What Happens When You Want to Leave Church but Your Partner Doesn't?
Julia and I are in the middle of our podcast series The Sex Ed We Wish We Had, where we talk about the six sexual health principles that Doug Braun Harvey and Michael Vigorito discuss in their book Treating Out of Control Sexual Behavior:
Consent
Nonexploitation
STI and pregnancy prevention
Honesty
Shared Values
Mutual Pleasure
Check out our interviews with Doug Braun Harvey to learn more about the sexual health principles.
Today, we’re talking about the most challenging of the sexual health principles: shared values.
Doug Braun Harvey writes on his website:
“Throughout the lifespan, sexual values play an important role in motivations for sex. Specific sexual acts or turn-ons may have very different meanings for each partner. Values are a source of identifying one’s sexual standards and ethics. Values differences, when honestly and vulnerably shared between partners, can lead to closeness or painful distance. Either way, it is a conversation that brings reality and clarity where couples may have previously chosen avoidance and deception.”
This is a bit easier to navigate when we’re talking about one-off sexual experiences. Asking questions like “What do you want out of this experience?”, “What do you like sexually?”, or “Are you a top, bottom, or switch?”, while potentially uncomfortable, can help two (or more) people assess for compatibility. Folks can have (or choose not to have) a sexual experience, and then make decisions about how to move forward from there.
When it comes to long-term relationships, navigating shared values can be especially difficult. Because relationships (and for that matter, any system) consistently wants two competing things:
Homeostasis. A system is maintained by patterns, routines, and habits, and participants in a system, particularly those in power, will fight like crazy to hold onto the status quo.
Morphogenesis. This is a fancy systems theory word for change. Change is inevitable. We get older. We leave home. We invite new people into our lives. People we leave our lives through death and migration. Sometimes we are the ones who move.
Couples and family therapy is exceptionally difficult, because relationships are about navigating the tension between homeostasis and morphogenesis.
How does a relationship adapt to a new birth? What changes does a family make following the loss of a matriarch or patriarch? How does a system adapt when a company demands that you relocate, or when a natural disaster takes away your resources?
These examples are reflections of the passive versions of change.
Couples and family therapy get way more intense when we’re talking about people actively pursue and initiate change, such as folks who choose to leave organized religion, the premise for Sexvangelicals.
After all, when one person actively pursues a change, that forces the system to respond and make adaptations.
There are some changes that result in low risks to the system. The other person may agree with the change, and find ways to incorporate that change into their own life. The other person may have an hesitant, ambivalent, or even agitated response initially, but given time, makes adaptations to that change.
However, there are other changes that are more likely to threaten the system.
I want my parents to live with us.
I want to leave organized religion.
I want to open up our relationship and explore having sex with other people.
In this week’s episode with Dr. Jimmy Bridges, we talk about strategies for relationships who are navigating one person wanting to make a major change in the patterns and routines of life.
Spoiler alert. This is extremely difficult. Julia, Jimmy, and I all share mistakes that we’ve made in our former relationships where we were the ones who were seeking changes and exploring new spaces.
In some cases, a couple does as well as they can in discussing changes and differences in values.
A person may talk about the change that they want and realize that the repercussions of the change, such as loss of community, are not worth pursuing. A person may talk about the change and realize that the change is necessary for that person, regardless of the consequences. The other person has to figure out how much adapting they’re willing to do, and in some cases, the couple recognizes that the relationship cannot continue if the change is going to develop into fruition.
These are gut-wrenching, difficult conversations, as Julia and Jimmy reflect from their own relational experience.
In other systems, talking about the concept of these changes, never mind the enactment and logistics of change, is enough to create tension and reactivity. Jeremiah talks about this in his former relationship.
The pain and stress that comes with talking about these types of relational changes is unavoidable, but Jimmy describes some ways that couples therapy can make this process more palatable:
“I encourage folks to get to a place where they're able to step into the shoes of the other person. And then that works both ways because it helps with pacing.
I think the biggest issue that leads to harm is we're trying to move too fast, either out of a church that your whole life is built on, all your family is connected to and maybe your partner's family is connected to, and you move so fast, you leave them behind.
And I'm not even saying slow your own process down internally of what's happening to you. It's more like, be cognizant of how it's impacting the people connected to you and learn how to step into the shoes. Communicate and listen well to what the person is experiencing. This is applicable for both sides.”
The deconstruction process is baked in the tension between homeostasis and morphogenesis. I want to change the ways that I engage with the world. The church is unwilling to operate differently than they currently do. And in order to maintain both sanity and integrity, I have to walk away, regardless of the grief and consequences that come with that decision.
If you’re navigating value differences between you and a larger institution, or you and an individual, this is an episode for you!
Let’s heal together!