Whether high functioning or dys-functioning, we all do what we do for a reason. Sometimes multiple reasons. And those reasons aren’t always apparent to us. We sometimes think we know why another is doing what they are doing, but ultimately, we can’t know what is driving another’s heart and behavior for certain. We might have a hunch, and the hunch can be right, or the hunch can be wrong. What is most productive (and I might add-healthy and biblical) is for us to really look inward before looking outward and understanding why we are doing what we ourselves are doing. If we are having relationship issues, it’s best practice for us to start pulling the thread on the problem by pulling the log our of our own eye first, so that we can see clearly to help those around us. It’s the whole-flight assistant schpeel, you know, ‘Put your own oxygen mask on before you help anyone else put their mask on.’ Usually what is driving us isn’t at a conscious level-we are largely driven by our subconscious thought world. Our subconscious thought world can be a very messy place. In fact, I would argue that it is a very messy place. We often have to dig deep to look inward and search our hearts.
In our subconscious mind, we make meaning of the world around us. We all quest to make sense of it. Problem is, we often are wrong in the sense we are making of it. We commit assumicide and think we know why others are doing what they are doing. We think that if we react a certain way (because it’s a natural or primal reaction) to the world around us that we are operating in a ‘right way’, when in reality it is as wrong and dysfunctional as wrong gets. Take for instance, fear. Let’s say you fear something relationally, within your marriage. Perhaps you fear your spouse is going to abandon you if you are forthright about something you have hidden from him (or her). The natural response is to keep hiding that something out of fear of judgement, rejection, retaliation, abandonment. So you hide, and keep hiding whatever that something is. That is the natural response. It happened in the garden when Adam and Eve, after they chose to sin and eat that forbidden fruit-their first response to God was to hide. We like to cover things up because we don’t trust we will be forgiven or that grace will cross the threshold into our world. What we aren’t understanding, and keep tamped down because it’s uncomfortable is that hiding is creating a wedge between us and our spouses. We skirt around issues surrounding whatever it is that we are hiding. If our relationship wasn’t already superficial, it slips into a superficiality. We ‘keep things light’. Then we drift apart. Suddenly we don’t have emotional intimacy within the relationship-which can then effect our physical intimacy and visa versa. The very fabric of our ‘us-ness’ starts to fray like acid does linen.
You see, when you are hiding something from your spouse, you are taking away their choice to love you, flaws and all, you are in effect, ‘controlling’ your spouse. I confess, I never thought of it that way, until probably the past decade when I took a deep dive into all of this. When we take away choice, we take away intimacy. When we take away truth and vulnerability, we stay in the ‘superficials’. So, you might have a spouse that stays with you. You might have a ‘marriage’ on paper, but paper only, it won’t be based on truth and informed choice.
This post started off by peering into why we do what we do and how we can’t know what motivates those around us to do what they do at the 60,000 foot level. I then dropped in and with an invitation for us to look at our own behavior -something so sneaky as hiding within our marriage. One of many things we do that isn’t healthy or ultimately loving, though can be masked as such.
2 questions: What are you doing that secretly bugs you? Ask yourself why a few times to get to the root of your why.
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