The client tells me he is angry that his wife is not intimate enough with him and, by that, he means that she doesn’t divulge very much of her personal feelings to him.
It may be true that she is hiding her personal feelings from him however, the only thing we need to look at is why this angers him so much. Because of the intensity of his ‘rage’, I know for sure it’s about him, and if she chooses not to share personal feelings with him that is her business and not his.
We start to investigate what intimate personal feelings he’s withholding from her. As per my typical experience, whenever I bring this possibility to someone’s attention, the result is a high level of resistance, which also tells me that the person is projecting. He was in full battle mode defending, denying, explaining but to no avail. He eventually talked himself into understanding that he judged certain intimate feelings, and withheld those feelings from his wife, and she was mirroring him perfectly by doing the same. Interesting enough, they have been doing this from the very beginning of their relationship, and he did not allow himself to see it till now.
The homework assignment I gave him was to allow his wife to be exactly as she is, and his job was to create intimacy within himself, and share that with her. His job also was to expect no reciprocity from her. By doing this, he got to find out what feelings he was blocking in himself, and at the same time, not divulging to his wife. Once he completed the process, interestingly enough his wife started to share her deepest, most intimate, inner feelings.
