Service is second nature to families. For many husbands and wives, giving their all-out support to their partners and children is their way of showing their love and support.
“I will drive for you,” says the husband.
“Let me fix your clothes and cook your favorite meal,” says the wife.
What a wonderful relationship couples will have if it is always like this. Truly, service is the best way of showing our love for our family.
But what will happen to the relationship if all that the husband does is go where his family is and drive for each one of them? How will the wife feel if her service revolves around attending to the needs of her family by fixing the home and cooking for them?
Don’t you hear this oft-repeated complaint of husbands: “I served her. I did everything that she wanted. What more does she want? I do not seem to know who I am anymore!”
The wife reacts: “I made a life for him. I limited meeting friends and doing my craft so that I can have time with him and serve him. Now he keeps telling me to do my thing so he can do his.”
This happens, right? We allow our lives to be consumed by the time we spend for others and the service we give them. There is such a thing as knowing how our service is affecting our sense of self and love for others.
American family therapist Murray Bowen refers to this as “fusion” of the self between persons—in a marriage, in a relationship, or in families. Fusion means union, combination, mixture, and blending.
Isn’t it that what marriages and personalities are for—to serve, to give time, to blend, and unite with each other? Marriage and relationships are about that. But we tend to forget one critical element, and that is the how the person defines himself apart from his loved ones. A person with a healthy sense of self can differentiate his thoughts or intellectual functions from his emotions or emotional functions. He can have appropriate thought processes while managing his emotions healthily.
When the husband serves his wife and kids, does he react emotionally if they get disappointed or the family experiences stresses in relation to what he is doing for them? Being too fused, and his identity linked on his “love and service,” he may feel it is about him.
If the wife’s world is all about serving the needs of her family, and links her worth on the successes of her kids, it affects and makes her highly emotional if they fail, thinking she failed to give what they need.
In normal circumstances, this kind of couple will be OK. They serve at their best. Yet when problems come and stress level increases, the ‘fused’ couple finds it hard to see things objectively. Given that they lack their own identity, his feelings becomes her feelings, her battles react with his, and they can no longer own their individual perceptions and, of course, identity.
So what can couples and families do if there is too much of “us” or higher fusion between them?
#1 Enrich the self. Go back to the “self” and the sense of identity of each one. Allow time for each family member to have the chance to be by one’s self, to do as he wishes, to have space and time and a hobby he can call his own. This should be done sans guilt. The objective of having time for oneself is to recharge and enrich one’s sense of self in order to have more to give others. If somewhere along the way you feel you do not know yourself anymore, having a set time for yourself may help you.
#2 Ditch the guilt. Serve out of love, not out of guilt. If you cannot pick up your child or wife as you usually do because you need to do something for yourself, let go of the guilt. Enjoy yourself, as you do not do this on a daily basis. Know that this is not being selfish. It is life-giving for you, so you have more love and time to give to your loved ones.
#3 Keep an enhanced mindset. I read this somewhere, and I keep repeating this, “Make yourself a priority once in a while; it is not being selfish. It’s necessary.” Once in a while, take note. It not about the self all the time. It is not about serving others all the time. We also need to give that right amount of love and service to ourselves. We cannot give from an empty cup, so we need to make our cup full.
Go easy on yourself. Service to the family and our loved ones is what we are called to do. It is the core of our mission. Yet, in giving, we should not give our all until we are running on empty. The source of our service and our intent to give time is the love and relationship we have within our self and with our Maker. If this is our source, we can smile and lovingly say, “Happy to serve!”
This article first appeared in Family Reborn September 2017, but has since been updated.