Blog

BP 204

Laura and Caleb had only been married six months when ominous clouds began to appear on the distant horizon.

Laura and Caleb were both ‘driven’ people. Laura was working a lot. Caleb was busy with grad school. They devoted little time to cultivating their new union in Christ believing that school and work were the highest priority for their future. They forgot or never fully understood that their new marriage needed to be the highest priority. Little did they know that on a day only a month away, a landmine would explode in their marriage that would change everything.

You see, when you marry someone, every unhealed wound and every unmet need will get opened sooner or later. The pain of every scabbed-over-but-not-totally-healed emotional laceration will be awakened. Guaranteed. Marriage is difficult enough but becomes almost impossible when invisible and maybe even forgotten people from the past who created those original wounds enter the marriage and live with the couple in every room of their home.

Stepping on landmines applies not just to marriage, of course. It can happen between siblings, parents and kids, friends, even work associates. If you stay out of the minefield, you won’t step on a landmine. Keep your distance from each other and there will be no explosions. But if you keep a safe distance, there also will be no intimacy. You will never get close enough to love each other.

That’s why marriage especially triggers the old wounds—because you’re living at close proximity with someone and can’t hide as easily. You eventually come home from work or come home from school and interact with each other. Then all the old landmines will get stepped on as you live under the same roof. Yes, people in the same house can avoid each other and keep a safe distance but it is much more difficult.

Sooner or later, if there are deep, young wounds, they will be touched—especially if you have become “one flesh.” Sexual intimacy has a way of creating a closeness physically that spills over into emotional closeness that then triggers the landmines of pain, abuse, abandonment.

Just consider that sometimes we maintain distance not because we are primarily distrusting of the other person but because somewhere in our deeper self we do not trust our own self. We fear our hypersensitivity, anger, reactivity, and maybe even the intensity of our hunger to be loved. A child in us is starving for the love that may have been missed as a child and now as an adult is desired in a perfect way from a person who will never hurt us.

So, you can be distant and safe, or you can be close, and risk hurt and threats to trust. What will you choose? There is always a minefield between people. What are the landmines buried in that field? Wounds from past relationships. Unfinished business with others from the past. Unresolved fear, anger, distrust, and even young coping skills or beliefs that were developed in childhood that are not helpful as an adult but persist due to the intensity of the hurt or abandonment.

One landmine might even be anger and shame toward our own young self who is too scared, touchy, weak, immature, and worthy of judgment.

So, let us look at a few questions today, namely, how do you know if you’ve stepped on a landmine—especially the largest one in the minefield; and, what do you do when a big landmine blows up?

To address the first question, let me say that I don’t want to look at the smaller landmines today, the ones that are the size of a dinner plate. I want to look at the ones that are the size of a buried bunker buster bomb that weighs 3300 pounds, 2400 pounds of which is a high explosive penetrating warhead. These are huge munitions that may not always exist to destroy others but to protect your own heart from anything that touches or reminds you of past trauma/abuse—physical, emotional, verbal, sexual, and including neglect, rejection, abandonment, and annihilation.

So, how do you know if you’ve stepped on a large landmine? My first answer is that you will know without a doubt when you have stepped on the Big One. What are the signs in yourself (or in others) that inform you that the mega-big landmine has been triggered? Let’s make a list of telltale signs (these are addressed to Christians who are not going to end up in jail one day for abuse and are not domestic abusers but who can be hugely triggered by a place of woundedness in their younger heart):

1. A large wave of emotion rushes from your heart, up your throat, and into your brain. Your thinking capacity diminishes, and you are inundated by a tsunami of intense feelings.
2. You are not thinking from your upper brain but feeling intense emotions from your primitive, reactive amygdala.
3. Another way to say it is that you are in your emotional mind, not your wise mind.
4. You can’t trust yourself in this moment. You have regressed into a younger version of yourself who may be four years old (or even younger).
5. If you don’t leave the situation, you will say and do things you regret. Guaranteed.
6. You will blow past every mature stop sign that typically prevents you from reacting out of rage and terror.
7. Behaviors rush out of in a whitewater torrent that are not typical for you when you are in your wise mind. Some of these behaviors are screaming, swearing, name calling, character assassination (e.g., “you are such an idiot, so selfish, so mean, so lazy, so clueless, an abuser, a murderer”), abruptly leaving, bringing up an exhaustive list of everything your spouse has ever done that is bad and shameful, and even resorting to physical attacks such as hitting, pushing, scratching, slapping, kicking. As mentioned above, you cannot trust yourself at this moment or the person you are with if they also are in their emotional mind.
8. You shame your spouse (sibling, parent, child, friend, even a stranger during road rage) for your own acting out behavior. At these moments, you do not take responsibility for your own young behavior, but you certainly do a thorough job of pointing out the terrible behavior of the other person. The psychobabble word is ‘projection’. You project your badness and shame into the other person while you remain blameless in your own mind. Or you speak to them and treat them as a raging, abusive person treated you in the past. We call that ‘transference’.
9. You become the victim, and the other person becomes the victimizer. I am not saying that there never are victims, just that in this scenario when you are in your emotional mind, you are capable of often seeing yourself as the righteous victim while the other person is the victimizer in your enraged but scared eyes.
10. When we are emotionally young, we blame others. We scapegoat. We point the finger away from us a toward ‘them.’ At best, we minimize our own behaviors as self-protective and maximize the other person’s behaviors as monstrous.
11. Someone else has entered the room. It is not just the two of you in the room when the bunker buster explodes but other presences like an abandoning parent, a shaming relative or caretaker, an abusive stranger, a past romantic partner who was not healthy.
12. When you react at a level 10 out of 10, you know that the biggest land mine has been triggered. If you respond at a level of 5 out of 10, the emotion you are feeling is all in the present, it is all due to the person who is immediately with you in the room. When you react hugely (8/10 or higher), usually the person you are with has triggered you (yes, with some type of primitive behavior of his or her own) but your intense explosion tells you that something ancient has been summoned forth from the darkest recesses of your heart.

There are other behaviors that emerge at a time like this, but the above items are representative of what occurs when the largest landmine is triggered in your heart. Someone else will step on your bunker buster landmine, but always remember: the landmine is yours. You provide the reaction and are responsible for the words of your lips and the actions of your body (just as the other person is responsible for his or her landmine reactions). He or she do not cause what you do next.

Do we not know from God’s word that the human heart, whether in the Gentile or the Jew, is under sin according to Romans 3:

“None is righteous, no, not one;
¹¹     no one understands;
no one seeks for God.
¹² All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
no one does good,
not even one.”
¹³ “Their throat is an open grave;
they use their tongues to deceive.”
“The venom of asps is under their lips.”
¹⁴     “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.”
¹⁵ “Their feet are swift to shed blood;
¹⁶     in their paths are ruin and misery,
¹⁷ and the way of peace they have not known.”
¹⁸     “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

Our flesh is not to be trusted. This truth applies not just to the one who harms us or hurts us, but to our own heart of flesh as well.

The second question we are going to address is what to do after (or ideally, before) the landmine blows up. Here are some suggestions:

1. Remove yourself from the situation. Create enough space to evaluate what happened or is happening. Your whole body is on fire, so you need to take a time out to slow down your physiological reaction. Your body is telling you that you are in a fight or flight situation, and you will most likely will lash out or run away. When you take a time out, you are admitting that you need time for emotional de-escalation instead of accusing the other person of her or his need to de-escalate. Breathe deeply and pray for the Holy Spirit to help move you from your emotional mind (usually synonymous with the flesh or our sinful self unless in this instance you are totally the victim) into your wise, godly mind.
2. When you have calmed down, always look inside first. Jesus commented on this mature behavior when He told us to take the log out of our own eye first before we take the speck out of someone else’s eye. Humans are predisposed to blame others. To look inside and take responsibility goes against our natural bent.
3. When the bunker buster landmine explodes, we will be in a traumatized state that might even trigger a PTSD reaction flowing from events that occurred years ago. If such is the case, you need to assess if the person you are conflicting with in the moment is harming you or if they are hurting you. There is a difference between the two. Both hurt and harm are painful and can feel dangerous but take some time to decide if the person you are with is typically or characteristically harmful (motivated by nature to do damage to you) or did both of you trigger each other’s bunker buster reaction? Is the incident you experienced a pattern that will likely be repeated or is it a rare event that may still have felt dangerous but is not going to be a pattern but reveals something in both of you that must be addressed.
4. This next thought must be received carefully and in a nuanced way: Did the landmine explode partly as a result of reenactment? In psychology, we also call it repetition compulsion. Is there an unresolved pattern of pain, abandonment, and abuse from your past that you unconsciously repeat in present day relationships. It is almost like retraumatizing yourself but for a good ending. This possibility of reenactment applies to both individuals in the conflict. There seems to be some validity to the fact that we all have “schemas” inside of us, lenses through which we see the world due to past experiences, probably all of them painful. On some deeper level, we might subconsciously go back to these unresolved patterns and attempt to resolve them in our present relationship by recreating the ancient drama with a view toward healing it this time. But with reenactment, before the healing can occur, we must go back and repeat the old pattern that needs to be raised to consciousness.
5. God will work all things together for good. He is in control. Yes, we often need to protect ourselves in threatening situations and remove ourselves from harm, but do you really believe that God is going to take care of you? Do you tend to revert to a self-sufficient mode where you trust yourself more than anyone outside of you or more than God Himself? Many survivors of past suffering believe that they can only trust themselves to take care of their bodies and hearts. It is he or she against the world.
6. God will allow these landmine events to occur so that you will see something you need to learn about yourself and/or the other person. He will grow you through these events.
7. Accept the fact that past pain that triggers intense emotions with your spouse today will undermine your objectivity. Strong emotions in any of us can even create reality in our minds that is not entirely true. So, be open to getting objective feedback from others to help you see if your perspective is emotionally created. All of us have blind spots. Be willing to have others help you identify those areas of blindness. This feedback is best sought not from your spouse whom you are conflicting with but with an objective source who does not tell you what you want to hear but tells you what is true especially as they consult God.
8. Here is another delicate comment that I hope I communicate well: Women often fight with words while men fight with their hands. I know there are times when women can become physical with their spouse, but most often they use words of disrespect to hurt their husband while men may turn to either stonewalling (shutting their wife out of their emotional lives) or physical reactions.
9. In a related point, men need respect, and women need love, generally speaking. If men perceive disrespect, criticism, nagging–death from a thousand papercuts (harsh words that can destroy a man’s heart just as a man’s fists can destroy a woman’s body) as it were–they will engage in fight or flight. They will fight back verbally or physically to protect themselves or engage in flight and protect themselves with the stone wall. Both can be harmful responses to his wife: one feels like rejection and abandonment to her while the other is physically abuse and scary to her. If women feel unloved, not chosen, not pursued, they will use words that can feel attacking and disrespectful to the husband possibly in an attempt to get his attention. Do you see the crazy cycle that might be generated in a marriage of disrespect and lack of love? Be careful to identify this cycle early because if you fall into it as a pattern, the wife will become bitter and contemptuous while the man will become unloving and abandoning. A man hates contempt and a woman rues feeing unloved and rejected.
10. If you both love Jesus and want to grow and neither one of you is motivated by a desire to harm the other person, don’t give up after one big landmine explodes. Bring in professional help and acknowledge that you have some growing to do. Remember, the first year or two of the marital union is called Marriage Kindergarten. You hardly know how to tie your shoes. Be patient with your spouse and maybe even more so with yourself.
11. Identify your own internal shame and do not project it onto your spouse. We are all born under condemnation as John 3:16-18 talks about, so don’t pile on more condemnation to your spouse. Know the difference between communicating to your spouse that he/she needs to grow and communicating that they are all bad and totally untrustworthy.
12. Be people of forgiveness and not people of memorizing your spouse’s mistakes. Paul writes to us in Colossians: “bearing with one another, and if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.” No, forgiveness is not equivalent to trust. But forgiveness is the first step to developing trust. Also, know the difference between “trust is earned” and “you must jump through all my hoops perfectly before my offended and young heart will ever let you back in the house.”
13. Don’t trust everything you feel when your bunker buster landmine is detonated. What you feel will be young and reactive and possibly annihilating. Trust truth that comes from God’s word and godly people in your life. Try to find wise people who trust Jesus for counsel during this difficult time. Don’t listen to people who are man haters or woman blamers.
14. Be teachable.
15. Move toward. There are three ways to respond to people when they hurt or even harm you: You can move against them in rage, move away from them in fear and rejection, or you can move toward them in a mature spirit of reconciliation. Moving away from is like hiding. Some people hide in self-made bunkers their whole lives. Be someone who chooses to forgive and move toward the one you love, who is quick to give him or her a second chance instead of rehearsing the badness.
16. Buckle your young reactive self in a safe car seat in the backseat of your car. Don’t let the young one drive. Protect her or him, but by all means, don’t let them do the steering in your relationships. Identify your mature adult. Make sure that part of you drives the vehicle of your heart.
17. Protect yourself, but don’t bunker yourself.
18. See the mistake someone made, but don’t see them as a mistake.
19. Ask yourself what Jesus would do in this situation. Remember that you are not Jesus.
20. To be repetitive, don’t trust your young emotions or version of reality. Trust your adult, yes. But the child in you sees things in terms of black and white, good or all bad, I’m the good one and you’re the bad one. Do not trust conclusions that come from your emotional mind.
21. You can love your spouse only as much as you love yourself.
22. Don’t fully trust yourself when you are hurt or angry. Take time to step away and look inside and look to Jesus and people with skin on who know how to look at both your reaction and that of your spouse without moving toward the ‘D’ word far too soon.

Marriage (and sometimes other relationships) is an impossible relationship. You probably married someone at your level of emotional development so, if you both have young places inside of you that have never grown or healed, know that these places will get triggered when you get married. You both will react out of your younger self.

When these landmines get triggered and explode, you can move against or away from the other person. You can blame and project your own abusive anger into the other person and see them as the problem. You can trust your emotional mind and react instead of respond. Even as Christians, we can make emotionally young decisions.

So, choose to grow.

Run to Jesus, look inside first, do not trust all of your perceptions, your young coping skills, or your emotionally-driven beliefs. Seek help from others who have been around the block with life and Jesus in their marriage.

Above all, be slow to blame (move against) and run away (move away).

Do you remember what C. S. Lewis said about love and hurt and self-protection?

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness.”

Leave a person who wants to harm you. Set a firm boundary. But don’t slam the door on someone who does not wish to hurt or harm you but might do so in a moment when you are mutually in your emotional minds.

With that said, men, never get physical with your wife when you are angry. Take a time out and leave before you resort to physical violence (even if your wife initiates physical violence). Have zero-tolerance for reacting physically. Run before you volcano. Violence will not quickly be forgotten by your wife.

Women, be aware of the power of your words. Words can be as sharp as a sword and do irreparable damage, especially if you shame, criticize, blame, and repetitively move against your husband with disrespect. Your husband may even feel bullied. We call this behavior the erosion of the masculine soul.

This blogpost is not comprehensive. Consider it as a place to begin when the bunker buster landmine is detonated. I am counting on your relationship with Jesus to be the safe ground from which you move toward each other in a spirit of love, forgiveness, wise boundaries, and self-awareness, seeking others to walk with you on the journey through marriage kindergarten. It can be a very difficult season.

Remember that you committed to a covenant, not a transaction. Study and learn what a covenant is and live by it. God help you.

“‘You are my servant’;
I have chosen you and have not rejected you.
¹⁰ So do not fear, for I am with you;
do not be dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you;
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” Isaiah 41:9b,10