Is Your Spouse An Intimate Enemy?

It is fairly well known that spouses are often like intimate enemies who know each other well, sometimes love and care for each other, but because of their familiarity are in the best position to hurt each other. Feeling vulnerable to a spouse is not new, of course, but instead of simply recognizing this or protecting ourselves from potential hurt it would be a good thing to understand more about what this means.

For example, feelings of attachment which attract us to one another and then seal the deal often make us feel vulnerable because our feelings are exposed and this means that we don’t love another person without feeling open to them. It is natural for us to wonder how well they are going to treat us. If there is conflict where meanness is displayed, we might forgive each other and make things better for a time, but the hurt often remains and its memory influences us. Thereafter, we might avoid what we argued about. We might also become more observant, listening for rising voice tones, inflections, body movements, and etc. This can happen without being conscious we are doing so but in many cases we still become more wary than we would otherwise be. In more extreme cases we might try more than one form of dishonesty so we are not criticized for a mistake we make. We might change the way we communicate. Instead of “personalizing” some idea by saying,” I think…” or, “This is my opinion…,” we might say that “things happen,”or “some people think that….” These types of indirect statements move us away from the glare of responsibility (and vulnerability) and give us a momentary feeling of security. But all this has consequences.

The more we engage in avoiding potential hurt, the less confident we are about the extent we love each other. Here it is again. Love is usually open, tender, caring, and considerate of each other. We make ourselves more vulnerable to the other person as a sign of love and tenderness hoping that the other person will be stable enough and exercise enough self-control to never hurt us. Meanness tends to eliminate some of that.

As we go along in marriage it is easy for us to accumulate protective mechanisms like barnacles to a ship’s hull. Or, it is easy for us to find ways of reassuring each other that we can be trusted and we will love and understand. If you need to shed a few barnacles, the benefit will be that you can create a more trusting form of love. Instead of your spouse being an intimate enemy, he or she can become an intimate friend and lover.