Episode 2. Knowing Yourself: A Cornerstone of an Intelligent Marriage
On this week’s episode of Marriage IQ, we dive into the first cornerstone of an intelligent marriage - identity. We all remember our wedding days and the hopes we had for our future together. But real life isn't always a honeymoon, and forming a new identity as a married couple can get confusing. And yet, Heidi explains how identity crises actually present opportunities for growth, both individually and relationally.
Overcoming identity crises leads to greater emotional maturity, confidence, life satisfaction, and connection with others. Scott shares how rediscovering his identity during transitions has helped strengthen his marriage.
Small steps like taking personality tests, listing your core values, and examining your likes/dislikes can provide clarity. Identity fluctuates, so be flexible. Heidi introduces therapist Dr. David Schnarch's concept of the "solid flexible self." Balancing autonomy and intimacy requires knowing yourself and controlling your life while remaining adaptable with your partner. This self-awareness and maturity enables deeper connection.
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Welcome to Marriage IQ, the podcast for the intelligent spouse. I'm Dr. 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. That's right, all you intelligent spouses out there, from sorry to stupendous, stale to stellar, frightening to fantastic, horrible to hallelujah.00:00:39
Each week, we steer you fearlessly through the course of creation of a truly intimate life together as husband and wife and give you a peek into some of the many conversations we have in our own home. Yes, we talk about marriage a lot. We talk about all of these things a lot. And it's exciting to finally be able to share them with some other people. Today, we want to discuss the first foundational cornerstone of an intelligent and, might I add, scintillating marriage identity.00:01:08
Ooh. One of our very favorites. I want all of you to think back. A little exercise here. Think back when you got married.00:01:16
Do you remember the day? What hope and dream did you have about the rest of your life, about the two of you together? Of course, every day isn't like a wedding day. But I want you to think back to that day. Really, really think about it.00:01:32
What were you thinking? I know that you had to worry about flowers and bouquets and whatever, the catering and who was doing it and all that, all of the stuff that went into planning and doing the wedding on that day. But let's think deeper. You both come together as two different people with different backgrounds, different likes, dislikes, and now you're supposed to become one. Wait a minute.00:01:58
Where do we go from here? And do I still have my own identity now? I'm a married spouse. How is that different or the same from our marital identity as husband and wife? What?00:02:10
Good question. This is really confusing, right? Cause a lot of people don't think about this, and so we are inviting you to think about it. I think it's especially confusing for women because they change their name, they often change locations where they live, a lot of things by themselves to adopt more culturally, at least in the US, more of the man's role. So it can be a little confusing.00:02:37
Yeah. So I know, Heidi, you've done a lot of research in your doctoral program on identity, specifically with identity development in couples that encompasses gender, faith, morality, and sexuality. Right. So can you kind of give us a fly by understanding of research about identity? I would love to do that.00:02:57
And we will be talking about a lot of this throughout coming episodes. But for just a flyby. Eric Erikson is one of the foundational theorists that created research around identity development that is still used today and has been expounded on by a lot of other researchers. He claims that identity is formed through crises in our lives that lead to a path of self discovery. And this causes us, these crises cause us to question the way that we're experiencing the world, and then we have to make decisions that lead to further development, or we stay stagnant with negative resolutions.00:03:39
So here's an example. Erickson found that as individuals explore and mature in the self discovery process, outcomes lead to greater emotional maturity, a more purposeful life. We're more confident we have improved mental health and physical health, and better life satisfaction. When the identity crises are resolved at each stage of development, we're able to connect more deeply with others, become more intimate, and be more aware in social settings. But when questions about self identity remain unresolved, as humans, we're at risk for a lot of negative social outcomes, like poor self esteem and poor mental and physical health.00:04:27
Like I said, a decline in our relationship quality, in our sexual satisfaction, and in levels of intimacy. So, wait a minute, wait a minute. Let me see if I understand this right. Okay. What you're saying is that in order for me to have greater emotional maturity, to be more emotionally intelligent, to have more meaning in my life, I have to go through a state of crises.00:04:55
Several states of crises, actually. Yes. Well, that's not fair. I know, because we look at crises as bad luck or as bad happening to us. But according to Erikson and Keegan and other theorists, they're actually opportunities for growth and vital to us becoming intelligent human beings.00:05:16
So I guess the next time I have a crisis, I need to remember back to this conversation. That's exactly right. In fact, I teach family stress and coping at an online university, and we talk a lot about coping. And crises actually strengthen us. So I recently realized that I have some bone issues, that my bones aren't as strong as they need to be.00:05:43
So I've started working out at the gym, doing strength exercises, dealing with the impact of stress, which is the weights that actually helps strengthen my bones. So in the future, I'm not going to break bones as much. It's very similar in relationships and as individuals. When we run into these crises, it can strengthen us for future growth and for what's coming, increases our capacity and our development. So what I hear you saying then is taking these chopping down these crises and maybe feeding it back to us in little small packets like you do when you work out, right?00:06:23
Cause that's basically what you're doing. You're forcing a kind of a critical moment on your bones and muscles when you're working out, but you're doing it, like, on purpose in life. It's not as fun as going to the gym, though I do have to say, in life, we shed lots of tears. We have a lot of anxiety, a lot of questioning, a lot of wondering, who am I? I thought I knew who I was.00:06:48
It's far more distressing. But if we can look at things through a growth mindset and through the lens of human development, which we will include quite a bit in our podcast, it changes our perspective of the things that we're going through. Besides growing through crises, we can also do some things intentionally to grow. Let me tell you a little bit about Robert Keegan. He was also a theorist who studied identity development in adults, and he found that as we go through the lifespan from adult onward, we go through typically five different stages of development, with autonomy and agency increasing at each stage, which I love that a lot.00:07:29
We'll do another podcast on some of his research, but for today, it's important to understand that his finding that the transitions are achieved through experiential learning, like you said, through the hard parts of life is really interesting. But also really interesting is that he found only about two thirds of adults ever develop beyond the lower levels of development. This is because we're so concerned about what others think of us that we don't even take the time to know who we are. So, Scott, this is something that you've really focused on in your life over the last little while, specifically knowing who you are and looking at your identity. So how does somebody come to know who they are?00:08:09
Well, I have to say, I think Robert Kagan is on the optimistic side. Two thirds is a lot. I would not have said two thirds in my experience, but two thirds kids do not know who they are. Oh, I thought you said two thirds do get to that next level. Two thirds never get to that point.00:08:28
Oh, okay, now, okay, then that makes sense to me. Okay. So, yeah, a solid majority don't get there. Right. But not the intelligent spouse.00:08:37
Listening to this podcast, you are definitely in the top third. Let me just go back a little bit and flesh this out a little. The crises, like, fundamentally, we understand. Okay. Yes.00:08:49
We need to move through them in order to grow. At the same time, I think that crises can be extremely critical in the moment, which that's where most of us live, is in the moment for good or bad. You just like today's newspaper is tomorrow's trash liner, right? So we live today. So if that crisis happens today, you know, a lot of us, we don't have the skills to manage that today.00:09:20
It can become something that, let's say your spouse died or comes to you and says, I want a divorce, or your child dies or something extremely big. I mean, that is going to take time to move from. I have been injured, I'm a victim to growth, and everyone has a different path to that. I think at the end of the day, all this is true. And if we can start any point in that process of being the victim, which if something is done poorly to you, happens to you, you are a victim.00:10:05
And we're not saying that you're not, it's that we're taking this crisis as that victim and saying, okay, what can I do with this? Right? And you're correct totally about it taking time. But at the same time, if we can look at the these crises as with hope, for one, because we understand it from a human development perspective, that this will literally change for the better, has the potential to change for the better who we are. But doctor Hastings, my husband just told me he wants a divorce.00:10:38
What kind of hope do I have right now? I can't think of hope right now. If I know who I am, if I have a handle on who I am, then things that happen to me are not going to knock me off my foundation. If I have the foundation of what are my values, what are my preferences, what are my likes, who am I as a mortal being? And even beyond, it's not going to knock me off my foundation when crisis things happen to me.00:11:06
Okay, so what I hear you saying then, is that if you know who you are and you've practiced it, and you're evidently, I guess, listening to this podcast, cause that's exactly what we're doing, you're gonna be able to become a Victor much faster. Exactly than. Well, that's awesome. I'm gonna talk about a victor right now. I would love it.00:11:27
Let's hear. Yes. In fact, it's serendipitous. Victor Frankl. Ah.00:11:35
Oh, that's funny, but I'm bummed. Yeah. So, Victor Frankl, a lot of you intelligent spouses probably have heard this name. Some of you haven't. And that's okay.00:11:45
I hadn't until just a few years ago. He lived back in the forties. He was a psychiatrist. So he had a medical degree. He was jewish.00:11:55
He was captured by the Nazis during World War Two and sent to a concentration camp, Auschwitz. So he saw death daily. He lost his family. Death. How did he make it through it?00:12:10
He looked at his situation kind of like a third eye. Objectively. He was able to pull back, pull out of himself and his woes, as he says in his book, kind of like a jury or a judge or a tv camera is set on your life and you're watching the tv from another room, so you're kind of pulling out of yourself, popping out. That really changed his whole view. He said, between the stimulus and response, there's a space.00:12:48
That stimulus can be a very, very bad stimulus. It could be your husband telling you he wants to divorce you or any other number of critical things. That's the stimulus. He says there is a space between the stimulus and response. And in that space we get to choose how it's going to impact us.00:13:10
Okay, so how did his identity allow him to do that? Well, I think that being aware of that, I think not allowing himself to be carried away by. That's really good news. Good or bad news. Like, for instance, sometimes there'd be news that say, hey, we're getting rescued on this date.00:13:34
It's happening. I heard it. I know. You know, I heard it through the grapevine. Whatever.00:13:38
They get all excited that day. Comes and goes. Nobody rescues them and then they die. So their identity was based on something external. External, something else.00:13:50
That's really good. He was based on something. I want to know. Reality as it is, okay? I want to know.00:13:58
Hey, is this real? Is the story I'm telling myself real is, you know, and I want to live objectively in that moment. That's a really interesting way to view identity on a more individual level. From my personal level. I think I've gone through several periods of identity development that at the time, like we said, seemed more like a personal crisis or an identity crisis through things like divorce, kids going to school, kids leaving for college, employment changes, things like that.00:14:30
I remember one particular time that I was really struggling to know who I was because so much of my identity was tied to both our family, me as a wife, me as a mother, and also to my employment, that I didn't really have time to think about anything else, about who I was or I didn't take the time. I didn't know about development or that identity development was something that we need to pay attention to back then. One of our teenage daughters asked me, she thought it would be a good idea for me to sign up for a Facebook account. So this tells you how long ago that was. When you sign up for Facebook, it asks a lot of questions about who you are, what you like, and I couldn't answer hardly any of them, aside from that very, very narrow focus that I had at the time and my identity, really, it hit me in the face that I need to take a look a little bit more at who I am.00:15:24
And so when we have those either natural transitions, forced transitions, or crises, those are all opportunities for us to inspect who we are a little bit more deeply. So do you have any practical suggestions, Scott, for how we can come to know who we are? So let me just ask. So you're saying Facebook helped you figure out who you are? Definitely helped.00:15:46
Ask me the questions that made me dive into that a little bit deeper. All right, so you're sitting there thinking, okay, how do I know where to start? Who am I? Right? Like?00:15:55
And look, a lot of people go through this one way you can start. And I'm not saying this is a perfect way. Right. This is kind of a messy way. There are some free online personality tests that kind of get the ball rolling.00:16:10
It's called 16 personalities, doc, I think.com. It asks you a bunch of questions about some of your likes and dislikes, your preferences about time management, spending time with other people or alone, how much you like philosophizing versus practical. And then it kind of spits out something at the end. I will tell you, I've taken this three times, and all three times I was something different. So I don't know.00:16:37
But not three times in a row, right? No, no. It was over the course of time. Again, not perfect. And we gotta throw in there the whole idea that we do change over time with life.00:16:50
Three years ago on this 16 personalities, I was called a campaigner. And three months ago, I'm a sage. And today, or the other day when I did it as an architect. Wow. Anyway, you're changing or you're just answering things differently on different days, but it helps to have that introspection, I think.00:17:09
So sit down with yourself and make a list of your own values. What is most important to me? That's also something you can just Google, list of values, list of top 50 values or something, and just go through it and mark maybe your top five. Top ten. Yeah.00:17:28
What's most important to you? I try to keep it to about five because, I mean, who doesn't want all of these attributes, right? So we want to really force ourselves a little bit to cut it down to a few that are the ones that really make us tick. Right. So for me, some of mine that I have recognized over the last few years are family, faith and knowledge.00:17:52
Obtaining knowledge, for me, competence is high. Honesty, authenticity, justice is one for you. I know, too. Yeah. Fairness.00:18:02
Yeah, fairness. Write them down. Yes. Be aware of them. Know what's going to set you off if somebody accuses you of not being this core value, because the more you know about yourself, the more you're going to realize, oh, yeah, I got really upset because he or she threatened one of my core values.00:18:21
And it doesn't even have to be that they accused you of something. It can be that they're just critical of it. Right. That does cause us to really become agitated, perhaps even angry when that happens. So you can ask yourself, what are my likes and dislikes?00:18:36
What do I believe realize, too, this is going to change. Don't think that you're just setting it up for the rest of your life. And now it's, you know, it's going to be this monument. Right? You know, this is a, this is a ship.00:18:50
It's going to move. I know. Heidi, you've really loved research by couples, you know, doing sex and relationships. And you've talked about doctor David Schnarch, right? He was a couple, sex and relationship therapist and also a physician, a urologist.00:19:06
I don't know if you knew that. So given the paradox that committed couples, on the one hand, expect relational togetherness, and on the other hand, they also are seeking self expression and personal growth and autonomy, it's really important to understand how that balance can best occur. So Schnarch actually came up with a model for couples that we're going to also discuss in future podcasts. But it starts with what he calls developing a solid, flexible self. For me, this was a total game changer.00:19:38
Like I said, as a woman, so much of my cultural and even chosen identity is folded into who I am as a wife and a mother and serving them and those around me. But Schnurch's model showed that for couples to thrive, we must know who we are. That's our identity is foundational. We must continue to come to know ourselves and control our own lives while at the same time. And that's where I love the little ampersand and at the same time being flexible with our partner, doing the same thing.00:20:07
And they're going to have different ideas, they're going to have different values, they're going to have different strengths. This takes a lot of balance, and it encompasses both independence and interdependence in relationships with individual development focused on a mature level of emotional control, like not being totally reactive all the time, being self aware and being aware of those around us. So rather than being rigid, those who are solid, flexible self people are very flexible. Most couples gravitate to either enmeshment, which is where we're getting so much of our identity from our spouse or our relationship, that we lose sight of who we are, or they become so autonomous that we have little connection to our partner, putting our relationship at risk. If we have a solid, flexible self, we have an internalized set core of values that help us make choices and interact with others, and we have a sense of our own self worth that can hold up in hard times.00:21:06
We're able to maintain our own viewpoints and our sense of direction when others pressure us to conform. We're flexible, knowing that we may change our mind on some things. We don't always have to be right, and we don't crash when we are wrong. Again, this points to the vital importance of identity development for both partners, being a foundational cornerstone of our relationship. Yeah, so we're always changing.00:21:30
You know, there's marriage, childbirth, child rearing, death, divorce, going back to college, unemployment, children leaving home, retirement. You know, I think what I'm taking away from this with schnarch, we really, like. I can see a lot of people out here listening to this saying, hey, this would be great for my spouse. Yes, that's exactly. This is so good for my spouse.00:21:56
He needs to listen to this. She needs to listen. Oh, they need to listen to this. Well, guess what? You need to listen to this.00:22:05
We all do. We all do. What draws us away from discovering who we really are? That's a really good question. I think these days, social media really almost helps us create a false sense of identity.00:22:20
The more we see of one thing, the more we take that on. That's who we are. We're not Victor Frankl. We're not Victor Frankl. We're not seeing things as they really are.00:22:30
Right. Yeah. Social media that tends to navigate the echo chambers get bigger and bigger. Right. Another thing would be, a lot of times we avoid discomfort at all costs, which helps us avoid seeing who we really are.00:22:44
Yeah, I like that. Reacting to life rather proacting, waking up without a plan every single day. And the vast majority of us do. Right. We must know ourselves confidently enough before our identity is a couple, and the better we can hold onto our own identity and be flexible in understanding that other people must do the same.00:23:05
We can more deeply connect. It's true. I really like that. All right, sum it up for us, doctor Hastings. All right, Doctor Hastings.00:23:15
I was able to share a few things about some identity development theories that I really liked. How about you? Well, I think the personality test that I think that you should take this week. Then talk. Have a discussion with yourself.00:23:31
Write down the five most important values in your life. What are you passionate about? What are your likes and dislikes? Write them down and have a discussion. A conversation with yourself.00:23:40
It's okay to converse with yourself. That's what I tell myself, anyway. Right? And then we kind of ended with talking about being a solid, flexible self and how that's really a requirement for having a strong identity as a couple as well, having autonomy as well as intimacy, balancing those two. So thanks for joining us today.00:24:04
We hope you'll join us next week as we explore the next foundational cornerstone of an intelligent marriage. And that is intentionality. Intentionality. We're excited about that one, too. If you liked this podcast, we really want to ask for your help in three things.00:24:19
Rate it. First of all, whether you listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, please rate us. This helps us grow our listening audience. Second, review it. Tell others what you liked about our podcast, maybe on your Facebook account or your Instagram or any social media account that you have, and encourage other people to listen.00:24:41
And then third, share it. Text a link of this podcast to anyone that you think would like to become an intelligent spouse and that could benefit from listening. So again, rate it. Review it, share it. Until next week, ponder this.00:24:53
What came first, the chicken or the egg? We'll talk about it next week. See you then. Bye.
