Careful Where You Dig

A couple of summers ago King Tutankhamen visited our city again. It had been over twenty years since the boy king, who died in 1339 B.C., was on tour along with artifacts from his tomb. As impressive as the exhibit was, though, I found the story of his discovery as interesting as the treasures that lay inside his almost perfectly in tact final resting place. Howard Carter, the English archaeologist who found Tut’s tomb, had searched carefully, persistently, purposefully for ten years in the blazing Egyptian desert. And when he finally found the entrance to the tomb, almost accidentally, the work was still not finished. Locating a treasure is not worth very much if you destroy it in the unearthing process. So, Carter and his team ever so gently, almost reverently, explored the interior of the tomb, and the person that lay within, foot by foot, observing, studying, learning with great respect. After ten years of searching, you can imagine how much Carter might have been tempted to rush, to hurry, to take control of his find and exploit it for personal gain. But he maintained a remarkably unhurried and cautious pace, not wanting to damage in any way such a precious find. The process was more important to him than any individual agenda. Howard Carter’s approach to King Tut and his world serves as an apt analogy for how spouses should explore their partners’ respective pasts. In relationships, we must be careful when digging…archaeology with a heart!
Wanting to explore the mystery of your beloved, spiritually, emotionally, and physically, is an essential part of intimacy. If you’re not curious about how your partner has become the person he or she is, there’s a problem. After all, how else can you learn how to love him or her more and more fully. In order to make discoveries, we must do some digging into the past; not everything lies on the surface. There are great treasures that lie buried in history, but we must proceed with great care and gentleness.
A few guidelines for this “archaeological process” are sure to help your “dig” remain helpful and not harmful.
First, be clear about your motivation. Why are you asking the questions you’re asking? Is it to know your partner more fully so that you can love him or her more completely? Is it that you want your spouse to feel cared for, attended to, celebrated? Or, is your agenda less about love and more about control? Are you attempting to gain the upper hand in an argument, shame or guilt your partner into a subordinate role, make yourself feel significant.
Second, keep in mind that prior relationships, prior choices (both good and bad), prior experiences must be understood within the contexts they happened. A huge mistake would be to judge your spouse for something that happened years ago, with no respect for time, place, or culture. This would be a little like Howard Carter criticizing King Tut for his burial attire, or the way his tomb was organized. Reality check: ask yourself if you and your world have changed at all since you were in high school or early adulthood. Have you learned anything new about life and love, responsibility and freedom since you were 18 or 21 years old...or even since last year? My hopeful guess is that you have.
Finally, there must be freedom to share what one is comfortable sharing…and permission to say “I’m not ready to go there” or “not now” if the questions begin to feel uncomfortable, or the tone of the discussion begins to feel less like intimacy and more like an inquisition. If this occurs, put the breaks on and figure out what the emotional discomfort is about. It might be related to the here-and-now, the style or tone of the conversation, but it may also be linked to pain from the past that has not been fully healed. If the latter is the case, consider red-flagging the issue and revisiting it individually and/or as a couple with a trained third party (i.e. a counselor). Remember, discovering a treasure is wasted if, in the handling, we destroy it.