Sunday, February 28, 2010

WEEDING OUT THE ROOTS OF HISTORICAL LIES IN OUR MARRIAGE


During the month of February, my wife and I have made a monumental effort to get to the bottom of some of the issues which seem to trigger intense emotional responses from each other. This comes at a high degree of difficulty, and we had to do much praying and deep investments of time and energy to get to the points of pain. We have learned where these responses come from, and in an attempt to help my friends who visit this blog, I will be sharing with you the methods we are using to root out these deep negative feelings that at times will change the direction of a persons day or impair our ability to handle things in a just and fair way.

Now at the outset, let me be candid: My wife and I have a wonderful bond and great communication. Our marriage is sound. God has blessed me with a woman that has made me the envy of all my friends. We have forged a Christian based loving and validating association which we are both sure will stand the test of time. But there have been moments when emotions on both sides rose too high. Reactions were too intense to have been caused by our mate. Small instances were triggering significant emotional outbursts, and we knew it was not something the other did. So we sought resolution and wisdom on this problem.
We are convinced that most, if not all marital conflict is rooted in historical lies, which the individual believes to be truth. We get to the root of the lies by asking, “When was the earliest time you can remember feeling this emotion?” These emotions can be guilt, fear, shame, loneliness, heartbreak, helplessness, feeling lost, forgotten, resentment, vulnerable, grief, denial, offended or a host of others.

The first thing we discovered is our partner is not the source of our pain, but rather the trigger that connects your partner to their own woundedness. The source of our pain comes from experiences we had at a very young age and the deeply imbedded lies that come from these experiences. Hard as it was, we had to embrace the perspective of what happened at these points in time way back in our past. These lies are very destructive. What we have been doing is re-framing these lies and learning our partner can be a benefit rather than a threat, exposing the areas of memory based lies that need God’s healing.

The second thing we had to understand is called “The Sore Thumb Priciple.” Most of us has injured their thumb at some point in their life. Then and only then do you come to realize how many times you bump or use your thumb throughout your day. You don’t bump or use it any more often because it is bruised, but we sure notice it. We all have “sore thumbs” which are rooted in historical wounds. Every time our partner bumps against our “sore thumb”, we feel the original pain. As healing partners, we need to be aweae of the others sore thumb and avoid bumping into it if at all possible. So second thing was to understand is within this framework, the reactions to our partners hurtful behavior was symptomatic of his or her own historical woundedness. We had to learn to look past our partners triggers to this pain and look back to our childhood in order to find the original lie still harbored in our minds.

The third thing was to get rid of impossible expectations. A terrible lie ,amy people choose to believe is that somehow their spouse is responsible for their joy or their unhappiness. If a person lacks joy in their life, it is not due to any person, circumstance or life situation.

It is due to one of two factors.

One: If we have un-confessed sin in our lives we cannot know the joy of thee Lord.

Two: If we have lies we embrace as truth, the lie impedes our joy and we can never fully achieve it. If

I am forgiven of all my sins, yet embrace the historical lie, which tells me I’m not worthy of God’s forgiveness, I cannot have joy. It is possible to feel forgiven and yet not have joy. The Apostle Paul illustrates this best when he declared in his letter to the Church in Philippi, “rejoice in the Lord always… I am content (happy) in whatever state I am in…” How could he rejoice or be happy locked away in prison? Because of his relationship with God. The lies that we believe will steal away our joy. Our logical minds will convince us that our lack of joy is due to someone else rather than ourselves.

Fourth: A couple must give up the vain attempt of trying to change each other. This was really hard for me. I’m a “fix it” guy. I always am trying to fix what is wrong. I change behavior or habits in order to try and please my wife. Or, worse yet, I try to make her change. This once again illustrates the problem the rooted lie says the other is responsible for my discomfort. Trying to change the other will only result in frustration. If the partner does concede and make the changes requested, it will only be a matter of time before something else will trigger the wound and the lie, resulting in the same pain surfacing again and again.

How many thousands of times have counselors or therapists heard the words, “It doesn’t matter how much I change, eventually he/she is unhappy again and wanting me to change something else.” They will tell you, it just doesn’t work.
Even if the partner changes, the other will find something else to blame the their pain on. The solution is not to change our partner,, but rather to discern the embedded lies and allow God to release us from the bondage of that lie.

Fifth: A couple must make connections between their present conflicts and their own individual historical woundedness. Those who are having present pain and conflict need to try and identify other times in their past when they have felt the same emotions. Very often they are able to identify some early childhood experience in which they had similar feelings. As they are able to make these connections, they come closer to finding lasting freedom.
Here is an example of what we have been working on together. Keep in mind that recent polls show one in three women have been sexually abused:

“Julie” was in the very act of having intercourse with her husband. Everything was going fine until she looked into her husband’s face, and he smiled at her. Suddenly all her sexual feelings left, leaving her with a sense of panic and fear. At first she did not know what had caused such emotional upheaval. Her conscious logical thinking told her it had to be her husband.

She had learned enough about repressed memory through her previous Theophostic sessions to know this was not the case. She asked her husband to stop the sexual moment and allow her to reflect on the situation. He was willing to do this since he was very sensitive to her situation and wanted nothing more than her recovery. While discussing the situation, her husband smiled at her again. Seeing his smile, she felt the same panic as before. She knew in that moment that the smile was triggering the emotional panic.
She closed her eyes and asked God’s Spirit to reveal to her the source of her pain and in an instant, she remembered her childhood abuser’s smirky grin. Her husband’s smile was very similar to her abuser’s look. The fact that she saw her husband’s smile at the same time that they were having sex together was enough to trigger the old lie and panic.

If a couple is willing to enter into a healing partnership, God can do much more in relation to their healing process. It is so easy to assume that the pain we have is due to our present relationships. This is rarely the case. It is true that some of the discomfort in any relationship has to do with the current attitudes and behavior of each person involved. But most pain is historically rooted.

Feel free to comment. Will you try this? Have you tried to do this? What results did you have?

8 comments:

Christopher - Conservative Perspective said...

You wasted much time and energy in this blog post instead of simply speaking the truth to your mate,,good luck.

Eric Graff said...

My wife and I have a wonderful truth based relationship. We are generally happy. What we noticed were disproportionate emotional outbreaks that seemed too strong to be the others fault. We wondered why. Our relationship is very healthy. What was wrong was the historical lies we each had in our distant past; Lies that had nothing to do with our mate. Intimacy was lacking because of my wife’s unidentified past experiences: Problems which I will not go into at this time because of there delicate nature. I did not do these things, yet I was bearing the brunt of the emotional outbursts caused by long forgotten violations she had endured. This post is an effort to help others. I see you have no such issues in your past. How fortunate for you to have such a great childhood. Thanks for sharing and commenting.

Teresa said...

This is a great post! I can relate to much of what you stated. I think certain things can trigger past bad experiences so you get upset and blame it on your partner. I am positive that that has happened to me.

But, I most have trouble with letting go or forgiveness with major things that have happened in my past. I have tried giving those things to God but certain words and things trigger me to kinda go off or cry. Although, that doesn't happen very often, when it does I am affected greatly.

I can totally understand about the whole sexual abuse situation. I know that me sexually assaulted has affected me in different ways, including in sexual ways.

That's good that you and your wife are trying to figure out what is at the root of the problem. Good Luck with working on that.

Eric Graff said...

Our effort in this situation was to really make our relationship as strong as God wanted it to be. We have a really great relationship. Communication is excellent, we have deep trust, and we validate each others feelings when one of us needs it. It was when those emotions got very high that we were puzzled for lack of a reason. Why would we over react at times when finances were discussed? Well come to find out my wife had issues with control, or lack thereof. Money is not the problem, controlling it is. We both have great jobs and are not “underwater” on our mortgage as many are today. Intimacy was another issue she reacted highly too. Come to find she had some dark areas here as well. What we did was we took time to go back to those emotional moments. We identified them, what caused them, who caused them and why. We then looked around for Jesus, and He was always there, sometimes crying or comforting, but always there. Once we confessed the lie to Jesus, the emotional bonds to those moments were destroyed. The trigger was defused. Now we have Jesus controlling those moments and the confession has led to great strides in understanding each other and why we are who we are.

I’m not big on emotions. I’m a man who likes logic rather than feelings to dictate my thinking. But this has forever changed our relationship for the better, and we grow stronger in love and in Christ each day.

Nameless Cynic said...

So have you confessed to your wife about your weird obsession with me?

You claim that your aren't obsessed, but I have about 100 hits that say otherwise.

An obsession, incidentally, which is the reason I toss your weird little diatribes in the trash unread. You're fixated. Because I disagree with you politically, you then ascribe everything that you consider sinful or immoral to me, even the most blatant and obvious lies (the term for that, by the way, is "bearing false witness" - see Exodus 20:16 or Deuteronomy 5:20); you have weird little pornographic fantasies about me (see Mark 7:20-23)

You threaten Diogenes with violence and murder for the most mundane comments, but when somebody stands up to you, you hide behind the fence. And incidentally, "If you say gay is ok, then you are gay. You support the lifestyle, the sin, the debauchery and the act. You're gay."

By that logic, you've already assaulted and killed a man. Just making the threat is exactly the same as the act.

You're a small-minded man and a miserable excuse for a Christian.

Teresa said...

To the person who is filled with HATEFUL Diatribes (aka Nameless Cynic), go spew your gutter trash on some other person's blog. Your the one that came back to taunt Eman like a bully on the playground. Do we have to worry about your deep seeds of anger, kiddie-like obsessions, bullying tactics morphing into terroristic actions? Maybe? You are one of the most hateful people I have come across on the internet. You have contracted the sickness of liberaliam and immorailty. Go have fun playing with yourself and promoting gaydom. Have fun with your free love sex version of society. Have fun with perverting your mind every single day. The sickness of liberalism has infected your brain and the rest of your body so you are filled with nonsense, hate, anger, and lies.

Eman and I feel sorry for you and your smut-filled human remains. Your thoughts are about as dull and thoughtless as a dead corpse. Maybe, you can be revived if your thoughts are actually substantial in nature and full of love and peace.

Eric Graff said...

Lets get some things straight right now billy-brains.

1. My “obsession” with you, as you put it, is not an “obsession” at all but a mission to blow your buffoonage out of the water before people drink it. Teresa, Uncle Slam, and others who have happened upon your bilge filled blog all are now very awear of your agenda and your tactics. You suppress truth by pulling statements and lies out of your unwiped ass and post them as “truth.” You then TRASH all contrasting comments and anyone who can factually fracture your concepts.
2. You will not allow for opposing views, which is why your readership is made up of 6 people, four of which visit once a month.
3. The first two points alone make you a fake. An embarrassment to real bloggers who know you have no means of really defending your views because when confronted with reality, you dismiss all comers, which makes everyone, and I do mean EVERYONE, find you in contempt.
4. You’re a fagot. Nuff said.
5. You’re an asshole, as stated by YOUR OWN SON!!!! A statement he has never denied, since the only one he defends is his mother when he comes here. At least he seems wise enough to stay clear of your crap cake.
6. You repeatedly loudly and proudly blaspheme God’s words, twisting the intent of The One True God.

Mary, you may not like what I say about this human piece of garbage, but I will stand up for my God in zealous form and with great prejudice dispatch this vomitus mass of putrid flesh as I see fit. I don’t judge you, but I know a snake when I see one and foreskin-face is a snake. I call them as I see them. Check out his blog. You’ll love it.

Bill, you have sucked a few to many dicks that were first up your butt, causing a severe case of butt brain, not to mention bad breath. Take your rotting stinking self back to the sewer, or the closest public bathroom, and tap some ones foot. Here on Pathetically Incorrect, you no longer have a voice. You are the only exception. All others, save Diogenes who lost his bet to stay, are welcome.

Eric Graff said...

You have to wonder about a person who gets upset his comment is deleted when he lets no one comment at all on his blog. Now his feathers are ruffled. Is that what's bothering you billy?

Bill says, "Deleting posts because you don't have an answer. Good to know you have the courage of your convictions."

HA!!!

He must have been looking in the mirror when he typed it.

He calls me a " a liar, a hypocrite, and a coward."

Don't you love how liberals, when calling names, tell you exactally who they really are?

Bye Billy goat, see yah at the top of the flag pole. Don't choke on it now...