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A Stale Mate or Soul Mate
By Francis Shaw & Alixe Thompson
Growing up in the Bronx, Dave only saw his parents at dinner. His father facilitated what his mother wanted: Dad was "play” and Mom was "work". Stefanie grew up in Yonkers with a father who hardly spoke. She describes her father's emotional absence as neglectful to her mother and to herself.
They both knew that attentive love was out there and when they met over 20 years ago, magic happened. Dave recalls their chemistry as "amazing". "He had a little crush on me," Stefanie remembers, "and I liked that." They finally found the fun and attention they had been craving for what seemed like forever.
Twenty years of marriage later, Stefanie was pretty sure that her marriage was over. Her husband seemed resigned to agree. For one last try, she and Dave walked into their first Imago workshop, on the brink of divorce. What happened to that mutual affection and loving attitude? How did Dave stop "fighting, talking, everything"? And what enabled Stefanie to say she had been unhappy for the last ten years?
Their complicity in the breakdown was undeniable. It was no accident, and the evidence was in Harville Hendrix's hands. Harville sat down with the couple to facilitate a Dialogue. Stefanie described a frustrating situation that happened earlier that day when Dave interrupted her conversation with a non-sequitor. He had overheard the word "may", stepped into the conversation, and exclaimed that his brother's birthday is in May and he should remember to call him. The dialogue began simply: Dave understood Stefanie's feelings immediately. Stefanie said she had to rescue Dave from the awkward social encounter: "I feel responsible for you, it frustrates me, I lose track of where I am."
Then Harville pressed deeper: "What does this situation remind you of?" She immediately recalled her father's behavior in similar social engagements, "he would feel comfortable saying absolutely nothing." Stefanie admitted she wanted her father to participate not only to feel special but to feel protected by him. Before she could then request a behavior change of Dave, something WITHIN Stefanie shifted. In tears, she acknowledged that she had lost the hope of dreaming, the hope of getting the love she knew she wanted. When Dave retreated she would respond with fighting and frustration.
As their session with Harville progressed, she slipped into the memory of being fifteen at her grandfather's funeral. That day, her father grabbed Stefanie by the elbows and angrily rushed his sobbing daughter out of the funeral parlor. This was her father's way of consoling her grief. "Do you love me?" she asked him. Her father never answered her. Harville guessed correctly that this was when Stefanie gave up the dream of finding a man to respond to her, to love her as her grandfather did. Dave hugged and comforted Stefanie as she cried in his arms. Through sobs, she realized at that moment that Dave indeed gives her the love she thought she gave up on.
After the dialogue, Stefanie said "it hit me today that two months ago I thought our relationship was more than dead, but going through this process, I realized we're on an adventure together. Even walking down the street today, I felt for the first time, that he is a soulmate." Dave had similar revelation: "The morning we started this workshop, I was a miserable human being. The evening of the first night, I was happy. That was an incredible change."
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