Practicing ‘Independent Behavior’ is a Love Buster.
When one spouse or both insist on having their own separate friends, hobbies, leisure activities, and, in general, ways of living that are independent of each other, the feelings of love will diminish as less and less time is devoted to maintaining the romantic threshold that was attained when they fell in love.
You may remember the following excerpt from one of the previous posts:
Once in a while, someone of the opposite sex comes along who makes us feel absolutely sensational. That’s because they meet one or more of our most important emotional needs. When that happens, so many love units are deposited that his or her account hits what I call the romantic love threshold. Our emotions are so impressed with that high balance that they give us added incentive to spend more time with that person. They give us a feeling of romantic love. We don’t merely find that person attractive-we find that person irresistible. And along with that feeling goes a desire to spend our lives with whoever has that high Love Bank balance. Marriage is an easy choice when love bank balances are above the romantic love threshold.
Independent behavior in marriage might seem not only desirable but also essential for a healthy and happy marriage. No one wants a spouse who is clingy, dependent and seemingly unable to do anything by themselves or make any decisions on their own.
Independent Behavior: “Activities of a spouse that are conceived and executed as if the other spouse did not exist.”
Independent behavior is not the only alternative to unhealthy dependency. Dr. Harley’s superior alternative is what he calls interdependency, which is behaving in ways that take each other’s feelings into account.
Interdependent Behavior: Activities of a spouse that are conceived and executed with the interests of both spouses in mind.
Practicing independent behavior goes back to what we have been learning in this Love Buster book -that almost everything we do in marriage will affect our spouse either positively or negatively, whether intended or not.
In order to understand what independent behavior looks like in a marriage, Dr. Harley used an imaginary house with various rooms that represent the different roles we have in life to help us understand how our independent lifestyle affects our spouse.
In his house, Brian had these rooms:
Career room- filled with furniture and projects designed to make him a successful production manager.
Leisure activity room– contained golf equipment and immediate access to friends who enjoy playing golf with him.
Family room: contained video games and a TV set that he used when he spent time with his children.
Religious practices room– consisted of an Episcopal chapel.
Marriage room– A Big bed
Brian regarded Kay and her interests as a distraction, He relegated her to only one room in his house- the marriage room- and that made her feel neglected and resentful even though he did his best to be attentive to her in this room. However, she wanted him to invite her into every room so that she would be fully integrated into his life but he refused.
What Brian wanted was for Kay to build a house of her own which she did.
In her house, Kay had these rooms:
Career room- outfitted with furniture and projects designed to make her a successful Accountant.
Leisure activity room– was full of gardening books and supplies.
Family room- contained bicycles and sporting equipment used when she took her children to their after-school sporting events.
Religious practices room– was a Baptist Chapel.
Marriage room– NOTHING! She began to sleep in separate room.
Kay had emotionally bailed out of the marriage and excluded Brian from all of her rooms as she felt neglected and unloved. She had tried, unsuccessfully, over the years, to have Brian spend time with her and the children and to have him participate in their children’s school projects and activities. Additionally, she felt like a widow attending church with the children without Brian. His entire lifestyle made her unhappy and caused massive Love Bank withdrawals.
Why is independent Behavior So Tempting?
This Love Buster threatens to tear many couples apart. The one who is on the receiving end of independent behavior often recognizes the damage to the relationship but the one engaging in it usually thinks that it actually strengthens a marriage, as without it, they would feel trapped and suffocated. This spouse wants complete freedom to choose their own friends, behave as they like on the job, spend their spare time as they choose, spend their money as they choose, pay their bills as they choose and not even their spouse should interfere. They view any attempt to take away their “freedom of choice” as controlling and manipulative. Some spouses also believe that they should be blindly trusted in the decisions they make and consider it disrespectful if challenged.
Dr. Harley says though that, “the most important reason independent behavior is tempting in marriage is that it’s instinctive.”
We are all born with a selfish predisposition and it is natural to make decisions that are good for you, decisions that you believe will make you happy. However, we must remember that whenever you ignore your spouse’s interest and feelings, you are destroying your emotional bond.
Because Kay gave up trying to enter into Brian’s life as she desired, and had resigned herself to building her own house with rooms, she eventually realized that she and Brian had nothing but the children to keep them together.
Brian and Kay did not fight, they made very few demands of each other, were rarely disrespectful, and never had an angry outburst. She simply let Brian’s independent behavior drain her love bank and began thinking about divorce as she had lost her love for him. She could see no solution, though in theory, she wanted to become emotionally reconnected to Brian.
Dr. Harley told Brian that if he wanted a happy marriage, Kay’s feelings and interests had to be considered in every decision he made. As equal partners, they should create a completely integrated lifestyle, enjoyable for both of them. That, in turn, would lead to the emotional bonding Kay needed to restore the sexual relationship they had once enjoyed. And, more importantly, it would turn a divorce in the making into the partnership that they should have had all along.
Two Policies that Can Help Create Interdependence
Policy of Radical Honesty and The Policy of Joint Agreement.
These will be covered in my next post “Overcoming Independent Behavior”
For more resources on marriage by Dr. Willard F. Harley Jr. go to http://www.marriagebuilders.com