Let's say you've married an OCS adult. Lately you've been quarreling a lot. You have attributed it to different priorities, values, and temperaments. That may be true, but if you're really being honest with yourself, maybe you've married someone with OCS. Is there hope for this marriage, or should you just call it quits?
Good question. Everyone eventually has to do a cost-benefit analysis of their important relationships and determine the outcome by weighing the good and the bad. But before you do that, let me tell you about a couple I knew and describe the trajectory of their marriage.
In this instance the OCS adult was the husband. He earned a decent living in a profession he pretty much disliked. So a lot of his positive career energy was siphoned off into sticking his nose in everybody's business: his wife and kids, predominantly, but also some of his wife's extended family. This OCS adult actually grew up as an only child and derived some of his bad habits from behaviors he initiated in childhood. As an OCS child, he never learned to cooperate and compromise. He got all the parental attention every child craves, but was unable to follow the occupational path he most wanted. No medical school accepted him due to a physical disability.
Of course that only made this OCS adult more self-conscious about his disability and fueled his desire to control, manipulate and generally have things his way. Luckily he married an attractive woman who could see beyond his disability. However, she didn't know about his OCS tendencies before the marriage. Once the couple married the husband became dictatorial. The wife was not permitted to work. She couldn't drive. She couldn't socialize with some of her family because the husband didn't approve of them. (His "approval" rating was largely based on social and occupational status. If the family member's status was higher than that of the OCS husband, he felt uncomfortable and invented reasons why they should not socialize with that particular family member.)
When the couple had children, things got more complicated since there were more "moving parts." The husband had to approve of most of the decisions that his wife and children made--even minor ones like summer jobs the kids took and friends the wife made. As time went by, the wife understood that she had married a controlling individual. She succeeded in loosening some of the tighter holds he had on her and the children, but she understood that her husband's basic core had been permanently damaged. When she reached that stage of consciousness, she recognized that this acquired knowledge had put her marriage in jeopardy. She would have to do another cost-benefit evaluation and reassess her relationship.
Did she stay with her husband or divorce him? The answer will be revealed in Ch. 26
Good question. Everyone eventually has to do a cost-benefit analysis of their important relationships and determine the outcome by weighing the good and the bad. But before you do that, let me tell you about a couple I knew and describe the trajectory of their marriage.
In this instance the OCS adult was the husband. He earned a decent living in a profession he pretty much disliked. So a lot of his positive career energy was siphoned off into sticking his nose in everybody's business: his wife and kids, predominantly, but also some of his wife's extended family. This OCS adult actually grew up as an only child and derived some of his bad habits from behaviors he initiated in childhood. As an OCS child, he never learned to cooperate and compromise. He got all the parental attention every child craves, but was unable to follow the occupational path he most wanted. No medical school accepted him due to a physical disability.
Of course that only made this OCS adult more self-conscious about his disability and fueled his desire to control, manipulate and generally have things his way. Luckily he married an attractive woman who could see beyond his disability. However, she didn't know about his OCS tendencies before the marriage. Once the couple married the husband became dictatorial. The wife was not permitted to work. She couldn't drive. She couldn't socialize with some of her family because the husband didn't approve of them. (His "approval" rating was largely based on social and occupational status. If the family member's status was higher than that of the OCS husband, he felt uncomfortable and invented reasons why they should not socialize with that particular family member.)
When the couple had children, things got more complicated since there were more "moving parts." The husband had to approve of most of the decisions that his wife and children made--even minor ones like summer jobs the kids took and friends the wife made. As time went by, the wife understood that she had married a controlling individual. She succeeded in loosening some of the tighter holds he had on her and the children, but she understood that her husband's basic core had been permanently damaged. When she reached that stage of consciousness, she recognized that this acquired knowledge had put her marriage in jeopardy. She would have to do another cost-benefit evaluation and reassess her relationship.
Did she stay with her husband or divorce him? The answer will be revealed in Ch. 26
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