Marriage and Identity

A frequent complaint from couples who are either struggling in their current relationship/marriage or those who are soon to enter into a commitment (engagement, or living together), is the fear of losing or sacrificing ones personal identity in order to maintain the relational attachment.

Expressions of this fear can sound like; “I need my space”, or “Stop telling me how to think”, or “Im not giving up going out with my friends after were married”, or “So I have to stop cooking meat because youre a vegetarian?” The complaints often imply being controlled or conforming resentfully to accommodate ones partner.

Yet, the reality of being in a relationship very often requires an accommodation of our partners needs and conforming to an interdependent life verses an independent life. The trick for making it work is how we either manage to make our relationship an enhancement of our personal identity or let it become an inhibiting lifestyle that becomes a breeding ground for resentment.

The renowned psychologist Eric H. Erickson suggested that part of our adult development is to struggle with the conflicting polarities of either establishing “intimacy” or remaining in “isolation”. His poetic description of this dilemma was, “To lose and find oneself in another”. It means that in order to develop your capacity to create an intimate life with another, one must challenge the isolated self focused identity and enhance it by developing the ability to embrace an intimate relationship as part of ones individuality.

Wrestling with this identity crisis is essential to the wellbeing of any relationship. Claiming an interdependent life is a compromise of the independent life. However, it need not be inhibiting when both partners are willing to view their togetherness as an opportunity to build a unified life that is unquestionably emotionally richer than the isolative alternative.

The expansive, inclusive of intimacy identity allows ones partner to be viewed as a positive influence, not an obstacle, an enhancer, not an inhibitor. The complaint of “I need my space” becomes, “lets build you that studio”, or “Im not giving up going out with my friends” becomes “I wont let them interfere with our date nights”.

All requests become negotiable; compromise becomes reasonable and considerate of each other. Individually becomes enhanced and a prideful statement of the self when you have chosen to intimately join with another to enrich your own identity.