Wired for Love (20 page)

Behind My Back

Klaus comes from a family of alcohol users. To some extent, this reflects his German heritage, which sanctions a high level of beer and wine consumption. However, according to Klaus, his father went beyond the norm for his culture and is a card-carrying alcoholic to this day. Suzanne complains that Klaus is headed down the same track. She accuses him of sneaking drinks, and she’s worried that if he doesn’t cut back now, their children will be exposed to his inappropriate behavior. This is a source of increasingly frequent fights between them.

“Don’t think I don’t know when you’ve had a drink,” she says. “You become a different person when you drink.”

“What do you mean?” says Klaus. “How?”

“You become silly and sloppy. You’re not my Klaus anymore.”

“I thought you like me when I get silly. You say I’m funny and fun to be with,” Klaus replies in his defense.

“It’s true that when we’re out with friends, you can be funny,” Suzanne admits. “But sometimes I feel embarrassed for you. You say things that make you look, I don’t know, inebriated and foolish. Plus, you say private things about me that embarrass me. I hate it when you do that!” says Suzanne, becoming angrier as she recalls a recent incident.

“When have I ever said anything private?” Klaus responds, his voice growing louder.

Suzanne covers her mouth with her hand, and her eyes glaze over. She stands there deep in thought, as if running a disturbing movie in her mind.

Moments pass in silence. “I’m asking you,” Klaus repeats, “when have I ever given private information in public?”

Suzanne shakes her head. “I don’t want to tell you,” she says mournfully. “You’ll deny it because you won’t remember.”

“Try me.”

“We were out with your business partner and his wife.”

“At that new Italian restaurant,” he adds.

“Right. And you’d had a few drinks. We started talking about getting enough sleep, and you told them I take a sleeping pill every night—”

“So? What’s wrong with that?” Klaus interrupts.

“Wait!” Suzanne responds sharply, her hand flying up. “You didn’t let me finish. You said I take a pill every night, which is none of their business. And then you went into detail about what I’m like afterward. You said I raid the refrigerator and don’t remember it in the morning. That was humiliating. They didn’t need to know that.”

“I don’t remember saying anything like that,” Klaus responds defensively.

“I know you don’t remember,” says Suzanne. “That’s what I said a minute ago. That’s what makes it so humiliating. There I was, with this sloppy, obnoxious drunk who didn’t even care what I was feeling. And with
your
friends!” Suzanne begins to tear up.

“That’s mighty nervy coming from you, who takes sleeping pills and doesn’t remember the next morning that we had sex,” Klaus states angrily.

“That’s different,” says Suzanne, choking back tears. “I don’t embarrass you in public.”

“No,” replies Klaus, “you say you don’t need those pills. But then I see how you slur your speech and act stupid. One of these days I’m afraid you won’t have the sense to wait till I’m home to medicate yourself, and the kids will see the mess you’re in. I even had to hide your keys to stop you from driving to the store last week. Remember that? How do you think all this makes me feel? Not only am I with a drunk every night, but you’re not with
me.
”

After a long silence Suzanne speaks up. “I guess we both let something come between us—for me it’s taking sleeping pills, and for you it’s drinking.”

“Yeah, I guess we do,” sighs Klaus.

I Have Your Back

Landa and Perry both like to drink. Neither sees alcohol as a threat to their relationship. Rather, they view drinking as a source of shared enjoyment. They occasionally even smoke pot when friends are over and the kids are in bed asleep. However, if either becomes uncomfortable with this practice, the other respects his or her wishes and refrains.

When out to dinner with friends, each drinks wine. They agree ahead of time to monitor one another’s drinking, because they know it’s difficult to self-monitor. If one or the other notices a shift in behavior that could be attributed to the effects of the wine—or to anything else, for that matter—he or she will whisper into the other’s ear, “That’s enough.” And that is taken as the cue to stop drinking.

If one or the other begins to launch into a potentially dangerous conversation with others, a squeeze on the leg gets the message across to “proceed with caution.”

Both Landa and Perry appreciate this special service each provides for the other. Not only does it keep them safe and secure in their couple bubble, it keeps them safe with other people, as well. Both view themselves as the protector and regulator of the other in public, and each has saved the other in social situations where something easily could have been said or done that would have damaged an important relationship.

They have one another’s backs.

Exercise: Get Your Signals Straight

As we’ve seen, Landa and Perry have a system of signals they use with each other in the company of thirds. You can do the same.

1. Take an inventory of your signals. Chances are you already use signals with your partner, even if you aren’t consciously aware of it. The next time you are with an outsider, notice the nonverbal ways you and your partner communicate. Notice, too, how quickly and accurately you pick up each other’s signals.
   
2. Develop new signals. Having a private language of your own can be very effective, as well as fun. Children do this, and love it when you can’t understand their secret code. Discuss with your partner how you might communicate in tricky situations with thirds, such as in the presence of in-laws or out in public. What, specifically, are the messages you need to give one another in these situations?
   
   1. Keep in mind that your signals must be subtle and must be suited to your partner’s sensitivities. It would be self-defeating, for instance, if your partner perceived your signal as a threat instead of the friendly assist you intended it to be. It also would be ill advised to adopt a loud signal that, say, led your son-in-law to feel your not-so-secret language was intended to exclude him.
      
3. Practice your new signals the next time a situation arises, and see how effective they are. Make sure you have your signals in order ahead of time!
   

Affairs as Thirds

Romantic and sexual affairs constitute perhaps the most obvious form thirds can take in a relationship. In my experience, infidelity is among the chief reasons couples seek therapy. The good news is that understanding how to protect their couple bubble can help couples save their relationship, even if one or both partners have undermined it by engaging in infidelity.

You might be wondering, how common is infidelity? That’s hard to say. It depends on what statistics you read, and on how you define infidelity. The traditional definition focuses on extramarital sexual relations, whether as a one-night stand or a long-term involvement. Using this definition, a 2006 study of 10,000 adults conducted by Tom Smith from the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center reported that 22 percent of married men and 15 percent of married women had committed adultery at least once. But many people define affairs more broadly. A survey (Weaver 2007) in which more than 70,000 adults estimated 44 percent of men and 36 percent of women had cheated lends support to the notion of a broader definition.

I’d like you to consider fidelity in terms of what it means to your couple bubble. Because both your and your partner’s safety and security—your very survival—depend on mutual conservatorship, you can view fidelity as synonymous with couple bubble. Sexual infidelity is an obvious breach of fidelity. But so, for example, are the following:

• Emotional closeness with a third that leaves you or your partner out in the cold
  
• Sharing of one partner’s secrets with a third
  
• Flirting online or sexting with a third
  
• Office romances or over-the-top flirting
  
• Use of pornography that excludes the other partner
  

2 + 1 = Zero

You know the expression “Two is company, three is a crowd”? For couples who don’t know how to include outsiders, three isn’t just a crowd, it’s a complete zero. By that, I mean their failure to form safe threesomes (or more-somes) can end up destroying what they have as a twosome. Let’s go back to Klaus and Suzanne one more time.

Infidelity has been a continual threat to their relationship. Early on, Klaus had an intense but brief affair with someone from his office. The involvement ended after Suzanne discovered incriminating e-mails and gave Klaus an ultimatum. He assured her it never would have turned into anything serious, and she shouldn’t feel threatened. However, ten years later, it is still in Suzanne’s mind.

When Klaus has stayed extra late at the office or the couple has an argument or Suzanne is feeling insecure for no particular reason, their conversations go like this:

“How was your luncheon?” Suzanne asks the following morning, a Saturday, as they sit at the kitchen table over coffee.

“Oh, okay,” says Klaus with a shrug. “You know, the usual pasta and salad. They even had a good dessert. Chocolate—”

“So, you sat next to Crystal?” Suzanne interrupts.

“Crystal?” Klaus scrunches up his face. “Yeah. So what?”

“How come you didn’t say so? You think you can just talk about the food, and I’ll ignore—”

This time Klaus cuts in. “What’s there to say? I sat next to Crystal. Dave was on my other side. Relax! How many times do I have to tell you: absolutely nothing is going on between Crystal and me.”

Suzanne isn’t persuaded. “So you say. But I’ve seen how she looks at you. At the office Christmas party, you spent more time talking with her than you did with me. How am I supposed to relax when you continually give me cause to feel otherwise?”

“Jiminy! How many times must I explain?” Klaus’s irritation is mounting; nothing he says to defend himself seems to budge Suzanne. “We were talking about a report due January 1st, and there was no time to work on it over the holidays. The truth is, it ruined the party for me. But I’ve already apologized for that. The question is, when will you let it go?”

Suzanne stops to consider this. In fact, she yearns to let go of her insecurities. It’s just that she doesn’t know how. Tears come to her eyes as she flashes back to Klaus’s affair ten years before. “Maybe when you aren’t always comparing me with other women,” she says after a few moments.

Klaus is touched by her honesty. He wants to reach out, hold her close, and assure her that he loves her. At the same time, he feels a strong pang of guilt. Much as he loves Suzanne, he is frequently attracted to other women. He tells himself it’s just one of those natural male-female things. Crystal, for example, is a smart, stylish professional, and he enjoys working with her. He likes lingering an extra moment as the target of her gorgeous smile. After all, he thinks, this kind of flirtation is harmless.

Klaus pauses. Why feel guilt over something so harmless? It occurs to him that confessing to Suzanne that he is sometimes attracted to other women might lessen his guilt.

But then he worries about what he might have to give up. Maybe he’ll lose Crystal’s friendship altogether. He feels ashamed at how much he is looking forward to seeing her Monday morning. Suddenly, instead of a confession, he blurts out, “For crying out loud, I’m not always comparing you with other women! Stop being paranoid. Do you have any idea how unattractive that is?”

You have probably recognized Klaus and Suzanne as waves. Both are ambivalent about connecting. They use thirds, in the form of affairs, to fuel their ambivalence. For Klaus, this means leaving his options open so he can buffer any potential dangers at home through connection with a third. For Suzanne, it means living with so much fear about an affair—whether real or imagined—that she can’t fully commit to her marriage.

Islands have affairs for slightly different reasons. For them, the third tends to offer an escape valve in the relationship. An affair is viewed as an assertion of independence. Some islands make a philosophical or psychological argument in favor of polyamory (multiple love partners). They may encourage their partner to do likewise, and contend that jealousy is a non-issue for all parties involved. The legitimacy of this perspective is not for us to argue over here. Suffice to say, when it comes to protecting the couple bubble, any affair will be a deal breaker.

2 + 1 = No Problem

Affairs are not limited to islands and waves. Anchors have affairs, too. During the first year of her relationship with Perry, while they were dating steadily but not living together, Landa went for dinner with an old boyfriend from high school. She told Perry about it ahead of time and invited him to come along. However, trusting Landa and thinking she and her ex, whom she hadn’t seen in years, might enjoy the time together, Perry declined.

Landa and her old boyfriend had a few drinks, and after he gave her a quick kiss good night, they ended up making out in his car.

First thing the next morning, Landa called Perry. She said they needed to talk immediately.

“I have something to tell you that I wish I didn’t have to,” she said when they sat down. “I’m totally ashamed of what I did, and you have every right to be furious.”

Perry stared at her. “What’re you talking about? What could possibly be so wrong?”

“The fact that you trust me implicitly only makes this worse,” moaned Landa. She went on to explain exactly what happened the night before. She gave Perry a chance to ask for any more details, and ended by saying, “I want nothing more than to be with you. You mean the world to me. But I won’t blame you if you decide to call off our relationship.”

Perry was shocked, and he needed time to process what had happened. But in the days that followed, he saw that the old boyfriend was not actually a threat to their relationship. He appreciated that Landa was truthful in admitting her mistake, one she never intended to repeat. Nor did she repeat it.