Stronger Than You Think: Becoming Whole Without Having to Be Perfect Book

...We must invite others to be whole people as well, not demanding or expecting them to be exactly what we want or need, but seeing them as the unique people God created. Whole relationships require that we learn to be authentic in relationships, and that we allow and invite others to be real and genuine.

...He differentiates beween other-validated intimacy and self-validated intimacy. In other-validated intimacy, we disclose things about ourselves to our partners with the expectation that the other person will be empathetic, validating and equaly discosing. This is the kind of intimacy in which we expect others to tell us who we are and make us feel okay about ourselves. As discussed in ch. 6, this kind of demand places others in a god-role that they cannot and should not fill. Schnarch contrasts this with self-validated intimacy, n which we share ourselves with our partners without expectation of acceptance or validation. Some psychologists refer to this ability to maintain our sense of worth and identity in relationships as differentiation. Self-validated intimacy or differentiation looks something like this:

I don't expect you to agree with me; you weren't put on the face of the earth to validate and reinforce me. But I want you to love me - and you can't really do that if you don't know me. I don't want your rejection - but I must face that possibility if I'm ever to feel accepted or secure with you.

In self-validated intimacy, we do not rely on our partners to make us feel okay, but instead, we depend on our own sense of self-worth and identity.

We allow others to be who they really are when we respect them as separate from us. Intimate relationships are not like lattes, where the coffee and milk are blended so well that you are unable to identify where one ends and the other begins. Rather, they are more like cappuccinos, where you can clearly taste and even see the difference between the coffee mixture and the frothy foam on top. There is unity (one drink) but also diversity (different taste and texture). Real relationships involve two distinct persons who have made a choice to come together. "It is the distinction (differentiation) rather than fusion (dependency) that leads to vital connection and wholeness." An intimate relationship celebrates and protects the differences and the boundaries between persons.

When the real people in our lives don't live up to our unrealistic expecations, we are disappointed. We have made the mistake of viewing them through the lens of who we think they should be to fulfill our fantasy, instead of who God has created them to be. Consequently, we may try to make decisions for them or control their choices and opinions, molding them into the people we wish they were, instead of respecting and valuing the unique creatures they already are. I sometimes view my husband through this lens of who I think he should be, and it usually looks like this: he should do things like me, feel like me and think like me. From loading the dishwasher to mapping out a trip to caring for our son, I sometimes get frustrated when Jeff's way is not my way. And every time I fall into this trap, I miss out on the joy of interacting with my husband's real self. When we try to control the people we care about, we miss out on the joy of differences. God has created us differently, and regardless of how strongly we may believe it, none of us have the market on the "right" way to do things. When we let those we care about express themselves and do things their own way, especially when it is markedly different from our way of doing things, we speak love in our ations. Sometimes people will make mistakes of course, and when we value them as separate people, we want to protect and cherish their selfhood, meaning that we don't demean them by pointing out their weakneses or mistakes simply because they have done things differently than we would have.

When we stop insisting that others met our need to save or protect, or to be saved or protected, then we can clease our subtle efforts to change or fix the other person. In the process, we can discover a wonderful gift - the gift of the other person's true self. We are then freed to ecperience and learn from other people's gifts. For me, a special gift resulted when I allowed Jeff to be himself in our marriage: he helped me become more flexible and spontaneous, qualities that have helped me to enjoy my life and my family.

When we see others as separate people and allow them to be who they are, we can then appreciate their unique gifts and personalities, rather than view those differences as threats.