Cupcakes and Unfinished Business
For WE’s birthday bash, I decided to make him chocolate cupcakes from scratch. I used a recipe that he had seen on America’s Test Kitchen but hadn’t tried yet.
(Even though I did actually cook these, WE should still get the credit..since it was his recipe AND the chocolate shavings on top were the perfect touch and, of course, HIS idea not mine.)
Unbeknown to me and independent of my decision to surprise him with cupcakes, WE was reminiscing this week about when he was in grade school and the lunch lady used to make cupcakes for the kids on their birthday. Well, since WE has a summer birthday – he, of course, never got a lunch-lady-cupcake and hasn’t quite gotten over that childhood wound yet. So I hope that these cupcakes 22 years after the fact can in some small way make up for all the sorrow and hurt he felt as a first-grader.
This brings me to an idea that I’ve been mulling over lately…
…that of unfinished business.
Let me explain. A few months before our wedding, I was at a bridal shower (not my own, but my roommate’s) and happened to get a book as a party favor. It was Getting the Love you Want – A Guide for Couples by Harville Hendrix. As I walked out of the party, a friend said to me that she had read the book and thought it was very fantastic. So I thought to myself, “Self – you should start reading this right away… as you are getting married soon and that means that maybe you should try to figure out at least something about love.”
As I opened up the first few pages to the table of contents, I was surprised at the chapter headings. It wasn’t really the typical stuff I had expected. It said things like “The Mystery of Attraction”, “Childhood Wounds”, “Your Imago”, and “Unfinished Business.” It didn’t have any chapters about communication, expressing love, or any of the other typical love/marriage themes I’ve seen in books before. I was immediately intrigued.
Anyway, turns out that the major premise of the book is that we psychologically are attracted to and ultimately marry someone that we feel can make us “whole” by making up for the wounds of the past. The author talks about the part of your brain that searches for a mate (the unorderly, unlogical, and un-timelocked part) and it (your brain) tries to re-create the the conditions of your upbringing in order to correct them. Your brain attempts to “return to the scene of your original frustration so that you could resolve your unfinished business.” He uses the example of a woman that marries a man with many of the same positive and negative qualities of her father – even if her father was an abusive drunk. The brain recognizes the unresolved childhood issue and tries to somehow resolve it by attracting you to another person that has the same abusive characteristics so that hopefully in the end that person will treat you differently and ultimately restore the feelings of wholeness by correcting the pains of the past. This is all in the unconsciousness of your brain. But there is a conscience brain too.
Therefore, if you move towards a “conscience marriage” – using your logical brain instead – you can gradually let go of illusions and begin to see your partner “not as a savior but as another wounded individual, struggling to be healed.” You acknowledge the dark side of your own nature and stop projecting your negative traits on your partner.
So whether or not you actually believe all this abstract psychology superego/ego mumbo-jumbo (I’m still trying to figure out if I do!), I have seen some examples (either in my own life or in the lives of people that I know) similar to the ones that the author shares in the book. It was, in fact, a fascinating read that made me wonder “What are the wounds of my past that my brain is unconsciously trying to heal?” and “What are WE’s wounds that unconsciously he’s hoping that I can heal?”
Well anyway, while I sit and try to figure it all out for my marriage I thought I’d just throw that thought out there for you in yours as well. And in the meantime, I’ll keep making cupcakes for WE on his birthday.
Great post.
Sounds like an interesting book I might need to check out.
Brad and I are reading “His Needs Her Needs” right now. It talks about building an affair-proof marriage. It’s good.
Cupcakes look awesome!
When Ron and I go to Florida on the 27th, I need to take a couple of books along- we are still trying to figure out how to spend a whole week together
Could I borrow that book? If so, you would have to send it to me.
Yeah, I can send it to you.
I guess this just shows how awesome our marriage is… You already planned on making cupcakes to fulfill my 23 year old unfulfilled primary school dream of eating cupcakes on my birthday without even knowing that I had an unfilled primary schoold ream of eating cupcakes on my birthday.
Perfect.
So I feel the need to clarify this post somewhat. =) I don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea…
The fact that I had to wonder what the wounds of my past are says ALOT about my parents and siblings! And that may be the case for many of my readers too.
But if you take the author’s word for it, everyone has wounds. So for those of you like me that may have to wonder what those wounds could be, I thought I’d share some more insight from the book.
One chapter in the book states that many of the wounds come from before our logical brain can remember. But the unconscious brain is not bound by time and can always remember. He uses the example of a newborn baby that has no way of taking care of itself and no sense of delayed gratification. If the outside world doesn’t respond instantly, it’s brain is filled with the fear of death because to that infant’s brain it’s needs are a matter of life and death. The author concludes that even those early moments can influence our adult lives.
Also, the author talks about socialization (common to all families and all societies) as another kind of wound. In other words, either by explicit words, implicit ignoring of actions, or purely by example – most children’s personalities are molded by their original caretakers (usually parents and/or siblings). We don’t do that. We do this. That’s not an acceptable behavior. That emotion is not acknowledged in our family. This emotion is acknowledged. Our religion bans that trait. Our religion looks favorably on these traits.
The author talks about this wound as our “lost self.” He says:
Whenever we complain that we “can’t think” or that we “can’t feel anything” or that we “can’t dance” or “aren’t very creative,” we are identifying natural abilities, thoughts, or feelings that we have surgically removed from our awareness. They are not gone; we still possess them. But for the moment they are not a part of our consciousness, and it is as if they do not exist. But the unconscious brain is constantly looking the reclaim that lost self…even if by proxy. Hence, the phrase “opposites attract.” Dan is talkative and his wife is shy and introverted. Jan is an intuitive thinker and her husband is very logical. Rena is a dancer and her husband has a stiff and rigid body.
I’d say that for my marriage, this idea more than the others hits home for me since WE and I were attracted to each other (someone with very distinctly different “lost selves” but for which we could make each other “whole”)
Anyway, just some more food for thought. Like I said, I don’t know if I’m completely sold on all this unconscious/conscious brain stuff. But it is interesting to think about.
Well I married Carrie because she had sexy legs and pretty eyes. I guess that tells you what my wounds were – hahaha!!!!
By the way, you guys are making those cupcakes next time we’re together! That was pure torture just getting to look.