Free Intimacy & Desire: Awaken the Passion in Your Relationship by David Schnarch Page A

our mind looks to other minds for help supporting our own self-awareness. You see yourself through the eyes of people important to you. You internalize how others see you and treat you as indications of who you are.
    Our first realization of being a “self” elicits anger and frustration rather than joy and relief. It starts the moment you realize you and Mommy are not a single entity. Suddenly, there is “I” and “Thou.” (According to theologian Martin Buber, this relationship is initially “I” and “It.” 58 ) Your initial experience of selfhood comes when your parent or care-giver
isn’t
doing what you want. When you’re feeling comfortable and nurtured, you’re not aware there are two of you. I’m not describing life’s initial “trauma.” It’s just the nature of things to come.
    Borrowed functioning is “borrowed” because it doesn’t give you a solid sense of self or the ability to function in lasting ways. It’s like your self is a balloon your partner inflates. While you’re inflated, things seem better. You may look better, feel better, and even act better briefly, but these transfusions of “pseudo-self” don’t hold up. Even if your partner doesn’t deflate you, you “leak” enough to require further inflation before long.
    Borrowed functioning is also “borrowed” in the sense that it
diminishes
the donor’s (your partner’s) functioning, resilience, and reflected sense of self. This may not show at first, because even though it’s illusory, borrowed functioning can enhance both people’s functioning. But inevitably, as the LDP eventually descends into insecurity (and smoldering defiance), the HDP, having borrowed functioning, magnificently ascends on the wings of self-righteousness. In relationships where partners truly help each other, the hallmark of a healthy love is that a couple’s functioning improves together over time. The difference between real love and caring, and what Robert and Sally were doing, is that Sally was being emotionally depleted and Robert was only artificially holding himself up.
    Just because Robert and Sally engaged in borrowed functioning doesn’t mean they didn’t have a real relationship. Borrowed functioning
is
a relationship—it is
most
relationships. Whenever partners depend on each other for a positive reflected sense of self, they have an
emotional fusion
. (True interdependence requires a solid sense of self.) An emotional fusion means people are regulating their emotions (and reflected sense of self) through their interactions with their partner, rather than handling them internally, with a solid sense of self, on their own. The partner borrowing the function can change depending on the circumstances. But borrowed functioning can’t occur without a real relationship, because there’s no way for the borrowing to take place. Borrowed functioning and emotional fusion are powerful forms of relatedness, arguably the most common type. But as normal as this is, you need to grow beyond this.
    Robert felt better when Sally humbled herself and apologized, even if she had done nothing wrong. Robert was less belligerent and dogmatic when his son deferred to his authority. When everything went his way, Robert felt life was as it should be. He couldn’t see why Sally seemed so unhappy. They lived a good life. Robert figured it must be something in her past. But things between Sally and Robert weren’t happening simply because of their childhoods. They were in the groove of a love relationship, laid down millions of years ago when the human self emerged.
•
Do you depend on your partner for validation and reassurance?
     
    Normal people depend on others for their sense of identity, self-worth, and security. We do so because we are generally at a common modest level of personal development. A reflected self is the first self we have. Many people never develop much of a solid self and engage in borrowed functioning all their lives.
    Most of us