A Night On The Closet Floor
It was a doozy of a fight. Absolutely ridiculous. It is rare that we fight on this level, but this was one of those, once-every-10-years, kind of fights. We were both out of our window of tolerance, both in hyper arousal. The problem was, we had friends in the house sleeping, so our screaming was at an guest appropriate level, that had our throats straining to keep up with the contained volume they longed for.
I wanted to leave. I wanted to leave so badly and felt categorically stuck. If I slept on the couch, it could possibly reveal the state of my marriage and I couldn’t risk that. Instead, I grabbed my pillow with as much force as one can grab a feathered object, and 'screamed-whispered' that I would be sleeping in the walk-in closet! His reply was, “No you won’t. I will be sleeping in the closet!” Great. This has now turned into a battle of the wills. And hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. He was NOT going to win the fight to sleep on the cold hard floor that was likely to leave my back and neck in perpetual regret the next morning.
I started brushing my teeth as he launched himself out of our bed and made a bee-line for the closet. I then grabbed the closest thing within arms distance for a blanket, a slightly wet beach towel, and beat him to the laundry pile that had gathered on the closet ground and now acted as my pillow. Internally, I acknowledged how ridiculous this was already becoming. There was a healthy amount of playful wrestling, leg pulling, clinging, and the death of a cheap shoe rack, when he laid down next to me and said, “I see that toothbrush in your mouth. You are going to have to get up and spit at some point and this spot will be mine”. I knew he was right and I had to suppress an audible laugh. I wanted to stay mad but darn him and his whit!
I held out as long as I could with a mouth full of burning foam, got up, took care of business and recommitted myself to my plan. I now had the leverage of standing, and with every ounce of bitterness inside of me, I yanked that damp towel-blanket (that he had now essentially glued himself to), until I was dragging his face across the bathroom floor, back towards our bed. One tug at a time, I watched his left cheek inadvertently clean our laminate flooring.
By the time I got to the bed, I was exhausted from hauling him and gave up the fight. I was impressed with his determination but under no circumstances would I tell him. He scooped up my legs, wrapped me up like a burrito with my comforter, grabbed his pillow and a blanket, then went back and claimed his territory on the closet floor.
Yes. He slept there all night.
Yes. He was sore the next morning.
How does a couple who have put in 10 years of healing work have an event like this? At some point prior, we stopped communicating our feelings and we stopped affirming each other. Not only did we neglect our own needs, we failed to communicate any needs we knew of to each other. We had not taken ownership where we needed to. And there had been unspoken struggles that we had yet to share with each other. If a marriage has a pattern like this on rinse and repeat, the outcome will eventually erode the foundation on which it is built. So what do we do when we recognize the need to stop the cycle?
1} HARD STOP - when people are out of their window of tolerance, the communication system in the brain becomes inhibited and we don’t have access to the reasoning part of our brain. We must recalibrate before reengaging to be successful. Step away for a moment or two.
2} RECALIBRATE - this is done in the nervous system. If our brain is offline, we need to reboot it! This is literally done with physical action. For example walking. Walking sends increased blood flow to the brain, which is linked to better cognitive function. The act of walking causes our eyes to move side to side, which forces both sides of our brain to engage. And once we have access to both sides of our brains, we decrease the one-way thinking and now have the resources for reasoning and collaboration that we didn’t before. I have heard that math does this too, but hello…it’s math.
3} RE ENGAGE - if you are not able to do this at the moment, make an agreed upon time to do so and prioritize it. At this point, many couples might feel the relief of the event being over and often don’t want to rehash the incident all over again. While this feels better in the short term, in the long term, this will sabotage the bigger objective. Remember, short term pain/long term gain.
Good news! This can be done relatively painlessly by using the acronym FANOS.
4} FANOS - this is done in two minutes each! See, painless. FANOS stands for; Feeling, affirmation, needs, ownership and struggle. We only share our own. We don’t give feedback. We just let the other person be heard and known. When my husband and I first did this, we came to a screeching halt on the letter ‘O’ and got into a disagreement because I felt what he chose for ownership was not ownership. This was not helpful to the goal. My opinion on him was not the topic. Knowing and accepting each other was. We are now masters at this exercise and it has revolutionized our marriage. Click on the link for an example on how to use a FANOS.
5} CARE - for yourself and for each other. If you know me, you know that I am a sticker for self care. It is because I am horrible at it, and when I do it, my entire life shifts in the right direction. Repeat after me: Self care is not selfish. Recognizing how you are wired and doing something that honors it allows us to know ourselves better and we can in turn-share that with others.
The relationships that I love the most are the ones where I can show up as me, and you can show up as you unfiltered. This comes most naturally with my sister, my closest friends and my daughter-in-law. But just because living unfiltered comes easy in some relationships doesn’t mean that there are no other relationships worth pursuing at this level. Usually our most vulnerable relationships struggle with this to some degree. The risk of rejection can be high. But with high risk can come high reward as well. That is why I strive to have this with my husband. This level of transparency can be liberating in our relationship.
Marriage is a constant rediscovering of ourselves and each other. Do yourself a favor and don’t wait until a ridiculous misunderstanding occurs before pursuing relational health.
You may save both your back and your shoe rack....and who knows what else!
