THE SEX PHASES OF COURTSHIP / DECEPTIVE PHASE: PROTECTION BY PROJECTION
What was she so upset about? She never forgot it. She still talks about it. So what? I told her I was Catholic when we first met. Big deal. I’m Jewish. Same thing.
HUSBAND
Once the message is sent, received, and acknowledged, phase three tends to dominate the interaction. While it would seem that the two persons would be ready to open up to one another, in fact the opposite is true. Now that something important is at stake, a real possibility of a lasting bond, both persons seem to go into “projective” posture.
Persons in the deceptive phase begin to present the “they” that they would like the other person to perceive they are and each of us desperately wants to be. The projected image is not realistic, however. Deception here is as much of self as of the other. The impact on marriage is severe, for it is at this phase that many marriages occur, bonding between two projected images. Partners believe in the “magical mystical healing powers of marriage,” that marriage will somehow in some way solve any problem. The more idealistic the projected images, the more denial is employed, and the more denial before marriage, the more disappointment in marriage. It takes a great amount of energy to keep denying how we really are, and “leakage” occurs. On some level, it takes recognition of what is being denied to maintain the denial, and the recognition is present in both partners. They continue, however, to trust in the illusion of the healing power of marriage without presenting the “real patients.”
One clear dimension of bonding emerges so far. Marriage will only make any problem worse, and that applies most directly to any sexual problem. It probably explains in part why second marriages are almost twice as likely to divorce as first marriages. Marrying at the “deceptive phase,” the time of projection of image, is a mistake. It can be corrected through techniques to be described later, but it is one of the major contributions to the high divorce rate in our country. One of my clinical rules is to tell spouses, “Never divorce someone you don’t know, and be sure you start with yourself.”
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