So far in this book, I've described the initial steps in the creation of a conscious marriage.  I've talked about narrowing your exits so that more of your energy is available for your relationship.  I've talked about increasing the pleasurable interactions between you to set the stage for greater intimacy.  And I've discussed several ways to increase your knowledge of yourself and your partner.  Now is the time to talk about the heating of deeper childhood wounds.  In this chapter I will describe a way you can turn your chronic frustrations into avenues for growth.  In the next chapter I will talk about how to handle more explosive conflicts.
     When a couple have spent several weeks practicing the Reromanticizing exercise described 'in Chapter Eight, they experience a revival of positive feelings, and they begin to bond with each other much the way they did during the early stages of romantic love. just as they grow accustomed to this more intimate, nurturing environment, however, a disheartening event occurs: conflicts begin to emerge, the very ones that brought them into therapy in the first place.  Once again they are plagued with the same troublesome issues, the same basic incompatibilities.  It seems as though the Reromanticizing exercise has resurrected romantic love only to let it disintegrate once again 'into a power struggle.
     The reason the good feelings don't last is that, through increased pleasurable interactions, the husband and wife have unconsciously identified each other once again as the "one who has it all," the ideal mate who is magically going to restore their wholeness.  After the anger and withdrawal of the power struggle, they are once again turning to each other for salvation.  And once again they make the unpleasant discovery that neither of them has the necessary skills or the motivation to meet the other's deeper needs.  In fact, many people come to the sobering conclusion that what they want most from their partners is what their partners are least able to give.
     What can be done to resolve this central dilemma?  The question bedeviled me in my early years as a marital therapist.  Given these two facts that we enter our love relationships bearing emotional scars from childhood, and 2) that we un-wittingly choose mates who resemble our caretakers, the very people who contributed to our wounding in the first place - it seems that marriage is destined to repeat, not repair, our early misfortunes.
     Years ago when I lectured to groups, this pessimistic view came through loud and clear.  During one talk I was explaining the self-defeating nature of mate selection, and a woman raised her hand to say, "Dr.  Hendrix, maybe the way to avoid reinjuring old wounds is to marry people you don't feel attracted to.  That way you won't wind up with people who have the same faults as your parents." Everyone laughed, but at the time I could offer no better solution.  Marriages arranged by chance or go-betweens or computerized dating services appeared to have a better chance of succeeding than marriages based on an unconscious selection process.  Our tendency to select partners who share the positive and negative traits of our caretakers seemed to doom conventional marriages from the start.  My only advice to couples was to become more aware of their hidden reasons for marrying each other and to embrace the cold, hard facts of reality.  Awareness, insight, understanding, and acceptance - that was the only solace I had to offer.
     At the time I was getting the same counsel from my own therapist.  "You have to accept the fact that your mother didn't have any energy for you, Harville" he would tell me.  "And your wife can't give you what you want, either.  She can't make up for those early years.  You just have to let go of those longings." In other words, 'You didn't get it then, and you're not going to get it now.  Grow up and get on with life.' I tried to accept what he was telling me, but I was aware that. in the core of my being I was unwilling to let go of my unfinished business.  A part of me felt that I had an inalienable right to a secure and loving upbringing.  As I scrutinized my clients, I could see that they were clinging just as tenaciously to their needs.  They might repress them; they might deny them; they might project them onto others.  But they couldn't let go of their childhood needs once and for all.
 

Why Self-Love Doesn't Work

Eventually I sought out a different therapist, one with a more optimistic view about the possibility of resolving childhood needs.  He believed that it was possible for people to make up for what they didn't get in childhood through self-love.  One of his techniques to help me overcome my craving for nurturing was to have me imagine the scene in the kitchen with my mother that I talked about earlier.  He would guide me through a deep relaxation exercise, then say to me, "Harville, imagine yourself as a little baby wanting your mother's attention.  She is standing- at the stove with her back to you.  Imagine how you want to be hugged.  Call out to her.  See her come over to you and pick you up with a big smile on her face.  She is now holding you close.  Put your arms across your chest.  See that little boy!  He's right there in front of you and wants to be hugged.  Hold him and hug him and fill him with love.  Now pull the little bo), into ),our chest.  Pull that happy little boy inside of you."
     It was his belief that, if I succeeded in creating a vivid picture of myself being loved by my mother, I would gradually fill up my need for maternal love.  His approach seemed to work for a while; after each session I would feel less alone, more loved.  But the feeling gradually disappeared, and I would once again be filled with emptiness.
     The reason this approach doesn't work is that it is sabotaged by the old brain.  When we were infants, unable to meet our physical and emotional needs, pain and pleasure came magically from the outside world.  When the bottle or the breast appeared, our hunger was satisfied.  When we were cuddled, we felt soothed.  When we were left alone in our cribs to cry, we felt angry and afraid.  As we grew older, our old brain remained frozen in this passive world view: good feelings and bad feelings were created by the actions of other people; we couldn't take care of ourselves;  others had to do it for us.  The part of me that hurt couldn't accept love from within myself because I had externalized my source of salvation.
 

The Limits of Friendship

I gradually resigned myself to the fact that healing love has to come from outside oneself.  But did it have to come from a spouse?  Couldn't it come from a close friend?  At the time when I was musing over this possibility, I was leading several counseling groups and had an opportunity to observe the heating potential of friendships.  Close bonds often develop between members of therapy groups, and I encouraged this love and support.  In a typical session I might pair Mary, who grew up with a neurotic, unaffectionate mother, with Susan, a strong, earth-mother figure.  I asked Susan to hold Mary on her lap and stroke her and let her cry.  Mary would feel soothed by the exercise, but she wouldn't be healed.  "I enjoyed the hugging," she said, "but Susan's not the right person.   It's not Susan I need hugs from.  It's someone else."
     After numerous experiments like this, I concluded that the love we are seeking has to come not just from another person within the context of a safe, intimate relationship, but from an imago match - someone so similar to our parents that our unconscious mind has them fused.  This appears to be the only way to erase the pains of childhood.  We may enjoy the hugs and attentions of other people, but the effects are transitory.  It's like the difference between sugar and Nutrasweet.  Our taste buds may be deceived by the taste of artificial sweetenets, but our bodies derive no nourishment from them.  In just such a way, we hunger for love from our original caretakers or from people who are so similar to them that on an unconscious level we have them merged.
     But this brought me back full circle to the original dilemma: How can our partners heal us if they have some of the same negative traits as our caretakers?  Aren't they the least likely candidates to soothe our emotional injuries?  If the daughter of a distant, self-absorbed father unconsciously selects a workaholic for a husband, how can her marriage satisfy her need for closeness and intimacy?  If the son of a depressed, sexually repressed mother chooses to marry a depressed, frigid woman, how can he recapture his sensuality and joy?  If a girl whose father died when she was young moves in with a man who refuses to marry her, how can she feel loved and secure?
     An answer began to take shape in my mind.  It was the only logical conclusion.  If people were going to be healed, I conjectured, their partners would have to change.  The workaholic husband would have to willingly redirect some of his energy back to his wife.  The depressed, frigid wife would have to recover her energy and sensuality.  The reluctant lover would have to lower his barriers to intimacy.  Then and only then would they be able to give their partners the consistent nurturing they had been looking for all their wives.
     It was at this point that I began to see the unconscious selection process in a new light: while it was often true that what one partner needed the most was what the other partner was least able to give, it also happened to be the precise area where that partner needed to grow!  For example, if Mary grew up with caretakers who were sparing in their physical affection, she most likely has chosen a husband, George, who is uncomfortable with bodily contact; the unmet childhood need in Mary is invariably matched by George's inability to meet that need.  But if George were to overcome his resistance to being affectionate in an effort to satisfy Mary's needs, not only would Mary get the physical reassurance she craved, but George would slowly regain contact with his own sensuality.  In other words, in his efforts to heal his partner he would be recovering an essential part of himself?  The unconscious selection process has brought together two people who can either hurt each other or heal each other, depending upon their willingness to grow and change.
 

Turning the Theory into Practice

I began to focus my attention on turning the healing potential of marriage into a workable reality.  The unanswered question was: how could people be encouraged to work on overcoming their limitations so they could meet their partners' needs?  I decided to develop an exercise with some of die same features as the Reromanticizing exercise.  One partner would be asked to come up with a list of requests, which the other partner would be free to honor or not.  In this case, however, the requests would be for potentially difficult changes in behavior, not for simple, pleasurable interactions; in fact, virtually every one of the requests would zero in on a point of contention.  For instance, people would be asking their partners to become more assertive or more accepting or less manipulative.  In essence, they would be asking them to overcome their most prominent negative traits.
     As in the Reromanticizing exercise, these general requests would have to be converted into specific, measurable, do-able activities.  Otherwise the partner wouldn't have enough information to be able to change, and there would be too much room for misinterpretation and evasive maneuvers.  Also, like the Reromanticizing exercise, the Stretching exercise would have to rely on the principle of the "gift," not the contract.  Otherwise the unconscious mind would reject the change in behaviors.  This was very important.  If one person made a small change and then waited for the partner to match his or her efforts-  "I'll work on becoming less domineering if you will work on becoming more nurturing" - the whole process would quickly degenerate into a power struggle.  The old animosities would flare up, and there would be no possibility of healing.  People would have to learn how to overcome their limitations and develop their capacity to love, not because they expected love in return but simply because their partners deserved to be loved.
     With the general framework of the new exercise in place, I began to fill in the details.  How would people determine exactly what behaviors to request of their spouses?  Husbands and wives may be quick to complain and criticize each other, but they are rarely able to state in positive, specific terms exactly what it is that they need from each other.  How could they come up with this information when it was not readily available to their consciousness?  Wouldn't it take months or even years of intensive therapy?
     There was an easier solution, fortunately, and that was to examine their criticisms.  As we learned in the previous chapter, just by analyzing a couple's chronic complaints of each other it is possible to draw a pretty accurate picture of what they didn't get in childhood.  The details aren't there - who did what when ­ but the raw material is sitting right on the surface, ready to be mined.  The months or years that the couple have spent together have worn away their softer, more superficial annoyances and exposed the stony outcrop of their fundamental needs.  "You never... !""You always. . . !""When are you ever going to... !' At the heart of these accusations is a disguised plea for the very things they didn't get in childhood - for affection, for affirmation, for protection, for independence, for attachment.  To come up with the list of requests for this exercise, therefore, the couples would simply need to isolate the desires hidden in their chronic frustrations.  Then they could convert these general desires into specific behaviors that would help satisfy those desires.  This list of positive, specific requests would become the ongoing curriculum of their relationship.
 

Defining the Curriculum

Here's an example from a recent couples workshop to show how this exercise works.  To begin the demonstration, I asked a volunteer to state a significant gripe about his or her partner.  A woman named Melanie, an attractive blonde wearing a bright printed dress, raised her hand.  She shared what at first appeared to be a superficial complaint about her husband, Stewart.  "Stewart has a terrible memory," she said.  "It seems to be getting worse.  I'm always nagging at him about his memory.  I wish he would take a memory course."
     Stewart, a mustached, scholarly-looking man, was sitting next to her and, as if on cue, promptly began to defend himself in a weary tone of voice.  "Melanie" he said, "I'm a lawyer.  I have to remember thousands of pages of legal briefs.  I have an excellent memory."
     Before Melanie had a chance to restate her criticism, I asked her what bothered her most about Stewart's inability to remember.  When did it make her the most upset?
     She thought for a moment.  "I guess when he forgets to do something that I've asked him to do.  Like last week, when he forgot that we had a date to go out to lunch.  Another thing that upset me was when we were at a party a few days ago, and he forgot to introduce me to his friends.  I stood there feeling like a complete idiot."
     "What deeper feelings, like sadness, anger, or fear, might underlie these frustrations?" Basically, I was leading her through the same process I had described early in the workshop, identifying the desire that lies hidden in a criticism.
     "Well, when he does those things, I feel unloved.  I feel he doesn't care for me.  I feel rejected.  So I guess what I want is for him to show me that I'm important to him.  That lies thinking of me. That I'm as important to him as his work."
     At this point I could have asked Melanie to try to figure out what childhood wound Stewart was reinjuring by being so insensitive to her feelings: had her parents treated her in a similar way?  But it wasn't necessary for her to dredge up such information to benefit from this particular exercise.  All she had to do was identify a chronic criticism, convert it into a desire, and then describe a positive, specific behavior that would satisfy that desire.  It was very straightforward.
     "Now, Melanie," I continued, "I want you to write down a list of specific behaviors that would help you feel more cared-for.  Will you give Stewart some concrete information about how he could become a more positive force in your life?"
     She thought for a minute, then said she would.
     Next I gave Melanie and Stewart and the rest of the group some detailed instructions on the Stretching exercise and sent them back to their rooms.  My instructions were to identify a ,chronic complaint, isolate the desire that was at the heart of the complaint, and come up with a list of concrete, do-able behaviors that would help satisfy that desire.  The husbands and wives were then to look at each other's lists and rank each item according to how hard it would be to do.  I told them that sharing this information did not obligate them to meet each other's needs.  The purpose of the exercise was to educate their partners, so that if their partners wanted to stretch into new behaviors they would have some specific guidelines.  Any suggestion of obligation or expectation would reduce the exercise to a bargain, and there was the likelihood that it would end in resentment and failure.
     When the group reconvened, Melanie volunteered to share her list.  Here are a few of her requests:

"I would like you to set aside one night a week so that we could go out for the evening."

'I would like you to introduce me to your friends when I meet you at the office for lunch next Thursday."

"I would like you to give me a special present on my next birth­day that you have bought and wrapped yourself."

"I would like you to call me on the phone once a day just to chat."

"I would like you to remember to pull my chair out for me tonight at dinner."

"I would like you to reduce your hours at the office so that you don't have to work on Saturdays and Sundays."

"I would like you to call me if you're going to be more than fifteen minutes late coming home for dinner."

"I would like you to give up your separate bedroom so that we can sleep together every might."

According to my instructions, Stewart had reviewed Melanie's requests, ranked them according to difficulty, and chosen a request that he could honor with relative ease.  In fact, he announced to the group that he would begin the exercise that very evening by remembering to pull Melanie's chair out at dinner.  There was a marked contrast between his earlier, antagonistic response to Melanie's complaint about his poor memory and his cheerful response to these specific requests.  Because he understood that these behaviors addressed one of Melanie's unmet childhood needs, because he was allowed to rank them according to difficulty, and because he was free to choose whether to do any of them or not, he found it relatively easy to comply.
     A sign that Melanie's list contained some growth potential for Stewart, however, was the fact that there were some requests that he found very difficult to do.  For example, he thought it would be very hard for him to give up his own bedroom.  "I really cherish my time alone," he said.  "It would be difficult for me to give that up.  I'm not willing to do that now." It came as no surprise to me that that was the thing Melanie wanted most: one partner's greatest desire is often matched by the other partner's greatest resistance.  "I don't feel like we're really married unless we sleep in the same bed" she said.  "I cried myself to sleep for a week after you moved out.  I really hate it!" 1 reminded Melanie that letting her husband know how much she wanted him to share a bedroom with her was an important piece of information for him, but it in no way obligated him to cooperate.  The on]), legitimate power she had in the relationship was to inform Stewart of her needs and to change her own behavior to meet Stewart's needs.
 

Complex Change Set in Motion

When we were through working with Melanie's list, Stewart volunteered to share his list.  He, too, had identified a chronic complaint, isolated his desire, and composed a fist of target activities.  His main criticism of Melanie was that she was too judgmental.  It seemed to him that she was always criticizing him.  This was painful to him, he acknowledged, because he had judgmental parents.  "Which," he added with a smile and a sideways glance at me, "given all the information I've gotten at this "workshop, is probably one of the reasons I was attracted to her."
     One of Stewart's specific requests was that Melanie praise him once a day.  Melanie acknowledged that some days it would be hard for her to do that.  "I don't think I'm being hypercritical," she said with sincerity, "I think the problem is that Stewart does a lot of irresponsible things.  The basic problem is not my attitude - it's his behavior!' The main reason it was going to be difficult for her to praise Stewart was that she was denying the validity of her husband's complaint.  She saw herself as a realistic judge of his character, not as a perpetual critic.  Stewart had homed in on a disowned negative trait.
     One of the benefits of the Stretching exercise, however, was that Melanie didn't have to agree with Stewart's assessment of her in order for the healing process to work.  All she had to do was comply with his simple request for one compliment a day.  When she did this, she would become more aware of her husband's positive qualities, and eventually she would learn how immersed she had been in the role of judge and critic.  Ultimately, both Stewart and Melanie would gain from the exercise.  Stewart would be able to bask in some of the approval that he deserved, and Melanie would be able to accept and transform a denied negative trait.  In the process of heating her husband, she would be becoming a more whole and loving person herself.
     When couples faithfully perform this exercise for several months, they discover another hidden benefit of the exercise: the love that they are sending out to each other is touching and healing their own wounds - wounds they didn't even know they had.  Stewart and Melanie continued to work with me in private therapy sessions for over a year.  About six months after the workshop, Stewart was finally able to overcome his resistance to sharing a bedroom with Melanie.  He didn't like the idea, but he saw how important it was to her and decided to give it a one­month trial.
     The first week, he had trouble sleeping and resented that he had agreed to the change.  In his own bedroom he had been free to open the window and get more fresh air whenever he wanted to, and turn on the light and read when he couldn't sleep.  Now he felt trapped.
     By the second week, he was able to sleep, but he still felt as though he were compromising himself.  By the third week, he found that there was some compensation to sharing a bed.  First of all, Melanie was a lot happier.  And, second, they were having sex more often: it was much easier to make love when they didn't have to make appointments.  By the last week of the experiment, he decided that he could live with the new arrangement.  "I've gotten used to having her sleep beside me now," he admitted.  "I guess I'm not the hermit I thought I was."
     Melanie and Stewart's relationship continued to improve, and during a session several months later, Melanie said that things had gotten so good between them that she no longer needed the reassurance of having Stewart sleep with her.  "I know you love your own room," she said.  "I'd rather have you stay with me, but I don't think I need it any more.' Through the Stretching exercise, he had been able to give her enough reassurance that he cared about her and valued her so that she was able to let go of that particular request.  But, to her surprise, Stewart would have no part of it.  "I'd be lonely in my own room," he said.  "I wouldn't know what to do with myself."
     What was going on here?  Somehow, in the act of responding to Melanie's need for more intimacy, Stewart was discovering a hidden need of his own.  In the conversations I had with Stewart, I learned that his mother and father had not been comfortable with physical or verbal expressions of love.  Stewart maintained that this didn't bother him.  "I knew that they loved me,' he said.  "They just showed it in other ways." In other words, his way of adapting to their lack of affection was to decide that he didn't need any.  "I remember visiting other kids' homes," he told me, "and their parents ",ere more affectionate to me than my own.  One woman would even hug and kiss me.  I was really uncomfortable around her.  I was much more used to my parents' style of parenting."
     When he and Melanie were first married, he was drawn to her because of her affectionate nature, but eventually her need for intimacy seemed excessive to him, and he began to withdraw, just as he had pulled away from the adults who had been physically demonstrative to him when he was a child.  But now, with more insight into the nature of his problems and with a desire to be more intentional in his relationship, he had been able to overcome his resistance and respond to Melanie's needs.  In the process he had discovered his own repressed need for affection and was able to satisfy a hidden need of his own.
     I have witnessed this phenomenon of two-way healing so many times in my work with couples that I can now say with confidence that most husbands and wives have identical needs, but what is openly acknowledged in one is denied in the other.  When the partners with the denied need are able to overcome their resistance and satisfy the other partners' overt need, a part of the unconscious mind interprets the caring behavior as self­directed.  Love of the self is achieved through the love of the other.
    To understand why the psyche works in this peculiar way, we need to recall our earlier discussion about the brain.  The old brain doesn't know that the outside world exists; au it responds to are the symbols generated by the cerebral cortex.  Lacking a direct connection to the external world, the old brain assumes that all behavior is inner-directed.  When you are able to become more generous and loving to your spouse, therefore, your old brain assumes that this activity is intended for yourself.
 

Rewards and Resistance

To summarize, Melanie and Stewart reaped three important benefits from the Stretching exercise:

1. The partner who requested the behavior changes was able to resolve some childhood needs.
2. The partner who made the changes recovered aspects of the lost self.
3. The partner who made the changes satisfied repressed needs that were identical to the partner's.

The result of all this growth was a dramatic increase in positive feelings between them.  Both Melanie and Stewart felt better about themselves because they had been able to satisfy each other's fundamental needs.  Meanwhile, they felt better about their partners because their partners were helping them satisfy their needs.  This made them more willing to stretch beyond their resistance into more positive, nurturing behaviors.  Through this simple process of defining their needs and converting them into small, positive requests, they had turned their marriage into a self-sustaining vehicle for personal growth.

Resistance

This beneficial change always involves some resistance.  One of Freud's insights was that underneath every wish is a fear of having that wish come true.  When your partner starts treating you the way you long to be treated, you experience a strange combination of pleasure and fear.  You like what your partner is doing, but a part of you feels that you don't deserve it.  In fact, a part of you believes that in accepting the positive behavior you are violating a powerful taboo.  I touched on this common reaction before when I talked about the taboo against pleasure, but in the case of the Stretching exercise your resistance will be even stronger.
     An example will help clarify the nature of this resistance.  Let's suppose that you grew up with parents who were quick to point out your faults.  Out of a misguided attempt to help you be more successful, they highlighted every one of your failings.  They assumed that making your faults known to you would motivate you to correct them.  All they managed to do, however, was erode your self-confidence.  When you managed to triumph over their negative influence and act with a degree of self-assertion, you were told to "Stop being so cocky!" You were stung by their reaction, but you were a young child and had little choice but to cooperate with their injunctions.  Anything else was dangerous to your survival.  When you married, you unwittingly chose someone who perpetuated your parents' destructive behavior, and once again you were under attack.
     Let's suppose that for some reason your spouse begins to treat you more kindly.  At first you thrive on this turn of events.  But gradually an inner voice makes itself heard: "You can't be respected," says the voice.  "That's not allowed.  If you continue along this path, you will not survive.  Your existence is in the hands of others, and they won't let you be whole!" To silence this voice, you find ways to undermine your spouse's behavior. Maybe you deliberately pick fights or become suspicious of your partner's motives.  Ironically, you are looking for a way to deny yourself the very love and affirmation you so desperately want.
     Resistance to the satisfaction of a deeply held need is more common than most people would believe.  Most of my clients who terminate therapy prematurely do so not because they are unable to make positive changes, but because they can't cope with the anxiety that the positive changes bring about.
     The way to overcome this fear, once again, is to keep on with the process.  I urge my clients to keep on with the Stretching exercise until their anxiety becomes more manageable.  Given enough time, they learn that the taboos that have been impeding their growth are ghosts of the past and have no real power in their present-day lives.
     I was working with one man who was doing an excellent job of stretching into new behaviors.  In response to his wife's requests to be more available to her and their children, he was slowly rearranging his priorities at work.  He had stopped bringing work home on weekends and was managing to come home by six o'clock in the evening most days a week.  But when his wife asked him to become a more active parent, he ran headlong into his resistance.  He came into my office one day and exploded: "Harville, if I have to change one more thing, I'm going to cease to exist!  I'm no longer going to be me  It's going to be the death of my personality!"
     To change in the way that his partner wanted him to change meant that the "me" that he was familiar with had to go away.  The rushed, successful executive was going to have to become more of a relaxed, nurturing parent.  On an unconscious level, this change was equated with death.  I assured him that, if he were to continue to change his behavior, he would feel anxious from time to time, but he wasn't going to die.  He was not going to disappear, because he was not his behaviors, his values, or his beliefs.  He was much bigger than all those things combined.  In fact, if he were to change some of his more limiting behaviors and his beliefs, he would become more fully the person he was ­ the whole, loving, spiritual being he had been as a child.  He would be able to develop the tender, nurturing side of his personality, which had been shoved aside in his efforts to excel in the business world.  His family would benefit, and at the same time he would become a more complete human being.
     So that he could triumph over his fear of death, I advised him to keep on with the activities that stimulated his fear.  "At first you'll think you're really going to die," I told him.  "A voice from deep inside you is going to say, 'Stop!  This is too much!  I'm going to die!  I'm going to die!' But if you continue to change, eventually your old brain will recycle, and the voice will quiet down.  'I'm going to die. I'm going to die.... I'm going to die?  But I'm not dying!' Ultimately the fear of death will no longer be an inhibiting factor in your campaign for self-growth."
 

Agape

When the Stretching exercise (which is explained in detail on pages 265-267 in Part III) is integrated into your relationship, the healing power of marriage is not just an unconscious expectation, it is a daily fact of life.  Marriage can fulfill your hidden drive to be healed and whole.  But it can't happen the way you want it to happen - easily, automatically, without defining what it is that you want, without asking, and without reciprocating.  You have to moderate your old-brain reactivity with a more intentional, conscious style of interaction.  You have to stop expecting the outside world to take care of you and begin to accept responsibility for your own healing.  And the way you do this, paradoxically, is by focusing your energy on heating your partner.  It is when you direct your energy away from yourself and toward your partner that deep-level psychological and spiritual healing begins to take place.
     When the Stretching exercise becomes your standard method for dealing with criticism and conflict, you will have reached a new stage in your journey toward a conscious marriage.  You will have moved beyond the power struggle and beyond the stage of awakening into the stage of transformation.  Your relationship will now be based on mutual caring and love, the kind of love that can best be described by the Greek word "agape."  Agape is a self-transcending love that redirects eros, the life force, away from yourself and toward your partner.  As one transaction follows another, the pain of the past is slowly erased, and both of you will experience the reality of your essential wholeness.