Sue and Alf were a power couple of some reputation. They have seen me off and one for years and they place a great deal of trust in me. She was an attorney who advertised on television for people who had lawsuits against insurance companies. Alf was a writer of novels and a most of the time a stay at home parent of their three year old child. Often Alf has to leave for a book tour or to meet with agents, publishers or screenplay writers.
“When I come home,” Alf began, “It’s like I’m, at worst, the enemy to Sue or at best, an unwanted intruder. She is always angry when I come home. While I’m away, I miss my family. When I come home, I am excited to return or I used to be. Now I dread coming home because when I walk into the door, I receive a machine gun blast of ‘why are you late?’ ‘Alice missed you. Did you bring her a gift?’ ‘I am so tired. Can you call Carrabas and go pick up supper?’ My daughter greets me with a hug when I walk in the door. I don’t get a hug or a kiss from Sue and forget about sex, at least for a week.”
“He comes home as if he is the conquering hero,” Sue said. “He wants a wife waiting with his slippers, pipe and beer, dressed in a French maid’s outfit ready to satisfy his every desire. He has no idea what I’ve been through. I’ve had to keep many balls in the air. There is our child to care for, my law practice and my clients who all act like children. I have to do all this and take Alice to her dentist and pediatrician’s appointments. I bring work home because I can’t get it all done during the day. I can’t get to that until Alice is down at night. That’s usually just before 9:00. Alf often calls around 9:30 just when I getting started on my work and he wants me to be chatty Kathy with him on the phone. I’m lucky if my head hits the pillow before 12:30 A.M. And Alice is in my face at 6:00 saying, ‘Mommy I’m hungry.’ When Alf comes home he meets an exhausted overwhelmed wife and mother who needs help desperately. When he comes home, he thinks I’m the lucky one because I didn’t have to leave home.”
“Well book tours are grueling and lonely,” Alf said. “I have to put on a smile and make up something new to write for every reader’s book that I sign. Then, there are the local talk show interviews where I try to make the hosts seem intelligent when they haven’t even read my book. Yes, I have been cut off from the people I love, forced to appear to be best friends with hundreds of people I don’t know. I’m a writer and an introvert. I hate being in the spotlight. I can’t wait to be safe at home with people who love me. I imagine that to be my wife but it is not. She seems to feel resentment bordering on hatred.”
“That’s a bit extreme don’t you think,” Sue said.
“You haven’t been the one who walks in the door desperate to be home and then have his wife glare at him as if he were a snake and then shout orders at him as if he were an ungrateful servant or a disobedient dog.”
“That’s why he’s such a good writer, Dr. McMillan,” Sue said. “He has a flair for the dramatic.”
“It seems that you both want the same thing,” I said. “You are competing for who gets to have the entitlements that go along with the suffering hero role. You are competing to see who is suffering the most and who is entitled to the grateful nurture and comfort from the other who you consider to be the beneficiary of your suffering. Both of you are blaming the other for the tragedy which you conceive your life to be.
“It seems to me that you are both heroes and that you are both suffering for the good of the family. I think you both deserve comfort and gratitude. It seems that you are so hungry to be appreciated that you can’t see that you might need to offer thanks before you can expect to be thanked. Why can’t you step away from your personal pity parties and look and see that your partner needs something from you.”
“He has had a good night’s sleep with no child to wake him up, no work waiting to be done. All he has to do is get to the airport on time and take a taxi home. He has been loved and adored by his fans and you expect me to feel sorry for him.”
“Now do you see what I’m coming home to,” Alf said.
“Yes Sue, I suppose I do,” I said.
“So you are taking his side,” Sue said.
“No, I’m trying to side with both of you, but that’s not working,” I said. “So let me try another approach. Yvonne Agazarian is a famous system centered group psychotherapist. She often warned her group participants with this phrase, ‘There is always turbulence at the boundary.’ Entrances and exits are difficult systems’ events for any social system, including families and couples. All couples have entry fights and exit fights.”
“Yes, that’s right, now that you mention it,” Sue said. “Alf always picks a fight before he leaves town.”
“Perhaps that’s because he loves you and Alice so,” I said, “and he can’t bear the burden of sadness that comes with leaving you. He needs the protection of anger. So he picks a fight so that he can say to himself, ‘I’m glad to be leaving.’”
“I wasn’t aware I do that,” Alf said, “but now that you mention it, perhaps I do. I do hate leaving and it seems we always have a fight just before I go.”
“And you also have an entry fight,” I said. “Sue has begun to develop a rhythm in her daily routine that just barely works, more or less and she has done this without having to negotiate with you. And here you come, pushing your way into her machine that is running, sputtering and coughing, but running and now you expect her to accommodate you too. Of course, she resents you. She resents you for leaving and dumping all this responsibility onto her and then she resents you for coming back, expecting more of her.”
“Yes that’s it,” Sue said. “That’s exactly how I feel. And Alf, introvert dependent Alf, has been forced to pretend to be happy when he is not. He has been cut off from his roots and he missus us terribly. And I see what you were saying earlier. Now that I feel understood, I can move out of my resentment and see Alf from his perspective.”
“Turbulence at the boundary,” Alf said. “Entry and exit fights. It’s not our fault. It’s not just us. Does this happen to most families where one person travels?”
“Yes,” I agreed.
“So I shouldn’t take it personally, like I do,” Alf said.
“That would be nice,” Sue said. “Because I don’t mean for you to.”
“What can we do about this turbulence at the boundaries?” Alf said.
“You can develop some rituals for entries and exits,” I suggested.
“What do you mean?” Sue asked.
“Well every time you come home, as you land, Alf, you might call Sue and ask her if you can pick up something for her on the way home, a carton of milk, some bread or she could order Chinese and by the time you got to the restaurant, it might be ready.”
“Yeah and if you offered to help me like that,” Sue said. “I might have time to pour us a glass of wine and meet you at the door when you come in.”
“That would be nice,” Alf said.
“And before you leave Alf,” I said. “You could tell Sue how much you dread going and how sad leaving makes you. Sharing your sadness is better than covering it up with anger.”
“That’s a compliment to me that you are sad to go,” Sue said. “Knowing that will make it easier for me to think about you when you are gone without resenting you.”
“I can do that,” Alf said.
“That will help you with the turbulence at the boundary,” I said.
Conclusion
This story makes two important points. The first is that often a couple’s conflict is a system’s event. There are ordeals that present themselves like coming upon a bear in the forest. If you are going to walk in the woods, sometimes you will come upon danger. The same is true of the relationship journey. Parting and returning is one universal relationship ordeal. The fact that tension exists at the boundaries is no one’s fault. It is simply what happens when boundaries are approached and crossed.
The second point in this story has to do with rituals. Rituals are well practiced steps. We use familiar rituals to help us reduce emotional tension. J.K. Rowling raised ritual up to the level of magic in her Harry Potter books. When Harry was in trouble he simply pulled out his wand and spoke some well-practiced ritualistic words and his problems disappeared. Rituals are not that powerful but they serve the same purpose. They help us cope with stress.
In a relationship they place both parties in a well-rehearsed dance. Each of them has a part to speak or do. The point of the ritual is to remind one another that they have a partner who cares and who is present with them as they face life’s stresses together. And somehow, magically, this brings us comfort. It interrupts blame cycles and helps us focus on being partners.
