Romancing the Shadow

by Connie Zweig

  When our client Patricia, thirty-five, learned about dating as shadow-work, she reported that she had met a man who seemed kind and compatible; in fact, she thought about him every day. Yet she never called him. Instead, she continued to casually date another man who verbally belittled her. In response, she put her leg on his lap and seduced him. But after having sex with this man, she felt ashamed and regretful.

  With shadow-work, Patricia came to realize that her old patterns did not allow her to choose men with whom she could bond. Instead, a shadow character, who had learned to protect her from intimacy, now sabotaged her efforts. And another character, which secretly felt inferior, used sex as an aphrodisiac to equalize the power. The result: Without being put down, Patricia does not feel seductive or become aroused.

  After these discoveries, Patricia did the difficult work of learning to witness the voice of the character that compels her to approach men who are using a power shield. When she disobeyed it, the character receded from the seat of power, and she could begin to hear the whispering voice of the Self, which guides her in a more appropriate direction. Perhaps eventually she will meet a man with whom she can feel safe and vulnerable.

  For us, success at the dating stage is not primarily about whether a particular relationship will work out; if “work out” means marriage, it probably won’t. Rather, it’s about learning how to experience vulnerability and intimacy with another human being—and to gain the awareness that comes with it. In our view, a relationship at an early stage is a process, not a product; it’s a verb, not a noun. In these days of serial monogamy, the faces of the people involved may change, but the process goes on.

  If one does not understand shadow-work and the notion of process, serial monogamy can seem meaningless and feel futile. But with the understanding that each of these seemingly unrelated relationships is part of an ongoing developmental process, providing grist for the mill in the next relationship, one can gain real meaning and value, as well as have more fun. The price of admission is emotional vulnerability; the payoff is the wisdom that comes with it. In this way, even a short relationship can enrich your life, in spite of not fulfilling your romantic dreams. And each experience can better prepare you for the next romance with the shadow.

  A STORY OF DATING AS SHADOW-WORK

  The story of our client Brad, forty-five, an extremely good-looking, charismatic corporate executive, illustrates this inner process of dating as shadow-work over several years. Brad had been leading a Don Juan life when he came to therapy, dating and seducing a series of women he called “upgrades,” one beauty after another who served to elevate his own sense of self-worth. But eventually Brad began to imagine something more; he began to long for deeper, more meaningful contact with a woman. And then his search after an eternal feminine ideal began to feel like a meaningless series of defeats. At that time he began to suffer bouts of anxiety from an unknown source and to feel emotionally bankrupt.

  Upon beginning shadow-work, Brad was dating Alice, a real estate broker. Although she was extremely attractive and treated him well, Brad knew somehow that she was not intelligent enough for him and was not the partner he sought. Nonetheless, he called her daily, “just to check in,” and took her out on fashionable dates. From her side, Alice experienced Brad as distant and condescending, in spite of his perfect manners and attentive phone calls.

  When the therapist asked why he called Alice so regularly if he did not have strong feelings for her, Brad responded that he felt obligated to call out of a sense of guilt. He felt guilty because he wanted sex without intimacy, which caused him to feel out of integrity with himself. This behavior, in turn, caused him to feel anxious and ashamed, so he checked up on her to appear like a gentleman, thereby attempting to avoid his own discomfort.

  Brad brought in the following dream: My mother is flirting with a younger man, but she won’t introduce him to me. Historically, Brad’s mother had suffered from severe depression when he was a boy and confided to him some of her deepest problems, including her secret desire for divorce. He had felt overwhelmed by her neediness and afraid that she would leave him, abandoned and alone. So, he had felt responsible for her happiness and for keeping their family together, which created the shadow character of a desperate, insecure, obligated child. At the same time, he felt repulsed by her efforts at intimacy.

  As an adult, Brad, the gentleman, experienced a sense of duty to women when, unconsciously, he projected his mother onto them. This mother complex, in turn, triggered a deep fear of emotional involvement because it aroused frightening feelings of dependency and resentment in him. So Brad resented Alice because of his imagined obligations, yet at the same time felt terrified that he would fail her and be abandoned. These fears undermined his ability to risk entering into an authentic relationship: intimacy equals obligation, dependency, and the terror of abandonment.

  In therapy, Brad expressed pent-up anger at his mother for seducing him into being her confidant and caretaker and for violating his emotional boundaries. He had a right to be angry—it’s not a child’s job to advise a parent about divorce or to keep her from depression. The dream had forced him to acknowledge that his mother was far from perfect; the trapdoor to his mother complex had opened and with it the access to his forbidden feeling world, which was populated by these shadow characters.

  Brad’s persona, the character with an uncaring, freewheeling spirit without needs of his own, defended him against his devouring mother and his terror of losing himself with other women. Through shadow-work, he began to recognize his behavior and attitudes as characters at the table. He imagined his mother as a thirsty vampire, who sucked life from him as she lived vicariously through him. As a child he had felt helplessly swallowed by this devouring aspect of her, and this is what he had feared in women ever since.

  Brad had moved thousands of miles from home to get away from his depressed, critical mother. But unknowingly he took her along—she had become his internal critic. It was she in his own mind who told him that no woman was intelligent enough. It was she who told him to call every night and act like a gentleman so that women’s feelings would not be hurt. This two-dimensional critical voice now came alive as a three-dimensional creature with its own vested interests. The life of the critical vampire was dependent upon his failures with other women. If Brad were to succeed in forming a satisfying relationship, the critic would no longer have a lifeline.

  Although maintaining his obligations helped him to avoid the difficult feelings of guilt and resentment, they cut off access to his positive feelings as well, prohibiting him from knowing whether he felt authentically interested in someone. If Brad could give up these obligatory relationships and risk being alone, he might rediscover his tender, soulful, but well-hidden feelings. This key task provided another dimension to his dating experience.

  To break the obligatory pattern, Brad needed to recognize the gentleman character as a saboteur of authenticity. The therapist encouraged Brad to call Alice only when he really wanted contact. The following evening, on a prearranged date with her, Brad became angry because, although he had tried for an hour to bring her to orgasm during lovemaking, he “failed.” In his anger, he went into the bathroom, full of resentment, and looked in the mirror—only to discover that his obligatory relationship went beyond phone calls and extended to love-making. He felt guilty if he did not satisfy her and angry at her when he was unsuccessful. He also identified the obligatory character within him and realized that this drama took place within his own mind, and that it may have had nothing to do with her expectations of him. At that point, he knew that he was angry at himself, not at her, and he ended the relationship that evening.

  Several months later, Brad fell in love at first sight with “a goddess,” Joanne; he became captured by her image. He cracked up on the rocks, losing his sense of himself and performing again as the perfect gentleman because he felt insecure and deep within believed himself unworthy of her love. Brad felt worshipful around her
and quite awkward, like a toad who needed to be awakened by her kiss. His anxiety returned, and he lost sleep worrying about whether she would care about him.

  But this time Brad was more prepared to deal with his patterns and witness his emotions. He began to spend time alone writing in a journal about his experiences with women. With Joanne as his internal muse, he explored his feelings of vulnerability and powerlessness, his dislike of obligation, and his fears of isolation and commitment. Brad suffered deep discomfort and bouts of painful depression. But through this process he came into a deeper relationship with his own authentic feelings and uncovered a dormant aspect of himself, some gold in the shadow—his creative, poetic side. In this way, his infatuation with the outer muse began to lessen.

  Soon he was ready to risk giving up a fantasy relationship with a goddess for an authentic relationship with a real woman. Sacrificing his defensive role as a suave gentleman, he asked Joanne directly about her intentions toward him. She responded that she was busy and would call him, but she never did. As painful as it was to be rejected, Brad had an epiphany: He saw himself through the eyes of Alice, his former girlfriend. He realized that he was being treated by Joanne the way that he had treated Alice—with avoidance and disdain.

  His illusions shattered: The goddess was flawed, distant, and uncaring. In addition, he now saw that she drank so heavily that she was probably an alcoholic, which he had not allowed himself to acknowledge previously. In seeing her limitations, he uncovered his own projections and became prepared to meet her and be met as two mortal human beings. But she had disappeared.

  However, Brad had been empowered and, by risking his feelings, he was now behaving with a higher degree of authenticity in the dating process. He began to recover his self-respect and feelings of equality with women. In addition, he had discovered a law of relationship—we must be willing to risk a relationship as it is in order to allow it to become something else.

  Most recently, Brad began dating Diana, a high school teacher. Despite a strong attraction, he could feel the love without falling into it; he could hear the music and stay centered on his breath. In other words, he had established a sense of identity beyond the feeling of fusion. Brad’s centeredness and expanded range of feeling were new to him, but he did not assume that he knew what the feelings meant. Despite his strong emotions, he did not project into the future because he understood that he and Diana did not yet know each other deeply. He felt apprehensive about not being in control as a gentleman, but he also felt excited about the possibility of a deeper intimacy. Brad was finally capable of vulnerability and of beginning to explore the realm of conscious relationships.

  Continuing to write in his journal, Brad looked through the rearview mirror to gain self-knowledge from exploring the pattern in his dating relationships: He identified the obligatory behavior of the gentleman character in which he lost an authentic connection to his own Self. He identified the character of the critic and the projection of shadow in which he saw the lack in others, his unconscious attempt to remain superior in order to protect himself from intimacy. He identified the projection of soul onto his goddess lover, which uncovered his inferior shadow character. And he discovered his mother’s shadow hidden in the recesses of his own mind, like a Sphinx guarding the entranceway to his vulnerable, soulful feelings.

  To an observer Brad may have appeared as a contemporary Don Juan womanizer. However, on the inside, he was undergoing a continuous process to which he became deeply committed with a high degree of integrity. As a result, he learned to turn his experience into wisdom, becoming more and more conscious of his own unconscious dynamics so that he could move toward a more authentic, soulful partnership. Finally, in building a relationship to his inner critic, he solved the riddle of the Sphinx.

  SEX, MONEY, AND POWER SHADOWS

  In many relationships, money, sex, and power shadows get woven together in a web of unconscious patterns. In dating, for example, they may work together to disguise the deeper shadow issue of dependency. Some people use sex or money to gain power in a relationship, so that they can feel safe enough to get their needs met without feeling vulnerable. To be vulnerable is to risk falling into dependency, attachment, and fear of abandonment. They may engage in emotionally detached sex to avoid intimacy yet maintain a connection. Or they may use money as a cover-up for feelings of low self-worth, maintaining a safe, superficial persona and reinforcing a desired image.

  However, despite our shields, after we begin to receive love, acceptance, and sex from another person, the fear of dependency begins to emerge. We may fear being overpowered (“I’m powerless if I’m dependent because you have what I need more than anything. It’s worth even more than taking care of my own authentic needs.” These are the roots of codependency). Or we may fear being abandoned (“If I’m dependent on you and you leave me, I’ll be devastated and alone again”).

  Clearly, this intense fear of feeling our dependency needs stems from early childhood experiences, but it also has a cultural root. Our collective worship of independence or heroic autonomy puts dependency in the cultural shadow, tainting it with fear and shame. Therefore, some people develop counterdependency, a terror of intimacy with the appearance of autonomy; whereas others develop codependency, a terror of autonomy with the appearance of intimacy. In the first, the possibility of authentic relationship is sacrificed for the needs of the individual; in the second, the individual’s authentic needs are sacrificed for the relationship. In both instances, authentic, valid dependency needs lie in the shadow. Perhaps one of the aims of the dating process is to explore the potential for healthy interdependency with the other person.

  SEXUAL SHADOWS: EROTIC INTOXICATION AND RISKY BEHAVIOR

  Sexual shadows abound during dating and the early stages of romance. For some, a terror of sex renders physical intimacy impossible; for others, a terror of intimacy leads to compulsive sex. Epidemic numbers of people suffer from low sexual desire, having banished Aphrodite or Dionysus into shadow; many others suffer endless craving, like our client Noel. While many women worry about an inability to have an orgasm, many men worry about self-control and premature ejaculation. And members of both sexes keep sexual secrets: One client told her therapist that she dated a man for four years before he disclosed that he was bisexual and having unprotected sex with men during the time he slept with her. It took her years to recover from the betrayal.

  When Tom, a software salesman, met Dory at a party, he felt immediately intrigued: She radiated self-confidence and sensuality. He told himself that she seemed refreshingly different from the more insecure women of his past, refreshingly free. Later that night, Tom dreamed of making love to Dory with a sexual charge that overtook him. A few days later, they spent a splendid evening in her candlelit living room dancing and necking until midnight; then they went upstairs, following Eros into the bedroom.

  Tom and Dory fell headlong into the most intense sexual relationship of their lives. Dory, who had been sexually abused, needed heavy stimulation, thus evoking a sexual aggression that had been buried in Tom. Once given permission to express his sexuality so freely, he became obsessed with her, fantasizing about their sex games day and night. He was under her spell.

  After several months, however, Tom had a rude awakening: He and Dory had nothing much to say to each other. And she frequently responded insensitively to his needs. In the end, he realized that he had mistaken sexual intoxication for a relationship; he had confused the release of his passion with love. With disappointment, he told Dory that he wished to stop seeing her. And, with the understanding that he could resume dating as shadow-work, he took up the challenge to discover his erotic nature in a less compulsive way in the next relationship.

  In another story of sexual shadow, Joyce, the youngest of six children, was taught to be nice and not to make waves. Her mother told her that if she would just keep quiet and willingly lose at tennis most men would like her. The underlying message: You are your persona.

&
nbsp; Joyce came to therapy as a thirty-year-old journalist who had married her first lover seven years earlier. Like many young people who marry as virgins in their twenties, she had done what was expected of her as a young Catholic woman and become a wife. But at that time Joyce had no will of her own, no real sense of herself or of the contribution she might make. And although her husband was kind, they shared little passion or deep connection with each other. Joyce said she felt like a robot, “not living life, just sucking air.”

  Nonetheless, within the security and safety of her marriage, Joyce naturally matured and developed her own opinions and explored her own needs, like a caterpillar in a cocoon. As she became more aware of her own authentic needs, she gradually became dissatisfied with the superficiality of her relationship. During the final year of the marriage she asked her husband to join her in therapy, but he declined. Eventually, the container of the relationship felt too small for her—she needed to fly. So, with sorrow, she ended the marriage. When she came to therapy, she had dated only one man briefly since her divorce and felt that her sexual passion had been suppressed for years. Although she felt unseen and untouched, she desperately wanted to play, to make up for lost time.

  Joyce began to shop in high-style boutiques and to adorn herself to attract wealthy men. She reported that she chose them like “ornaments” and just wanted to be seen on their arms. In fact, she was trading sex for attention. She felt used and disrespected most of the time and would come into therapy feeling angry and hurt because of how they had treated her. In fact, she expected men to respect her when she did not respect herself.