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men went down a similar line of questioning. At the end, the man also started crying. “Honey,” he said to his wife, “I don’t feel like a man. I’m afraid that if we stay in your hometown, I will continue to feel powerless. I feel that your family controls everything about our lives.”
Do you see it? The problem was not the move. The problem was that Celeste felt unimportant and that Dan did not feel as if he had control over his life.
And notice something else very important about their problem. At the heart of the matter, they both felt afraid.
What about you? Ask yourself the “So what?” question. Ask it several times. Where does it lead you? Where it leads you may be at the heart of your relationship problems.
The Core Problem
Remember the pattern that Greg and Bob’s team discovered when they analyzed the effectiveness and success of the process used in the marriage intensives I mentioned in chapter 1? The team came to this startling conclusion: The destructive dance that every couple was involved in stemmed from fear. Every husband and wife was acting out of a core fear.
Let me be so bold as to say that every person on the planet wrestles with some core fear. And that includes you. You may not like to hear that. You may be contradicting me already, “But, Gary, I’m not afraid of anything. I feel perfectly safe in my home. I’m not afraid of other people.” That’s good, but that isn’t the kind of fear I’m talking about. I mean things like fear of failure or fear of not being loved or fear of being alone.
* YOU WRESTLE WITH A CORE FEAR.*
If you think about it, this shouldn’t be so surprising. Fear is as old as the Garden of Eden. In the beginning, Adam and Eve enjoyed a perfect and satisfying relationship with God and with one another. But the moment they disregarded God’s instructions and chose instead to follow the serpent’s advice, fear took over. It spoiled their relationship to God and to each other. And we have been feeling its destructive effects ever since.
So what are those fears? We have found that most women have a core fear related to disconnection—they fear not being heard, not being valued, somehow losing the love of another. Most men, on the other hand, have a core fear of helplessness or feeling controlled—they fear failure or getting stepped on. Some version of these two core fears seems to exist in everyone, to some degree. In her book You Just Don’t Understand, author Deborah Tannen calls attention to these two core fears in order to help male and female friends better understand one another.
Of course you might not use those exact words to describe how you feel. You may be more aware of feeling rejected or abandoned than feeling disconnected, for example, or of feeling embarrassed or disrespected more than feeling helpless. Here’s the key: Without identifying your own core fear and understanding how you tend to react when your fear button gets pushed, your relationships will suffer. Every time!
What is your core fear? Do you already know what it is? Most people don’t. Most people are not aware of the fear that lurks behind many of their troubled relationships. If you don’t know or feel unsure about what your fear is, identify your core fear by using the following list, which the Smalley Marriage Institute isolated as the most common fears among men and women. We noticed that the common core fears are all related to two main primary fears: the fear of being controlled (losing power) and the fear of being disconnected (separation from people and being alone). (I recommend that you finish this chapter and then take the Fear Dance quiz in appendix B.)
MY CORE FEAR IS THAT I FEEL…
1. Helpless, powerless, impotent, or controlled
2. Rejected, as if people are closing me out of their lives
3. Abandoned or left behind, as in divorce
4. Disconnected from others or alone
5. Like a failure
6. Unloved, as if no one could love me
7. Defective, as if
Do you see it? The problem was not the move. The problem was that Celeste felt unimportant and that Dan did not feel as if he had control over his life.
And notice something else very important about their problem. At the heart of the matter, they both felt afraid.
What about you? Ask yourself the “So what?” question. Ask it several times. Where does it lead you? Where it leads you may be at the heart of your relationship problems.
The Core Problem
Remember the pattern that Greg and Bob’s team discovered when they analyzed the effectiveness and success of the process used in the marriage intensives I mentioned in chapter 1? The team came to this startling conclusion: The destructive dance that every couple was involved in stemmed from fear. Every husband and wife was acting out of a core fear.
Let me be so bold as to say that every person on the planet wrestles with some core fear. And that includes you. You may not like to hear that. You may be contradicting me already, “But, Gary, I’m not afraid of anything. I feel perfectly safe in my home. I’m not afraid of other people.” That’s good, but that isn’t the kind of fear I’m talking about. I mean things like fear of failure or fear of not being loved or fear of being alone.
* YOU WRESTLE WITH A CORE FEAR.*
If you think about it, this shouldn’t be so surprising. Fear is as old as the Garden of Eden. In the beginning, Adam and Eve enjoyed a perfect and satisfying relationship with God and with one another. But the moment they disregarded God’s instructions and chose instead to follow the serpent’s advice, fear took over. It spoiled their relationship to God and to each other. And we have been feeling its destructive effects ever since.
So what are those fears? We have found that most women have a core fear related to disconnection—they fear not being heard, not being valued, somehow losing the love of another. Most men, on the other hand, have a core fear of helplessness or feeling controlled—they fear failure or getting stepped on. Some version of these two core fears seems to exist in everyone, to some degree. In her book You Just Don’t Understand, author Deborah Tannen calls attention to these two core fears in order to help male and female friends better understand one another.
Of course you might not use those exact words to describe how you feel. You may be more aware of feeling rejected or abandoned than feeling disconnected, for example, or of feeling embarrassed or disrespected more than feeling helpless. Here’s the key: Without identifying your own core fear and understanding how you tend to react when your fear button gets pushed, your relationships will suffer. Every time!
What is your core fear? Do you already know what it is? Most people don’t. Most people are not aware of the fear that lurks behind many of their troubled relationships. If you don’t know or feel unsure about what your fear is, identify your core fear by using the following list, which the Smalley Marriage Institute isolated as the most common fears among men and women. We noticed that the common core fears are all related to two main primary fears: the fear of being controlled (losing power) and the fear of being disconnected (separation from people and being alone). (I recommend that you finish this chapter and then take the Fear Dance quiz in appendix B.)
MY CORE FEAR IS THAT I FEEL…
1. Helpless, powerless, impotent, or controlled
2. Rejected, as if people are closing me out of their lives
3. Abandoned or left behind, as in divorce
4. Disconnected from others or alone
5. Like a failure
6. Unloved, as if no one could love me
7. Defective, as if
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