaps in a hot situation, go over the what first, what happened.00:23:54
And then once we get that handled, we can start talking about the why once we get settled down. Because discussing the what has a strangely, has a settling effect to it. And then we can jump into the why. Right? So as we learn how to respond more groundedly, because we've controlled our emotions, things that we really want to avoid are having short fuses, explosive tempers.00:24:24
If we've got an explosive temper with short fuses, that means we are not, well, self differentiated. We don't want to say cutting things in really hard conversations. If we do, again, big signal that we need to back up and start on those first steps. We don't want to emotionally cut ourselves off from our spouse. We want to stay connected, not give the silent treatment.00:24:51
Silent treatment is really highly damaging to a relationship. And the worst part of self differentiation, I think Gottman calls it stonewalling. Right, exactly. Putting up the wall between us until some unknown day when all of a sudden we pretend like it wasn't there. That's really damaging to relationships.00:25:12
Yes. We don't want to yell at each other. We don't want to go to pieces over little things. We don't also want to underreact. So if there's something that's been pretty big that happened, we don't want to just sweep it under the rug and pretend like it didn't happen, because that is also not grounded.00:25:33
Responding. What we do want to do is sometimes just learn to keep our mouths shut. Not sweeping things under the rug, but holding our tongue when we feel like making a little cutting remark or questioning in our mind, perhaps, what's causing this, instead of just not dealing with it at all. You know, there are some times I just kept my mouth shut with you. Sure.00:26:01
We both have done that at times. And for me, there have been times that I just didn't, and I'm probably more prone to do that. You're probably much better self differentiated than I am. Grad school was really good for showing me where my weaknesses were in that part. So another part of self differentiation is where we're both able to express our needs and our boundaries while respecting and being flexible to each other and understanding that we each have different boundaries.00:26:29
We each have different things that trigger us, but that maintaining our boundaries and understanding each other's boundaries helps us become self differentiated. Yeah, I like that. Different opinions are good. We need to be flexible to those. In fact, they're a superpower because they help us see things from a lot of different perspectives.00:26:51
So lastly, tolerating discomfort for growth in relationships. And this is intentionality. This doesn't mean we tolerate things like abuse. It does mean we're willing to work through things that are difficult, turn towards each other continually instead of away from each other. Sticking to the goals that we've made as a couple, absorbing hardship and disappointment from a place of growth.00:27:16
We're going to see some benefits as we learn how to work through this together. And then bouncing back when we've had something distressing or I a defeat or a failure as we do these things, we're going to become well differentiated again. Practice, practice, practice that we can stay emotionally connected. When I'm feeling distressed towards you, just telling myself, I want to stay connected, I'm not going to run away. I want to keep working through this, talking about it in these honest conversations, until we can move to a place of deep connection.00:27:51
And this really does help us grow our intimacy. Yeah, I like that. It's hard though, right? It is. This is extremely hard.00:28:00
It's easy to say, right? But really hard to put into practice. And we're gonna spend a lifetime at it. But we know. We know what we need to do.00:28:13
We're learning that new language. And again, it's like we've used the word iterative before. It's an iterative process. Okay. We're learning selfdevelop differentiation when it comes to you coming home from work and being stressed out or me moving through some transitions that are difficult.00:28:31
But then we're going to learn other circumstances where we need to learn to become more self differentiated. And others. And others. And all of this leads to different stages that are more emotionally mature in our development and our growth throughout the lifespan. So, summarizing all this, look, that's a lot.00:28:53
We have being self aware, learning self awareness, managing our anxiety, emotional regulation, maintaining boundaries, and tolerating discomfort for growth. That's. I like that. Takes a lot of balance, takes a lot of interdependence. And let's not forget self care.00:29:13
Each partner should invest in their own interests and friendships outside of marriage. This helps maintain a sense of identity and fulfillment. Now, let's address a common question. What if one partner is significantly less differentiated than the other? Ooh, who gets to determine that?00:29:31
My thought is, if I'm the one thinking that you're less differentiated, I'm probably less differentiated. I just tend to think that that just happens. So it really starts with me. Every time we could have a neutral person come and say, I think you are less differentiated than the other. That might be a good idea.00:29:55
Right. But in those cases where we may think that we're more differentiated than our partner, it's important to be really patient and supportive. Pointing a finger and saying, you've got problems with self differentiation, you need to start working on this. Probably isn't being supportive or patient. It's learning together about this topic.00:30:18
It's encouraging self reflection. This really also includes offering support in a non judgmental way. I like non judgmental. And I think coming back to a few things that we touched on earlier, abuse is never acceptable in a relationship. Emotional, physical, sexual, none of that.00:30:42
All of these things we're talking about cannot work in a relationship that's. That has any kind of abuse. And so we want to be clear about that. And also other things, like the anxiety, like depression, that are serious things that are medical, psychiatric conditions that require medication.00:31:07
That's important to address as well, that we don't have the time here, but it needs to be considered. All these things that we're teaching, though, today, can be used in any of those circumstances other than abuse. Well, in abusive situations, often the person being abused loses sense of their identity. They have no ability to speak up, to express their opinions, or to start looking for an exit plan. And so I think it's even valuable in those situations to tap into if this relationship has no hope for repair.00:31:50
What can I do to not be the punching bag emotionally? I can see your point there. Well, let's ask yourself this week some questions. How do I react to my spouse when he or she tells me something unexpected? Let's have you practice.00:32:08
I feel statements when this happens. I feel hurt. I feel overwhelmed. I feel ignored. Those are just some examples.00:32:16
Try asking yourself, what are the common feelings that I experience? I know some of mine are. I feel undervalued. I feel unappreciated. I feel disrespected.00:32:26
Those are three big, hot item feelings for me. So I want you to ask yourself these questions. You're not allowed to say, I feel like you hurt me or I feel like you ignored me. That is not what we want. Try again.00:32:46
That is not what we want.00:32:52
All right, that's a foul ball. So just the I feel and nothing else. Let's schedule time with each other to discuss ways that we can increase emotional, physical, recreational, and sexual intimacy without adversely influencing each other's self autonomy or their freedom to choose. Scott, you and I have established boundaries on this, and as long as it's ethical, moral, and legal, whatever we choose for ourselves to spend our time and our priorities on individually is fine. Yeah, we often will say to each other, you can make your choice.00:33:34
You can do what you choose. This is what I would like you to do. But if you choose something else, you're free to do that. That's fine, as long as it's ethical, legal, and moral right. We do have some boundaries.00:33:44
I appreciate. So how do we bring this back again to identity? Intentionality. Insight. Intimacy.00:33:52
We kind of hit on those hard today. Yeah. Like identity. Who am I? What do I want to become that does not include my spouse as part of my identity?00:34:03
Can I be confident in myself enough to allow my spouse in my space without losing my own identity? Intentionality. Am I formally scheduling time to contemplate my own self? Who am I? What sort of boundaries do I set for myself and what kind of boundaries do I want to see in our marriage?00:34:28
Am I reacting to situations or am I proacting to them? Insight. Can I self reflect on situations without blaming myself or others? Can I look at each situation neutrally without being emotionally charged? Am I self differentiated?00:34:50
Your spouse might not be, but how about you? Intimacy. Am I connecting with my spouse in ways that allow total authenticity and intimacy and vulnerability? Are we both feeling that synergy that only can be created by two people committed passionately, better or for worse? Are we discussing these things on a routine basis so it doesn't feel so foreign to us?00:35:20
Those are fantastic questions. I'm really glad that you came up with those. And hopefully our listeners will take the time to reflect on those with their spouse or as individuals as they do that this week. Practice that this week. We would love to get some comments back from people on.00:35:39
If they had some insights about that, feel free to email us@heidihastings.com or comment on our social media page, either on Instagram or on Facebook. Marriageiq and remember, the intelligent spouse knows that to change from a stinky to a scintillating marriage first requires a change in themselves. Thank you so much all for tuning into Marriage IQ. We hope today's episode has sparked some thoughts and brought you some valuable insights. Remember, the conversation doesn't end here.00:36:16
Stay curious, keep exploring, and we'll catch you next time on another exciting episode of Marriage IQ.
