My son loves to make knives and learn about basic survival life, how to make shelter, fire, and kill the occasional zombie. He feels he is fully prepared to survive any circumstance life throws at him. While these are worthwhile skills to posses, these aren’t what I am speaking of. My husband, of 16 years, Justin and I are recently reunited after a separation. We have been dedicated to determining what happened and preventing it from ever happening again; a much harder task than you would believe. Finally, last night as we were talking, we realized what happened to us...survival.
Justin and I have weathered some tough storms. Our marriage started out “doomed,” pregnant high school sweethearts with my parent’s signature required for us to be wed. We worked hard to achieve the “ideal marriage” to prove others wrong (well I did and quite ruthlessly demanded perfection). We purchased our first house at 19 and 21 years old, quickly experienced the height of economic abundance, and in 2009, its unexpected (to us) collapse. Tack on a drug addiction and you have the makings of any marriage destroying story; however, we made it through that experience and moved 1100 miles from our hometown and all we both ever knew, that’s when the real problems started.
We thought we had made it, had escaped our problems. We found the perfect place for our children to live, I found a job within a week of living here and a second one a month later. Justin had a harder time finding work at first, but still had a year’s worth of unemployment to rely on so we weren’t too concerned. We both busily tended to our new rolls he staying at home and me working. He seemed to truly enjoy the time rekindling his relationship with our children and I enjoyed the break from my decade of mothering. What we didn’t notice was our marriage and the relationship that had been long neglected.
Within 3 years, Justin had found work and I had returned to college. We were busily raising 4 kids with very active lifestyles. Our finances continued to struggle, marred also by ruined credit thanks to the 2009 crash, and we lived paycheck to paycheck. We also were no longer sleeping in the same bed and were miserable. As I look back, everyday for me seemed like a race against the sun. I woke up, dressed kids, sent them to school, did housework/schoolwork/went to work, and fell asleep exhausted at the end of the day. My mind raced with a checklist of must-do’s and my relationship with my husband never made that list.
This brings us to last night. As we sat musing about our moody teens and rambunctious 7 year old twins, I said “you know, I never doubted you loved me and I never stopped loving you. I think what happened was we were in survival mode, an instinct from our distant relatives even. What if our bodies and minds were stuck in that mode? Is it possible that mode prevents relationships because there isn’t room for it?” I continued to give examples of the surviving: scrounging food money, where would the electric bill money come from, our car broke down, kids need this and that money for school tomorrow, etc. “What if there is no way possible to maintain a loving and purposeful relationship when your body and mind have entered the survival mode?” I asked. “I think you’re onto something, I really do,” he replied. We sat in silence for a few seconds then together said “how do we prevent that?” We have worked hard since I returned home with the kids to keep our relationship front and center. We have set goals together both as individuals and a couple, planned and followed through with time just for us, and doing therapy. While I enjoy this time and activity with one another, it isn’t really anything we didn’t do together before, not the “aha” moment. The survival mode talk was the “aha,” but not the answer. The answer is going to take some digging I determined.
I stumbled upon this article titled “Is Our Survival Instinct Failing Us?” by Dr. Jim Taylor at http://www.drjimtaylor.com/3.0/psychology-is-our-survival-instinct-failing-us/ and gleaned quite a few new insights into what Justin and I discovered happened to us. What I learned (see article for further information) is joy and love are “cool emotions” and take longer to be felt and are less intense because there isn’t a pressing need for them to be felt. We (our children included) were in a survival mode for years. We struggled to provide food for our offspring, and that survival mode to breed and carry on our bloodline came into play for us both, and spent that time in a heightened state of awareness where impulses intensified. Dr. Taylor went on to explain that the way we think and the emotions we feel have survival value that produces behavior. Essentially, our behaviors during that time were largely out of our control. No thoughts or redirecting would pay bills or produce food on our table. With a survival threat on our hands, love and joy were pushed to the “back burner” for many, many months.
Now that I understand the survival instinct a bit better, I am dedicating myself to determine how to recognize and prevent its effects in our marriage. I know we aren’t the only couple that has suffered this scenario, many close friends were hit hard by the economic recession and likely found (or are still in) themselves in this situation. While it served our cavemen ancestors well when saber-toothed tigers were a threat, survival mode doesn’t serve a marriage well at all. There is a tunnel vision that each partner finds themselves in where the pursuit of the necessities for life are front and center. We can’t avoid this reaction, as I know of just yet, but can learn to counteract it to save our relationships.
I will continue to research and experiment with my new understanding and report back with any more “aha” moments or information. Thanks for taking the time to visit and read my blog. Now that I am back in “the swing of things” I intend to no longer neglect my blog!
