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The New Intimacy
Bert: How did you start doing this relationship work, and how did you discover this magic of
differences and start telling people about it?
Judith: We come to our marriage from two very different backgrounds. I didn't get married
until I was 44, so I spent, I calculate, 30 years dating. [chuckling] I was very frustrated. In my
20s, I thought it was all men's fault. I was very angry at men. But it got very clear to me as I
started to do my own work, on me, that in my own way I had attitudes toward men, toward
romance, toward marriage, toward intimacy, that were incorrect. When I changed those, I
became available for the relationship that I have with Jim, and I knew I had something to
teach, that was valuable to a lot of people.
Jim: On the other hand, this is my third marriage. I was what was called a "serial
monogamist." I was never unfaithful to any woman I was with, but I was with a lot of
women. It seemed like an act of God, that just as I was tiring with one woman, another
woman would show up. So I never "dated." From about age 20, I was never without the
woman. The problem, though, is that the relationships would start with such promise, then
right before my eyes (and there was nothing I could do about it) they would dissolve. No
matter what I attempted to keep them together, to sustain them, I couldn't. Judith said
before we were married, "I know I could do well in a marriage if only I could get into one."
My response was that getting into one was a piece of cake. But how do you make these
damn things last?
That's what brings me here. To be perfectly honest, Bert, if someone said to me at 15 or 20,
or maybe even 30, that I would be having this conversation on this topic, from this point of
view, I would have said that's absurd. But I can go back to when I was 14 years old, and the
girls that I was flirting with at the beginning, and I began to see at that age that there was
something wrong with what I was doing. What it came down to was projection of fantasy
and making them into me, but I never would have known it at that time. So even back when
I was 14, the idea of differences was in its embryonic stages.
Judith: We're both very strong characters, and very different from each other in many, many
ways. So when we first came together. It became clear to us very quickly that if the love we
were feeling for each other were to grow, we were going to have to learn how to really
value each other's ways. Otherwise, we'd be creating World War IV in a power struggle. We
didn't want to do that. We considered our relationship really precious. We saw that the
work for us was around respecting and valuing each other's ways, still respecting that we
were still going to have fights, and learning how to resolve these fights in very creative and
productive ways.
Bert: So you were already working on your relationship, then began to move into working on
relationships. Jim, you had a prior involvement in the "men's movement." Judith, you had a
prior therapy practice. How did living these lives the convert into "the magic of differences"
and writing a book?
Jim: Actually, we met on March 7, 1987, and I think our first relationships workshop was in
August. We went out for a weekend, sometime in May or June, and took a tape recorder
along with us, to jot down ideas about what we might like to say about relationships. We
had it transcribed. Recently we found it. It was this book, in its seed form.
So the truth of it is that by the time we came together, we had never articulated it but we
had each in our own way discovered the themes in the book.
Also, a bit about my involvement with the "men's movement." I dearly, dearly love men. I'm
adamant about protecting them, particularly in these days. I wanted to do something about
relationships that would honor men, not protecting them when they didn't deserve it, but
not bashing them out of hand. Men want relationships as well. So the "men's movement"
brought me into this from the perspective that I wanted to make sure that this book was
not only male-friendly, but male-affirming.
Scott: How did you manage to make this book male-friendly, when in fact the vast majority
of books that I've ever had the misfortune of reading [group chuckles] basically blames men
for the failure of relationships, and places the onus of change and the responsibility for the
success of a relationship on whether the man is able to keep the woman happy?
Judith: I think what we have to look at is that those books are framed in an old paradigm.
The old paradigm is a "right-wrong," "good-bad," "either-or" way of looking at difficulties.
The New Intimacy holds that the truth is never found just in one version of reality; that
two people are always co-creating the relationship. They are always teaching each other
how they expect to be treated, right from the first moment that they meet. So it cannot be
possible for the blame to rest in only one gender's lap, or one person's lap, in a relationship.
Jim: I'd like to say very directly that this book is male-friendly because Judith is very
male-identified and very supportive of men. I'm also very supportive of women. So one of
the things we have in our work is there is no "conflict of interest."
To answer your question, it was a conscious commitment out of what I saw happening with
men; not so much the pain that men were in, but the bullshit that men don't care about
feelings. Men don't care about feeling. Men don't care about relationships. Men don't care
about commitment or connection. It's all simply crap.
So part of what I did for men was to insist that that be infused into this book without
turning it into diatribe in defense of men. No, no, no, no, no. But we also bring to the game
our own stuff that undermines relationships. Neither side of this game is off the hook.
Judith: I just want to add that it does not serve women to feel like victims or to position
themselves as victims with respect to men. That undermines anything that the women's
movement has accomplished for women's power.
I think that men are being coerced into particular behaviors, to protect themselves in the
workplace and the universities. But I don' think men are being taught to respect differences
between men and women, because it's not being presented in a way that really speaks to
men's hearts. It's presented that you men are the problem, Men can stop making
complements in the workplace, they can stop asking colleagues out, but it's not going to
change men's hearts. Our book presents the message of respecting the differences between
men and women in a way that says that both men and women are responsible and that both
men and women have to change. Hopefully, when people read this book it will touch their
hearts, their souls, and open them to the beauty that is possible when both genders respect
each other.
Jim: One point I would like to make, that is not in the book, is that one of the things we're
the proudest of. When we do our work, our seminars, our workshops, our book-signings, we
are averaging 50% men in attendance. In the kind of work we're engaged in, it's usually
80-90% women. I feel in a sense blessed by whatever force exists, that's supporting our
planet and this experience of ours, that we have said something, we've done something,
we've organized it in such a way that men are finding it attractive, either consciously or
unconsciously. I love that, because men are just as interested in relationship as any women.
I'd also like to say that women have no more of a corner on the market on relationship than
men do. There's a cliché that women are the ones who know about intimacy and romantic
relationships and men don't. There's a simple, obvious question to be put here. If the
women do and the men don't, with whom have the women been intimate? So we are
grateful to, for lack of a better phrase, the "higher power," that we are attracting men.
Bert: I chuckled when I read in your book that we are not alien beings from another planet,
we live here on earth. [group chuckles] I can't help but think of John Gray's book Women
Are From Venus, Men Are From Mars.
Judith: How did you guess? [laughing]
Jim: The fundamental difference is first of all in the title. It's a commercially successful title.
But it implies an inherent alienation between the genders. If you read the book carefully,
what he says is that the male does X, and the female does Y. The intimacy that is suggested
in his book is created out of a fundamental approach of coping, toleration and management
of people. When he goes here to do this and she goes there to do that, she may not be
disturbed by what he's doing, but she's not any closer to him than she was. She won't get
any closer to him, because Gray suggests that she go in another direction.
Scott: So it's relationship maintenance, not relationship expansion.
Jim: Exactly! What we talk about is that when there are differences, and the two people
engage each other in those differences, I get to understand her, first and foremost, as she
describes herself to me. Secondly, by finding in myself the value in what she's doing, I get to
understand her better. If I can understand the value in what she's doing, and she can
understand the value in what I'm doing, when I move toward her position at in any given
moment, it's not because I'm coerced, not because I'm managing, but because I have found
value, and I've become larger than I was before knowing her.
Bert: I'd like to expand on that a bit. You say that this book is not about managing or coping.
What is it about, instead?
Judith: At the heart of the book, it's about the fact that if the differences between two
people are understood as being rich treasures for each other, then when there is conflict,
difficulty, challenge - both people can understand this is a time of opportunity to present
themselves even more fully into the relation and express even more fully who they are, so
the partner can understand them more intimately. Then the tension in the relation
functions like the sand in the oyster, that helps create the pearl.
Without the difficulties, people never learn. They never grow. They never expand the
relationship. It stays static and boring. People say, "Is this all there is?"
Jim: Judith uses the word "difficulties." Certainly there are difficulties. But differences in
the relationship, even when they create tensions, don't necessarily make difficulties, in the
sense of conflict or irritation.. I just might not understand her. That, in and of itself, can be
a joyous engagement in the differences. The differences that tear people apart, of course,
are those in which the difficulty is produced. I want to add the caveat that difficulties are
only a part of this. The differences are a wonder, and a pathway toward treasure. Because
ultimately the people get to be understood, recognized and appreciated for who they really
are.
Bert: Marion Woodman talks about holding the tension of the opposites, and being in that
tension space, so that a third alternative can emerge. You seem to be saying a similar thing.
I would use the term "the dance of creative engagement."
Judith: That's very nice. One of the chapters in the book, "Conscious Creativity," teaches
people in a nine-step process how to live in that tension and engage in a creative process,
so the resolution of those issues bring them into a larger space together, so both people are
honored and both people are satisfied.
Jim: But there's a key difference here. Marion Woodman uses the term "tension of the
opposites." For me, the term "opposites" can be a huge trap. We are different. We are very
different from each other, but we are hardly opposite. I am not "opposed" to her in any
way. I am other than her, that's true. I stand different from her, that's true. But she isn't the
"opposite" sex from us, she is the "other" sex from us. The term "opposite" has such
connotation of leading to difficulty, conflict and combat, that I don't like the term "holding
the tension of the opposites." "Holding the tension of the differences" creates the same
result, yet it's more inclusive and it's more friendly.
Bert: You are very particular in your book about using the term "real life love" ...
Jim: Yes!...
Bert: And there's no hyphen. I'd like to take that in two parts, first to explain that, and
second to throw out another idea, based on Sam Keen, The Passionate Life, Stages of
Loving. Loving life. Loving the universe. Einstein's ultimate question for us is, "is the
universe a friendly place?" Keen asks, "is the universe a loving place?" So when I hear "real life
love" I also hear "loving in real life."
Judith: We specifically wanted the hyphen left out between "real" and "life" because that
then puts the emphasis on love. So many people are caught up in romantic fantasies about
love, and do not have their focus on real life and real love. They have their focus on being
redeemed by some ideal of perfect love. We want to help people to get back onto the
ground, with each other. The humanity of one another.
Jim: I come from a Catholic background. The stewardess on the plane reminded us of the
joke, "I'm a Catholic, which means I haven't been in church fur 15 or 20 years." What
happens, I think, not only in Catholicism but with humanity in general is that we are such
vulnerable creatures and life is such a difficult ordeal for so many people, that we've
established in the Western tradition, "Heaven." The Eastern tradition speaks of "Nirvana."
These are different concepts for the idea of release from earth, release from the pain of life.
We use "real life love" because I dearly love being right here on earth, and it took me a lot of
money and therapy to get here. But I'm finally here. In terms of what Sam Keen is talking
about, "real life love" is about loving in real life, but also about loving real life. To tie that in,
if love does not happen on this earth, in the real lives we are in, then we create some type
of a facade we live in, and lift off the ground. We live in illusion. That illusion, although
pretty for a while, will always bring you down into despair, bitterness, resentment and the
phrase, "is that all there is?" Well, there's a helluva lot that people miss, because they're not
here, on the ground.
Bert: It's funny you should mention Catholicism, because Matthew Fox used to be a Catholic,
and he talks about "co-creative spirituality." We and God are in the process of co-creating
the universe around us. That seems so similar to what you talk about, when you talk of
co-creative relationships. I'm hearing a spiritual dimension of active participation.
Judith: Absolutely. You're quite right. We talk about practical spirituality in the book, Simply
put, the spiritual dimension in relationship occurs when I get outside my self-centered
reality and I include Jim's reality as being just as valuable as mine. Now I enter the world in a
way that allows me to value more and more of what's here, that's beyond me. Then I can
expand my appreciation beyond Jim, to include all of you and more and more elements of
the world, and I live more in the spirit of being here, rather than just in my own small self.
Jim: I would like to comment as well, Bert. Intimacy is a very profound term. I wish I had a
simple description of it for you. I'll give you a metaphor, an example. When a sculptor
decides to sculpt something and chooses a medium, let's say, for the moment, granite, the
granite and the sculptor enter into a profound intimacy because the granite defines the
sculptor and the sculptor defines the granite. There is a connection that evolves in the
process, until the object he or she is sculpting becomes reality, is actualized. The sculptor is
not imposing on the granite, and the granite is not imposing on the sculptor, but they
co-create each other, because if the granite moves this way, the sculptor moves that way.
If the granite moves that way, the sculptor moves this way. The dance between the two is
so intimate that finally the ultimate product is so infused with the being of the sculptor,
and the sculptor with the being of the product, that it is almost a oneness.
Scott: That particular metaphor brings up a reference and a synergy with older relationship
models, in which women looked at men as "projects" to be designed. Essentially, granite,
unfeeling, manipulable, and something that would be sculpted into the ideal male, How does
the book help people avoid such relationships?
Jim: I appreciate that, and I'm glad you said that, because you're right. That does go in a
direction I wouldn't want to go in. We don't have a lot of "thumbnail rules" in our book. But
we have metaphors and suggestions. Here's one of them: when you love, you are changed.
When you are loved, you are changed. Meaning, when you enter into a relationship, you will
definitely be someone other than you were, as the relationship progresses. I need Judith. I
need her in ways that I don't even know how to articulate. There is some deep aspect of me
that is in need of this woman, and vice-versa. To create ourselves is a good way to put it.
We are in a process of creation. We quote a woman in our book, who says, "Whenever I feel
bad, I turn him into a project." What the book shows, in a variety of ways, is that if, in fact,
she takes him on as a project, we are no longer in a relationship. That's the I-It, not the
I-Thou. As long as I can keep in mind that a relationship is dynamic, reciprocal co-creation,
then neither one of us is the project but we are both the project, almost being projected
by the relationship itself, I stay in the I-Thou.
Bert: What that ties back to is a theme that Judith brought up earlier. It's the view of
"co-creative spirituality" that we work in co-creative synergy to create the world. The
marriage is a crucible. It's how we work in relationship teaches us how we can relate to the
world.
Judith: And to take that even further, the only building blocks of society are men and
women. How men and women treat each other, so goes the world. So we are talking about
profound possibility for societal change when men and women really can treat each other
with this kind of transformative value for one another's differences.
Bert: In your book you talk about "positive trust" and "negative trust," and then you talk
about "sacred trust." One of the things that struck me about "positive trust" is that this
involves a willingness to be accountable for your dark side.
Jim: First of all, trust is trust. Negative trust, for example, occurs in a domestic violence
relationship. They can count on the fact that they are going to do each other damage. That
is as trustworthy a relationship as any other kind of relationship, but because it's a
relationship that leads to violence we call it "negative trust." It's also diminishment. Both
people become diminished inside negative trust, because the relationship gets smaller, and
they become smaller and smaller. Positive trust opens out into the world. The basis of
positive trust is that those people can grow and enlarge. Sacred trust becomes a reality.
When I can trust her positively, I also know where her knives are, I know where her dark
side is. I don't think positive trust is possible unless I do know where her knives are, and we
all bring them into the game. Then it becomes sacred, because we can use all of who we
are, to create the dance that we create. The sacredness is two-fold. First, I go beyond who
I know myself to be. Anytime we do this we move into the unknown, and if we do this
open-heartedly, that becomes sacred. Secondly, it's sacred because every day becomes a
reality of sacredness as we live our lives.
Bert: You also talk about the "masks" that we wear. That reminded me of James Hillman. In
The Soul's Code he talks about authenticity and character, living authentically, and being
authentic to who we are. Does that relate to what you're talking about?
Judith: Absolutely. And unfortunately most of us have been taught, either through our
family of origin, or in our schools, or in so many other ways, to not present ourselves with
the truth of what we're feeling, the truth of what we believe, for fear that we will be
found unacceptable by someone else. We've learned to hide those precious, unique ways
that we're different, special, and present some marshmallow, ambiguous reality that we
hope everybody will like. Then we live in fear that if you really got to know me, you'd reject
me, you'd leave me, you'd laugh at me. We're never safe in our relationships. We can never
relax. And we also can never believe that we're really lovable when we're hiding behind
masks. So in the book we encourage and teach people that the only way to be loved for who
they really are is to present themselves as they are, and find out who actually likes them,
loves them.
Jim: There's also a deep trap in wearing a mask. A mask is usually a product of feeling that
when I present myself I find that what I present is unacceptable, so I create a guise in order
to create acceptability. That's what we mean in simple terms by a mask. As long as I keep my
mask on, I have to perpetuate my belief in my unacceptability, and I have to find a structure
that supports the pretense that I'm creating. So I perpetuate my ongoing unacceptability
and I perpetuate the sense of wrongness that I am. The mask covers the wrongness. If the
mask is not there, presumably the wrongness will go away. So as long as the mask is there, I
am wrong, and that feeds on itself in a way that's like a cancer.
Bert: You also talk about games that we're taught, and that seems to fit right in here. What
are the games that we're taught, and how do they get in our way?
Judith: Without fail, when we ask women at seminars, were they taught before they started
dating to play hard to get? Were they taught not to reveal too much because men like a
mystery? That they should play "hard to get?" That they shouldn't be too opinionated? That
they should never beat a man at sports and cards? And, especially, that it's just as easy to
love a rich man as a poor man? Invariably, 90% of the women say yes, that's the relationship
training they received. So the message has been taught, unconsciously, that you're not
valuable to a man for who you really are. You have to trap a man by doing these
manipulations, by enticing a man with these gymnastics. You need one of these men, and
these men are such fools, they'll fall for it. Notice the message we've all gotten about how to
make a marriage. It's destined to fail.
Jim: And just one last point, if the men are fools for falling for it, why would a woman want
one of these fools? It just gets more and more cancerous.
Scott: What are the games that men are taught?
Jim: Basically, don't ever show her your feelings or you'll be eaten alive. Wear the pants in
the family. Somebody's got to make a decision. Give her what she wants, and you'll get what
you want. And also, the fundamental one that men report is to never show her your
vulnerability. She'll use it against you.
So we go out to do that, with one set of games on one side, and another set of games on
the other side, and then we're told to go out and make your lives happily ever after. And
when you fail, you should get a divorce. You're the one who made the mistake, not us. Not
the world, not society, but you. The instruction is a template for disaster.
Judith: One of our positions, and one of our hopes, is that relationship training begin when
kids are young enough, before kids actually start dating, hopefully in junior high. We'd like to
see this as a requirement in the schools. They should learn to respect differences, to accept
authentic behavior in terms of communication and conflict resolution. That's one of the
hopes about this book, that we have the power to change people's minds about what they
need to know.
Scott: There are those that would argue that males are being taught that kind of diversity,
that kind of tolerance, but that there is not a reciprocal understanding of the male nature.
It's not very "politically correct," but your book skirts the grounds of "political correctness"
by suggesting that there are inbred, unchangeable gender differences.
Bert: So if we've engaged in this conscious co-creativity, we've engaged in this dance of
creative engagement, we've found a way to remove the masks, we've found a way to stop
playing the games, what's the pay-off? What's in it, for us and for society?
Judith: The pay-off for a couple is that they can then count on a relationship in which they
can present themselves as they are. They can relax. They can learn from one another's
differences. They can trust that when their old baggage comes to the surface it's just grist
for the mill. It's just part of helping the relationship get richer, of developing the intimacy
deeply between the people by learning more about their past and more about their
woundedness and letting it get healed. By having it be loved. And, ultimately they can live
in serial monogamy with the same person, in which the relationship continually changes,
continually grows, and the relationship gets deeper, and deeper, and deeper. You are loved
for who you are. That's all we really want.
Jim: The relationship doesn't become a goal to be achieved. Marriage isn't something you
work for and then you stop. Long-term relationship is a voyage of discovery and an exciting
way of being alive. As opposed to a process that one just settles into, accommodates, and
ultimately is consumed by. It really becomes an adventure in life, an adventure in what we
call "practical spirituality" and a meditation on daily loving. That's part of the pay-off.
Bert: How did you start doing this relationship work, and how did you discover this magic of
differences and start telling people about it?
Judith: We come to our marriage from two very different backgrounds. I didn't get married
until I was 44, so I spent, I calculate, 30 years dating. [chuckling] I was very frustrated. In my
20s, I thought it was all men's fault. I was very angry at men. But it got very clear to me as I
started to do my own work, on me, that in my own way I had attitudes toward men, toward
romance, toward marriage, toward intimacy, that were incorrect. When I changed those, I
became available for the relationship that I have with Jim, and I knew I had something to
teach, that was valuable to a lot of people.
Jim: On the other hand, this is my third marriage. I was what was called a "serial
monogamist." I was never unfaithful to any woman I was with, but I was with a lot of
women. It seemed like an act of God, that just as I was tiring with one woman, another
woman would show up. So I never "dated." From about age 20, I was never without the
woman. The problem, though, is that the relationships would start with such promise, then
right before my eyes (and there was nothing I could do about it) they would dissolve. No
matter what I attempted to keep them together, to sustain them, I couldn't. Judith said
before we were married, "I know I could do well in a marriage if only I could get into one."
My response was that getting into one was a piece of cake. But how do you make these
damn things last?
That's what brings me here. To be perfectly honest, Bert, if someone said to me at 15 or 20,
or maybe even 30, that I would be having this conversation on this topic, from this point of
view, I would have said that's absurd. But I can go back to when I was 14 years old, and the
girls that I was flirting with at the beginning, and I began to see at that age that there was
something wrong with what I was doing. What it came down to was projection of fantasy
and making them into me, but I never would have known it at that time. So even back when
I was 14, the idea of differences was in its embryonic stages.
Judith: We're both very strong characters, and very different from each other in many, many
ways. So when we first came together. It became clear to us very quickly that if the love we
were feeling for each other were to grow, we were going to have to learn how to really
value each other's ways. Otherwise, we'd be creating World War IV in a power struggle. We
didn't want to do that. We considered our relationship really precious. We saw that the
work for us was around respecting and valuing each other's ways, still respecting that we
were still going to have fights, and learning how to resolve these fights in very creative and
productive ways.
Bert: So you were already working on your relationship, then began to move into working on
relationships. Jim, you had a prior involvement in the "men's movement." Judith, you had a
prior therapy practice. How did living these lives the convert into "the magic of differences"
and writing a book?
Jim: Actually, we met on March 7, 1987, and I think our first relationships workshop was in
August. We went out for a weekend, sometime in May or June, and took a tape recorder
along with us, to jot down ideas about what we might like to say about relationships. We
had it transcribed. Recently we found it. It was this book, in its seed form.
So the truth of it is that by the time we came together, we had never articulated it but we
had each in our own way discovered the themes in the book.
Also, a bit about my involvement with the "men's movement." I dearly, dearly love men. I'm
adamant about protecting them, particularly in these days. I wanted to do something about
relationships that would honor men, not protecting them when they didn't deserve it, but
not bashing them out of hand. Men want relationships as well. So the "men's movement"
brought me into this from the perspective that I wanted to make sure that this book was
not only male-friendly, but male-affirming.
Scott: How did you manage to make this book male-friendly, when in fact the vast majority
of books that I've ever had the misfortune of reading [group chuckles] basically blames men
for the failure of relationships, and places the onus of change and the responsibility for the
success of a relationship on whether the man is able to keep the woman happy?
Judith: I think what we have to look at is that those books are framed in an old paradigm.
The old paradigm is a "right-wrong," "good-bad," "either-or" way of looking at difficulties.
The New Intimacy holds that the truth is never found just in one version of reality; that
two people are always co-creating the relationship. They are always teaching each other
how they expect to be treated, right from the first moment that they meet. So it cannot be
possible for the blame to rest in only one gender's lap, or one person's lap, in a relationship.
Jim: I'd like to say very directly that this book is male-friendly because Judith is very
male-identified and very supportive of men. I'm also very supportive of women. So one of
the things we have in our work is there is no "conflict of interest."
To answer your question, it was a conscious commitment out of what I saw happening with
men; not so much the pain that men were in, but the bullshit that men don't care about
feelings. Men don't care about feeling. Men don't care about relationships. Men don't care
about commitment or connection. It's all simply crap.
So part of what I did for men was to insist that that be infused into this book without
turning it into diatribe in defense of men. No, no, no, no, no. But we also bring to the game
our own stuff that undermines relationships. Neither side of this game is off the hook.
Judith: I just want to add that it does not serve women to feel like victims or to position
themselves as victims with respect to men. That undermines anything that the women's
movement has accomplished for women's power.
I think that men are being coerced into particular behaviors, to protect themselves in the
workplace and the universities. But I don' think men are being taught to respect differences
between men and women, because it's not being presented in a way that really speaks to
men's hearts. It's presented that you men are the problem, Men can stop making
complements in the workplace, they can stop asking colleagues out, but it's not going to
change men's hearts. Our book presents the message of respecting the differences between
men and women in a way that says that both men and women are responsible and that both
men and women have to change. Hopefully, when people read this book it will touch their
hearts, their souls, and open them to the beauty that is possible when both genders respect
each other.
Jim: One point I would like to make, that is not in the book, is that one of the things we're
the proudest of. When we do our work, our seminars, our workshops, our book-signings, we
are averaging 50% men in attendance. In the kind of work we're engaged in, it's usually
80-90% women. I feel in a sense blessed by whatever force exists, that's supporting our
planet and this experience of ours, that we have said something, we've done something,
we've organized it in such a way that men are finding it attractive, either consciously or
unconsciously. I love that, because men are just as interested in relationship as any women.
I'd also like to say that women have no more of a corner on the market on relationship than
men do. There's a cliché that women are the ones who know about intimacy and romantic
relationships and men don't. There's a simple, obvious question to be put here. If the
women do and the men don't, with whom have the women been intimate? So we are
grateful to, for lack of a better phrase, the "higher power," that we are attracting men.
Bert: I chuckled when I read in your book that we are not alien beings from another planet,
we live here on earth. [group chuckles] I can't help but think of John Gray's book Women
Are From Venus, Men Are From Mars.
Judith: How did you guess? [laughing]
Jim: The fundamental difference is first of all in the title. It's a commercially successful title.
But it implies an inherent alienation between the genders. If you read the book carefully,
what he says is that the male does X, and the female does Y. The intimacy that is suggested
in his book is created out of a fundamental approach of coping, toleration and management
of people. When he goes here to do this and she goes there to do that, she may not be
disturbed by what he's doing, but she's not any closer to him than she was. She won't get
any closer to him, because Gray suggests that she go in another direction.
Scott: So it's relationship maintenance, not relationship expansion.
Jim: Exactly! What we talk about is that when there are differences, and the two people
engage each other in those differences, I get to understand her, first and foremost, as she
describes herself to me. Secondly, by finding in myself the value in what she's doing, I get to
understand her better. If I can understand the value in what she's doing, and she can
understand the value in what I'm doing, when I move toward her position at in any given
moment, it's not because I'm coerced, not because I'm managing, but because I have found
value, and I've become larger than I was before knowing her.
Bert: I'd like to expand on that a bit. You say that this book is not about managing or coping.
What is it about, instead?
Judith: At the heart of the book, it's about the fact that if the differences between two
people are understood as being rich treasures for each other, then when there is conflict,
difficulty, challenge - both people can understand this is a time of opportunity to present
themselves even more fully into the relation and express even more fully who they are, so
the partner can understand them more intimately. Then the tension in the relation
functions like the sand in the oyster, that helps create the pearl.
Without the difficulties, people never learn. They never grow. They never expand the
relationship. It stays static and boring. People say, "Is this all there is?"
Jim: Judith uses the word "difficulties." Certainly there are difficulties. But differences in
the relationship, even when they create tensions, don't necessarily make difficulties, in the
sense of conflict or irritation.. I just might not understand her. That, in and of itself, can be
a joyous engagement in the differences. The differences that tear people apart, of course,
are those in which the difficulty is produced. I want to add the caveat that difficulties are
only a part of this. The differences are a wonder, and a pathway toward treasure. Because
ultimately the people get to be understood, recognized and appreciated for who they really
are.
Bert: Marion Woodman talks about holding the tension of the opposites, and being in that
tension space, so that a third alternative can emerge. You seem to be saying a similar thing.
I would use the term "the dance of creative engagement."
Judith: That's very nice. One of the chapters in the book, "Conscious Creativity," teaches
people in a nine-step process how to live in that tension and engage in a creative process,
so the resolution of those issues bring them into a larger space together, so both people are
honored and both people are satisfied.
Jim: But there's a key difference here. Marion Woodman uses the term "tension of the
opposites." For me, the term "opposites" can be a huge trap. We are different. We are very
different from each other, but we are hardly opposite. I am not "opposed" to her in any
way. I am other than her, that's true. I stand different from her, that's true. But she isn't the
"opposite" sex from us, she is the "other" sex from us. The term "opposite" has such
connotation of leading to difficulty, conflict and combat, that I don't like the term "holding
the tension of the opposites." "Holding the tension of the differences" creates the same
result, yet it's more inclusive and it's more friendly.
Bert: You are very particular in your book about using the term "real life love" ...
Jim: Yes!...
Bert: And there's no hyphen. I'd like to take that in two parts, first to explain that, and
second to throw out another idea, based on Sam Keen, The Passionate Life, Stages of
Loving. Loving life. Loving the universe. Einstein's ultimate question for us is, "is the
universe a friendly place?" Keen asks, "is the universe a loving place?" So when I hear "real life
love" I also hear "loving in real life."
Judith: We specifically wanted the hyphen left out between "real" and "life" because that
then puts the emphasis on love. So many people are caught up in romantic fantasies about
love, and do not have their focus on real life and real love. They have their focus on being
redeemed by some ideal of perfect love. We want to help people to get back onto the
ground, with each other. The humanity of one another.
Jim: I come from a Catholic background. The stewardess on the plane reminded us of the
joke, "I'm a Catholic, which means I haven't been in church fur 15 or 20 years." What
happens, I think, not only in Catholicism but with humanity in general is that we are such
vulnerable creatures and life is such a difficult ordeal for so many people, that we've
established in the Western tradition, "Heaven." The Eastern tradition speaks of "Nirvana."
These are different concepts for the idea of release from earth, release from the pain of life.
We use "real life love" because I dearly love being right here on earth, and it took me a lot of
money and therapy to get here. But I'm finally here. In terms of what Sam Keen is talking
about, "real life love" is about loving in real life, but also about loving real life. To tie that in,
if love does not happen on this earth, in the real lives we are in, then we create some type
of a facade we live in, and lift off the ground. We live in illusion. That illusion, although
pretty for a while, will always bring you down into despair, bitterness, resentment and the
phrase, "is that all there is?" Well, there's a helluva lot that people miss, because they're not
here, on the ground.
Bert: It's funny you should mention Catholicism, because Matthew Fox used to be a Catholic,
and he talks about "co-creative spirituality." We and God are in the process of co-creating
the universe around us. That seems so similar to what you talk about, when you talk of
co-creative relationships. I'm hearing a spiritual dimension of active participation.
Judith: Absolutely. You're quite right. We talk about practical spirituality in the book, Simply
put, the spiritual dimension in relationship occurs when I get outside my self-centered
reality and I include Jim's reality as being just as valuable as mine. Now I enter the world in a
way that allows me to value more and more of what's here, that's beyond me. Then I can
expand my appreciation beyond Jim, to include all of you and more and more elements of
the world, and I live more in the spirit of being here, rather than just in my own small self.
Jim: I would like to comment as well, Bert. Intimacy is a very profound term. I wish I had a
simple description of it for you. I'll give you a metaphor, an example. When a sculptor
decides to sculpt something and chooses a medium, let's say, for the moment, granite, the
granite and the sculptor enter into a profound intimacy because the granite defines the
sculptor and the sculptor defines the granite. There is a connection that evolves in the
process, until the object he or she is sculpting becomes reality, is actualized. The sculptor is
not imposing on the granite, and the granite is not imposing on the sculptor, but they
co-create each other, because if the granite moves this way, the sculptor moves that way.
If the granite moves that way, the sculptor moves this way. The dance between the two is
so intimate that finally the ultimate product is so infused with the being of the sculptor,
and the sculptor with the being of the product, that it is almost a oneness.
Scott: That particular metaphor brings up a reference and a synergy with older relationship
models, in which women looked at men as "projects" to be designed. Essentially, granite,
unfeeling, manipulable, and something that would be sculpted into the ideal male, How does
the book help people avoid such relationships?
Jim: I appreciate that, and I'm glad you said that, because you're right. That does go in a
direction I wouldn't want to go in. We don't have a lot of "thumbnail rules" in our book. But
we have metaphors and suggestions. Here's one of them: when you love, you are changed.
When you are loved, you are changed. Meaning, when you enter into a relationship, you will
definitely be someone other than you were, as the relationship progresses. I need Judith. I
need her in ways that I don't even know how to articulate. There is some deep aspect of me
that is in need of this woman, and vice-versa. To create ourselves is a good way to put it.
We are in a process of creation. We quote a woman in our book, who says, "Whenever I feel
bad, I turn him into a project." What the book shows, in a variety of ways, is that if, in fact,
she takes him on as a project, we are no longer in a relationship. That's the I-It, not the
I-Thou. As long as I can keep in mind that a relationship is dynamic, reciprocal co-creation,
then neither one of us is the project but we are both the project, almost being projected
by the relationship itself, I stay in the I-Thou.
Bert: What that ties back to is a theme that Judith brought up earlier. It's the view of
"co-creative spirituality" that we work in co-creative synergy to create the world. The
marriage is a crucible. It's how we work in relationship teaches us how we can relate to the
world.
Judith: And to take that even further, the only building blocks of society are men and
women. How men and women treat each other, so goes the world. So we are talking about
profound possibility for societal change when men and women really can treat each other
with this kind of transformative value for one another's differences.
Bert: In your book you talk about "positive trust" and "negative trust," and then you talk
about "sacred trust." One of the things that struck me about "positive trust" is that this
involves a willingness to be accountable for your dark side.
Jim: First of all, trust is trust. Negative trust, for example, occurs in a domestic violence
relationship. They can count on the fact that they are going to do each other damage. That
is as trustworthy a relationship as any other kind of relationship, but because it's a
relationship that leads to violence we call it "negative trust." It's also diminishment. Both
people become diminished inside negative trust, because the relationship gets smaller, and
they become smaller and smaller. Positive trust opens out into the world. The basis of
positive trust is that those people can grow and enlarge. Sacred trust becomes a reality.
When I can trust her positively, I also know where her knives are, I know where her dark
side is. I don't think positive trust is possible unless I do know where her knives are, and we
all bring them into the game. Then it becomes sacred, because we can use all of who we
are, to create the dance that we create. The sacredness is two-fold. First, I go beyond who
I know myself to be. Anytime we do this we move into the unknown, and if we do this
open-heartedly, that becomes sacred. Secondly, it's sacred because every day becomes a
reality of sacredness as we live our lives.
Bert: You also talk about the "masks" that we wear. That reminded me of James Hillman. In
The Soul's Code he talks about authenticity and character, living authentically, and being
authentic to who we are. Does that relate to what you're talking about?
Judith: Absolutely. And unfortunately most of us have been taught, either through our
family of origin, or in our schools, or in so many other ways, to not present ourselves with
the truth of what we're feeling, the truth of what we believe, for fear that we will be
found unacceptable by someone else. We've learned to hide those precious, unique ways
that we're different, special, and present some marshmallow, ambiguous reality that we
hope everybody will like. Then we live in fear that if you really got to know me, you'd reject
me, you'd leave me, you'd laugh at me. We're never safe in our relationships. We can never
relax. And we also can never believe that we're really lovable when we're hiding behind
masks. So in the book we encourage and teach people that the only way to be loved for who
they really are is to present themselves as they are, and find out who actually likes them,
loves them.
Jim: There's also a deep trap in wearing a mask. A mask is usually a product of feeling that
when I present myself I find that what I present is unacceptable, so I create a guise in order
to create acceptability. That's what we mean in simple terms by a mask. As long as I keep my
mask on, I have to perpetuate my belief in my unacceptability, and I have to find a structure
that supports the pretense that I'm creating. So I perpetuate my ongoing unacceptability
and I perpetuate the sense of wrongness that I am. The mask covers the wrongness. If the
mask is not there, presumably the wrongness will go away. So as long as the mask is there, I
am wrong, and that feeds on itself in a way that's like a cancer.
Bert: You also talk about games that we're taught, and that seems to fit right in here. What
are the games that we're taught, and how do they get in our way?
Judith: Without fail, when we ask women at seminars, were they taught before they started
dating to play hard to get? Were they taught not to reveal too much because men like a
mystery? That they should play "hard to get?" That they shouldn't be too opinionated? That
they should never beat a man at sports and cards? And, especially, that it's just as easy to
love a rich man as a poor man? Invariably, 90% of the women say yes, that's the relationship
training they received. So the message has been taught, unconsciously, that you're not
valuable to a man for who you really are. You have to trap a man by doing these
manipulations, by enticing a man with these gymnastics. You need one of these men, and
these men are such fools, they'll fall for it. Notice the message we've all gotten about how to
make a marriage. It's destined to fail.
Jim: And just one last point, if the men are fools for falling for it, why would a woman want
one of these fools? It just gets more and more cancerous.
Scott: What are the games that men are taught?
Jim: Basically, don't ever show her your feelings or you'll be eaten alive. Wear the pants in
the family. Somebody's got to make a decision. Give her what she wants, and you'll get what
you want. And also, the fundamental one that men report is to never show her your
vulnerability. She'll use it against you.
So we go out to do that, with one set of games on one side, and another set of games on
the other side, and then we're told to go out and make your lives happily ever after. And
when you fail, you should get a divorce. You're the one who made the mistake, not us. Not
the world, not society, but you. The instruction is a template for disaster.
Judith: One of our positions, and one of our hopes, is that relationship training begin when
kids are young enough, before kids actually start dating, hopefully in junior high. We'd like to
see this as a requirement in the schools. They should learn to respect differences, to accept
authentic behavior in terms of communication and conflict resolution. That's one of the
hopes about this book, that we have the power to change people's minds about what they
need to know.
Scott: There are those that would argue that males are being taught that kind of diversity,
that kind of tolerance, but that there is not a reciprocal understanding of the male nature.
It's not very "politically correct," but your book skirts the grounds of "political correctness"
by suggesting that there are inbred, unchangeable gender differences.
Bert: So if we've engaged in this conscious co-creativity, we've engaged in this dance of
creative engagement, we've found a way to remove the masks, we've found a way to stop
playing the games, what's the pay-off? What's in it, for us and for society?
Judith: The pay-off for a couple is that they can then count on a relationship in which they
can present themselves as they are. They can relax. They can learn from one another's
differences. They can trust that when their old baggage comes to the surface it's just grist
for the mill. It's just part of helping the relationship get richer, of developing the intimacy
deeply between the people by learning more about their past and more about their
woundedness and letting it get healed. By having it be loved. And, ultimately they can live
in serial monogamy with the same person, in which the relationship continually changes,
continually grows, and the relationship gets deeper, and deeper, and deeper. You are loved
for who you are. That's all we really want.
Jim: The relationship doesn't become a goal to be achieved. Marriage isn't something you
work for and then you stop. Long-term relationship is a voyage of discovery and an exciting
way of being alive. As opposed to a process that one just settles into, accommodates, and
ultimately is consumed by. It really becomes an adventure in life, an adventure in what we
call "practical spirituality" and a meditation on daily loving. That's part of the pay-off.
Judith Sherven Ph.D. and James Sniechowski Ph.D. are the authors of