The DNA of Relationships (7 page)

Carlos and Andrea fight about money. Carlos spends, Andrea cuts the budget. Every time Andrea restricts spending more, Carlos spends more, which makes Andrea cut the budget more. And on and on. Money is a constant source of conflict. And when the fighting gets too bad, they get some help.

In the counseling office, Carlos points at Andrea and says, “She doesn’t let me spend any money.”

Andrea points at Carlos and says, “He’s irresponsible and spends too much money on entertainment. If he keeps that up, we won’t have money for rent and groceries. I have to set limits.”

Carlos responds, “She makes me feel like a little kid who needs to ask his mommy for permission to buy anything.”

When Carlos and Andrea visited our Marriage Institute, it wasn’t long before they both realized they were blaming each other instead of looking at their own actions and words. We stop a couple from even thinking about focusing on the other person. Then we challenged Carlos to see himself as part of the problem and concentrate only on his own part. When he was willing to do that, he was able to take responsibility for his spending habits and work with Andrea to keep a balanced budget. We also challenged Andrea to see herself as part of the problem and to take responsibility to work on her controlling and belittling words. She heard how Carlos felt when she was on his back about his spending. The better they both understood the other and felt what they were going through, the easier it was to start working on themselves.

Later in this book we will talk more about personal responsibility, about communication in relationships, and about creating a win-win situation. But it starts with understanding your DNA relationship code:

1. 1. You are made for relationships.
   
2. 2. You are made with the capacity to choose.
   
3. 3. You are made to take responsibility for yourself.
   

Life is relationships; the rest is just details.
God made you for relationships. You can’t change that. You can work either with or against this DNA, but you can’t choose whether it exists. The only choice you have is whether you will work to make those relationships great or allow them to cause you—and others—great pain.

So choose wisely. Choose life. And be prepared to take personal responsibility to make the decisions—even the hard ones—that can keep joy, peace, and satisfaction flowing into your relationships.

In the next chapter we’ll show you the definable pattern that appears almost every time you have a conflict with others. It’s a unique relationship dance we all do, and when you recognize it and avoid it, you’ll see less and less conflict in all of your relationships. I guarantee that understanding your relationship dance will change your life.

1. 1.
   The DNA of Relationships:
   

• You are made for relationships
  . Relationships are part of the creation design. You are created to need relationships.
  
• You are made with the capacity to choose
  . You can’t always choose your relationships, but you
  can
  choose how you will act in those relationships.
  
• You are made to take responsibility for yourself
  . You are responsible for your choices and actions. You cannot change the other person, but you can take responsibility for your own behavior.
  

Between sessions at a marriage seminar in the Midwest, a clearly distressed couple, Dan and Celeste, approached my son Michael.
¹
He had just finished a segment on how couples should always try to find a win-win solution to their conflicts so that neither partner feels like a loser (see more about this in chapter 8).

“We just don’t see how we can possibly find a win-win to our problem,” the exasperated woman said.

“Really?” Michael answered.

“It’s impossible,” Celeste insisted. “My husband has been out of work for six months, and our conflict is about where we should live.”

Dan cut in and quickly explained that he had been applying for work everywhere but had found nothing. Recently an employer about three states away had offered him a job. “But my wife is not agreeing to the move,” he said, irritation in his voice. “She won’t let us go. She just won’t do it.” Both partners seemed very tired, a little angry, and extremely frustrated.

“So what do you think your problem is?” Michael asked.

“The problem is that my wife wants to stay here, in the town where we’ve lived for the last ten years, and I want to move so I can work and provide again for my family.”

“Okay,” Michael said, “so the conflict is about whether you stay or go?”

“Yes, basically,” Dan agreed.

Michael shook his head. And then, to the great surprise of both husband and wife, he declared, “That’s not actually your problem.” And with that, he started teaching them about the dance that was destroying their relationship.

What’s the Problem?
What Michael was saying to Dan and Celeste is that their “surface” problem is not the real problem. He was touching on a DNA truth: The external problem is rarely the real problem. In other words, what appears to be the problem is often not the problem.

*  THE EXTERNAL PROBLEM IS RARELY THE REAL PROBLEM.*

As we move into this chapter, think about the trouble spots in your own relationships. What do you think the problem is in each of them? Try to name it. Now keep an open mind as you think about the DNA truth—that the conflict you’ve named may not be the core problem.

So what was Dan and Celeste’s problem? In order to help them find out what it was, Michael kept asking them one basic question: So what? This was not a flippant question that dismissed their problem as if it were nothing important. It was a serious question: Why, in your mind, is that a problem?

He started by asking Celeste, “So what if you move to this new state? Why is that a problem?”

“Well, I wouldn’t be around my family and my friends,” she answered.

“So?” Michael responded, trying to help the woman understand the deeper issue. “Why is that a problem for you?”

“Because they’re an important support group for me,” she said.

“Okay,” Michael replied, “but you have a husband who will support you. And you’ll find other people. Why is it a problem that you would have to leave this particular support group?”

After a few minutes of gentle probing, this visibly distressed woman finally came out with it: “I just don’t feel like I’m No. 1 in my husband’s life.”

“Ah,” Michael declared. “I think we’re finding out what the real problem is.”

At last she found the words to articulate the real problem, and it wasn’t the move. “I feel unimportant, as if I’m not a priority,” she said to Michael, “so it scares me to move. I’m afraid I’ll end up alone.” Then she started crying.

As the husband silently took in all of this, Michael stopped and turned to him. For the next few minutes, the two men went down a similar line of questioning. At the end, the man also started crying. “Honey,” he said to his wife, “I don’t feel like a man. I’m afraid that if we stay in your hometown, I will continue to feel powerless. I feel that your family controls everything about our lives.”

Do you see it? The problem was not the move. The problem was that Celeste felt unimportant and that Dan did not feel as if he had control over his life.

And notice something else very important about their problem. At the heart of the matter, they both felt afraid.

What about you? Ask yourself the “So what?” question. Ask it several times. Where does it lead you? Where it leads you may be at the heart of your relationship problems.

The Core Problem
Remember the pattern that Greg and Bob’s team discovered when they analyzed the effectiveness and success of the process used in the marriage intensives I mentioned in chapter 1? The team came to this startling conclusion: The destructive dance that
every
couple was involved in stemmed from fear. Every husband and wife was acting out of a core fear.

Let me be so bold as to say that every person on the planet wrestles with some core fear. And that includes you. You may not like to hear that. You may be contradicting me already, “But, Gary, I’m not afraid of anything. I feel perfectly safe in my home. I’m not afraid of other people.” That’s good, but that isn’t the kind of fear I’m talking about. I mean things like fear of failure or fear of not being loved or fear of being alone.

*  YOU WRESTLE WITH A CORE FEAR.*

If you think about it, this shouldn’t be so surprising. Fear is as old as the Garden of Eden. In the beginning, Adam and Eve enjoyed a perfect and satisfying relationship with God and with one another. But the moment they disregarded God’s instructions and chose instead to follow the serpent’s advice, fear took over. It spoiled their relationship to God and to each other. And we have been feeling its destructive effects ever since.

So what are those fears? We have found that most women have a core fear related to disconnection—they fear not being heard, not being valued, somehow losing the love of another. Most men, on the other hand, have a core fear of helplessness or feeling controlled—they fear failure or getting stepped on. Some version of these two core fears seems to exist in everyone, to some degree. In her book
You Just Don’t Understand,
author Deborah Tannen calls attention to these two core fears in order to help male and female friends better understand one another.

Of course you might not use those exact words to describe how you feel. You may be more aware of feeling rejected or abandoned than feeling disconnected, for example, or of feeling embarrassed or disrespected more than feeling helpless. Here’s the key:
Without identifying your own core fear and understanding how you tend to react when your fear button gets pushed, your relationships will suffer.
Every time!

What is your core fear? Do you already know what it is? Most people don’t. Most people are not aware of the fear that lurks behind many of their troubled relationships. If you don’t know or feel unsure about what your fear is, identify your core fear by using the following list, which the Smalley Marriage Institute isolated as the most common fears among men and women. We noticed that the common core fears are all related to two main primary fears: the fear of being controlled (losing power) and the fear of being disconnected (separation from people and being alone). (I recommend that you finish this chapter and then take the Fear Dance quiz in appendix B.)

MY CORE FEAR IS THAT I FEEL…

1. 1. Helpless, powerless, impotent, or controlled
   
2. 2. Rejected, as if people are closing me out of their lives
   
3. 3. Abandoned or left behind, as in divorce
   
4. 4. Disconnected from others or alone
   
5. 5. Like a failure
   
6. 6. Unloved, as if no one could love me
   
7. 7. Defective, as if something is wrong with me, as if I’m the problem
   
8. 8. Inadequate, as if I just don’t measure up to others like I should
   
9. 9. Pained both emotionally and physically
   
10. 10. Hypocritical or like a phony
    
11. 11. Inferior, as if I’m being placed below everyone else in value (belittled)
    
12. 12. Cheated or ripped off or taken advantage of
    
13. 13. Invalidated, as if my words and actions are being ignored or devalued
    
14. 14. Unfulfilled, as if what is happening to me will lead to a dissatisfied life
    
15. 15. Humiliated, as if I have no dignity or self-respect
    
16. 16. Manipulated, as if others are deceiving me
    
17. 17. Isolated, as if others are planning to ignore me
    

I encourage you to “nail” your fear in a way that really clicks for you. The steps for building solid relationships that I’m about to lay out in the rest of this book will work much better for you when you clearly identify your core fear. Then, all of a sudden the whole world opens up. I’ve seen it happen time after time.

The Fear Dance
Identifying your core fear is important because fear is the music that starts the relationship dance Greg and Bob’s team identified in the couples who came to the marriage intensives. The team called that dance the Fear Dance. You would think that the Fear Dance is not a dance anyone would
choose
to do. You would think most people would rather do a Love Dance or a Joy Dance, something positive. But unless we understand the Fear Dance and how we can
choose
not to do it, it seems to be the default dance in most relationships.

So how does the Fear Dance work? Let’s look at an event from the lives of my son Greg and his wife, Erin. Read the following story, understanding their core fears: Greg’s core fear is a fear of
failure
; Erin’s core fear is a fear of
invalidation
, of not being valued for what she says and does.

One night while Erin was working the evening shift at the hospital, Greg was bored, and since he loves to decorate the house, he decided to change the arrangement of the master bedroom furniture. Erin usually loves what he does. He moved the bed, repositioned the knickknacks and their shelves, relocated the dresser, and generally gave the room a new look. Then he went to bed and turned out the lights.

When Erin got home hours later, she didn’t switch on the lights because she didn’t want to wake Greg. She tiptoed into the bedroom and immediately smashed her shin on a table that hadn’t been there when she left for work. She tripped and crashed into a pair of antique skis that were placed against the wall. The skis in turn tumbled onto a shelf containing all her beloved Precious Moments figurines, shattering most of her treasures, which continued to fall until they smacked onto Greg’s head.

The combination of breaking glass, falling objects, and screams awakened Greg. He bolted from bed, forgot that he had moved everything, and ran straight into the wall, bloodying his nose. Not one of your typical nights.

When the lights came on, they began shouting at each other. Erin criticized Greg for moving the furniture without first talking with her about it; her angry words made Greg feel like a failure. Greg minimized Erin’s concerns and defended his decision to redecorate the bedroom; his words made her feel as if her opinions didn’t matter. The shouting and defending and sarcasm continued—and the Fear Dance was in full swing.

Do you see it? They pushed each other’s fear buttons. Erin pushed Greg’s “fear of failure” button. Greg pushed Erin’s “fear of invalidation” button. It’s all they needed for a wild night of dancing. It’s amazing how we all try to get the other person to
stop
making us feel “failed” or “invalidated” or whatever core fear we have. In reality, others are simply revealing our core fear and giving us an opportunity to choose a better course of action that allows us to deal with our core fear in a healthy way.

The sad thing is, Greg and Erin did the same destructive dance for years. They look back and see the same pattern playing itself out in every major argument of their marriage. They recognized the pattern early on, but they had no clue how to break it. Either Erin or Greg withdrew, and even though things eventually calmed down, they always seemed to return to the same hurtful dance.

Their habits didn’t change until they finally understood the steps in the Fear Dance and the
choices
they had to break the rhythm of dance and learn some important new dance steps.

Does any of this sound the least bit familiar? Can you see yourself in the actions of Greg and Erin? The truth is, we face these dynamics not only in marriage but also in every other relationship. The Fear Dance, unfortunately, is a universal dance. Do you see a Fear Dance in your troubled relationships? Do people push your fear buttons? How do you react?

The Steps in the Fear Dance
So, what are the steps in the Fear Dance? The diagram traces the steps of the dance, what goes on inside us, and how our actions cause the same or similar patterns in others.

Let’s look again at Greg and Erin’s story to see if we can see the four Fear Dance steps: hurt, want, fear, and react.

Let’s start with Erin. The situation began when Greg redecorated the room without talking it over with her.

1. Erin
hurts.
Remember the DNA truth here: The problem is rarely the problem. The problem isn’t that Greg redecorated the room; some wives would love that! The problem is that he doesn’t think Erin’s opinions were valuable enough to talk with her before he did it. Erin feels hurt by that.