As many of you know, there was recently a big “to do” about Steven Crowder and the leaked altercation he had with his wife.
I won’t go into that in too much detail here, as I already said pretty much everything I needed to say about it in my recent video.
(WATCH: Is Steven Crowder Abusive? | Reaction to NEW Viral Argument with His Soon-To-Be Ex-Wife)
What you need to understand about my commentary on this fight is that it in no way “justifies it.”
Fortunately, *most* of you aren’t that dumb to take issue when I say things like these fights are “normal” in a marriage (especially one on the verge of dying — more on this in a moment).
“Normal” doesn’t mean healthy and normal doesn’t mean I endorse it. It’s “normal” for guys to jerk off to porn multiple days a week. It’s normal for people to get buzzed most nights. Honestly, it’s increasingly normal to fat, poor, and gay. That doesn’t mean it’s something you should aspire towards.
The point is to kill it with the pearl clutching. “OMG this couple getting divorced got into a bad fight! Crowder said he hates her, and was controlling! He’s an abuser!” Please shut the fuck up. You sound like almost as much of a child as Crowder himself.
Fights are normal in serious relationships. Even bad fights like the one above.
And they are not necessarily bad long-term.
Let me explain:
As the years go on you will get very close to the woman you marry. This is good in one sense, obviously — we want connection. The only problem: the closer we get to someone, the more emotionally enmeshed with them we usually also get.
This co-dependence means we start looking to our woman to meet our needs. She becomes responsible for validating our insecurities with her behavior. Unfortunately, she has insecurities of her own (usually the same degree as ours, though with her own pattern).
Initially all is good. We have a mutually-validating honeymoon period, and everybody goes out of their way to make the other feel like the ideal man and woman respectively. As time goes on, however, the veneer of perfection begins to drop, and someone gets triggered. Misunderstandings ensue, and a power dynamic sets in. This defines the relationship for the coming years.
Sometimes these wars are hot, other times cold. Couples don’t always fight post-honeymoon period, because there is too much fear and repression within the relationship to do so. One or both parties simply goes a long with the “comfortable” dynamic, even though underneath there is dissatisfaction and resentment brewing. Passive-aggressiveness and avoidance define these dynamics. They either become stagnant and dissolve, or one party breaks out of it and brings the conflict into the open.
Other couples — especially ones with more fiery personalities — tend to turn the relationship into a cauldron. There is bickering over who is the victim and who is the perpetrator, and these arguments spill over into conflict. Words are said (and occasionally, physical actions taken) that can become hard to come back from. At a certain point, it can become objectively abusive and toxic.
Both of these dynamics are common in marriage, which is why you have so many people telling you not to get married! You’ll either be bored or fight all the time. It’s not worth it.
Or is it?
When you work out heavy — especially for the first time — you are going to get sore. Does that mean going to the gym isn’t worth it? Or are there serious benefit available to you from pushing through that pain, from learning to work out properly, recover correctly, and become stronger?
It’s not very different with marriage. Marriage forces you to face yourself and your emotional issues. It is hard especially if you don’t know what you are doing. You will simply be in pain all the time, as these traumas will get triggered over and over again until you learn to resolve them.
Which is why conflict — including sometimes the kind of toxic conflict you saw with Crowder — is a natural part of a marriage. Conflict is communication, and it is an attempt to reconcile the co-dependent power dynamic. The more intense it gets, the more burned out each party becomes. Eventually one says “enough is enough.” And this is when the moment of truth occurs.
Emotional patterns feed on predictable reactions. You complain about me, I withdraw, you pursue, I reinvest, you complain. Wash, rinse, repeat. There are many versions of this, unique to each couple. But one party breaks the pattern, chaos ensues.
If you complain about me, but this time I don’t get triggered and defend myself or withdraw because I know that this is your issue not mine, then the dynamics in the relationship start to be unstable. If I don’t indulge your attempt at conflict, and rise above it, then you cannot use me to avoid your own issues anymore. Our familiar pattern or projection is broken; I am leaving you behind with it. Subconsciously, you know it. You can attempt to double down, but the more you do this, the more isolated you become.
Eventually, you will face a choice: to similarly own your shit and join me in moving beyond the pattern (into more self-validation and ownership), or succumb to it and accept our inevitable separation.
The point of all this is simple:
Growth in practice requires conflict. Conflict with both yourself, and whoever or whatever you are engaging with. In a relationship, the less integrated you are, and the more your vulnerabilities are being pressured, the more conflict we will experience with our significant other. Anybody who says otherwise hasn’t done the work, and is trying to create a veneer of perfection. I wouldn’t trust them.
The paradox of this conflict is that once you go through it, and once this conflict reveals the triggers that you have (and have been blaming on your spouse), you begin to have the relationship you actually want. The less co-dependent you are, the less resentment you feel for your spouse, and the more you actually want them. You care for them more, you’re excited to be around them, and the sex gets better.
In short, the quality of your marriage has nothing to do with the institution itself, and everything to do with you and your spouse’s level of integration and consciousness. It depends entirely of how much work you have done. The paradox is simply that you can only truly do the work by committing to somebody, because this is the only way your emotional triggers get revealed.
Which is why I consider avoidance of marriage because “it’s too difficult” to be no different metaphysically than avoiding exercise or hard work because these too require effort. People whine this is a false equivalence; “in those cases you don’t have to depend on someone else.” This is bullshit, because to succeed in marriage the path forward is the same.
You are not really grappling with her, you are grappling with yourself. And until you deal with yourself, you won’t get the marriage you are looking for.
Anyway, enough said.
If you are looking for a breakthrough in your own relationship, apply here: www.patstedman.com/application
– Pat
