Published Articles
By Dr. William R. Morrow

“Rules of Engagement”

As partners in a relationship get to know one another, there is a progression of increasing comfort. At first there is the desire (obsession?) to look your best, be on your best behavior, and make a good impression. It is all part of the relationship stages game where you at first hold back your real self, real feelings, real opinions about night baseball or the war in Iraq. It's really hard to be relaxed when you are guarding all this plus your personal history about having grown up in a weird family of circus performers. Then, after awhile, comes that really nice point in time when you realize you are going to be accepted, and you really don't have to try so hard to impress. The question is how far can you go? Or SHOULD you go? Over the months and years of being together, how does one achieve a balance between total comfort with a mate, on the one hand, and exercising discretion and civilized restraint on the other? What are the rules of comfortable engagement?

I submit that the key to this delicate decision about intimacy, respect, and openness is found in the one significant behavioral marker for self-revelation that symbolizes these important relationship issues in a nutshell. It is this: when can you comfortably pass gas in the presence of your partner?

You may think that mention of bodily functions is too personal. But I remind you that marriage itself is the most personal any two people can ever get in a lifetime, and therapists have to be ready. To help people work out the optimum closeness (and distance) between them, intimate issues must be dealt with in the therapist's office. Sex itself can be a kind of metaphor of where lovers find comfortable closeness. So gas is in (as a topic, I mean).

Oh I know that men with swagger and an over-exaggerated sense of the masculine think they know this crucial boundary line with no problem. They pass gas aggressively (the German word is” fardfanugan”) and with abandon, thinking that it somehow defines their territory, like the lion of the jungle. But they don't realize that this so-called natural event of the body may actually threaten a civilized relationship, and could blow the very attractiveness they are striving for. It's hard to believe they just don't care. How could they be so unconscious of the finer points of building a bond!? Sometimes discretion is called for.

Some women, on the other hand, tend to be too reticent or demure on this issue, and hold back longer than they need to for the sake of what, I don't know. Sex appeal? That is only their conscious reason. I say: if they hold back the passing of gas, who knows what else they may be holding back. It could well be the true indicator of healthy self-revelation. Besides, it could be a great way to get his attention!

Comfortably revealing one's inner self to another is vital to a good and satisfying relationship. The comfort zone is paradoxically a place, however, where each partner not only learns how to open up his/her life to another, but also learns how to hold on to a separate and distinct identity. The urge to merge minds and hearts must have limits. Maintaining one's personhood in a deep relationship is defined by a carefully considered amount of personal space, and attention to one's own personal growth. So, it comes down to: Keep some things in, and let some things go. Be discreet and timing is everything!

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