Intimacy Requires Risk - The Secret to Intimacy Series: Chapter 4 of 5

We live in a world that is really good at presenting itself to us in ways that are designed to get our appr oving likes, hearts, shares, and follows. In talking about the ways that we use other-validated intimacy last week, we began to understand what it is and how we might be working to get it from others. We didn’t really talk about why that might be a problem. Relationships built on other-validation create cycle of self-presentation for validation, which eventually breaks down when one or more of the people involved don’t want to play the game any more. There have been a number of scandals over the years of influencers doing work that wasn’t quite real or genuine in an effort to gain more social media currency. They are putting forward a picture of themselves that is not real in an effort to be seen as more than what they really are. They fake houses, cars, vacations, and other status symbols so that those who follow them believe in the person’s success regardless of its truth in the real world. They present a picture of themselves as something they are not when they are alone with themselves. As a pornography user, this is exactly what I did to my wife and what she did to me. I would present to her a reality that wasn’t a reflection of who I was when I was alone with my inner thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. I was presenting myself to my partner by not telling her how I felt. I was not real with what was going on for me. I was actively trying to manage her impressions of me, how she felt about me, and her anxiety around the difficult subjects in our life. I would do this by not sharing difficult situations at work. I would do this by not showing her that I was stressed, I would say I was tired or something else instead. I would find ways to avoid her when I had looked at pornography. I would lie about my pornography use. I would tell myself that she couldn’t handle it. I would tell myself that I was only hurting myself and that she didn’t need to know. I was presenting a picture of who I was to Darcy in order to keep her “happy” or “Safe” or to get her to like me. When the reality was, I wasn’t the person I was saying I was. D - Sometimes I would have sex when I really didn’t want to. I would be more sexual to try and compete with the porn that you were using. I would act like everything was fine when they weren’t. This, in turn, created a great deal of anxiety for me. It made me constantly nervous and anxious about our future and my ability to care for Darcy. It left me lonely and alone in very real ways. Which, incidentally, were my biggest emotions that I was trying to escape. And were some of the main reasons I would turn to pornography. So, in self-presenting to Darcy, curating the image she had of me, especially the false parts of it, I created a lack of intimacy. I removed intimacy from our lives. I made it so she was not able to track honesty and openness in me. Which was the very thing she would tell you that she wanted. She wanted to know me, but she was also scared of who I actually was in meaningful ways. What was that like for you? D – I wanted to know you as far as it made me feel ok. but when it came to you, when it made me not feel ok, I didn’t like it. So, in a very real sense I was helping create an environment that encouraged Zach to self-present. Which is not the same as making him do it. He was still very much responsible for his own actions. It’s important to understand that this is not an excuse for us to...