The Sleeping Beauty Next to You
Premarital Counseling: Marital Counseling: Relationships: Men: Communication: Assertiveness
A Fable for Men: The Sleeping Beauty Next To You
A couple of years ago, I was watching Disney’s version of “Sleeping Beauty” with my daughters. I was struck by the scene where Prince Phillip is held captive in a dungeon by the wicked Sorceress. Phillip sits in the dungeon cell fuming as Maleficent explains that she intends to hold the prince captive until he is 90 years old. Then, he and his horse, old, wasted and broken, will ride off to rescue the Sleeping Beauty. As I watched, I realized that this was the paranoid fantasy of most men who, early in marriage, experience themselves trapped and emotionally abused by their wives. The fantasy that some men complain about is that: “I will be stuck in a marriage with this witch until she or I die. And then, even if I survive, I’ll be too old to find another relationship where I can appreciate my youth and sexuality.” While I might understand why feminists are appalled at this tale, complaining about Sleeping Beauty’s “passivity”, I am convinced that this tale has some important wisdom for men. I’d like to share this with you.
Students of analytic psychology will often consider fairy tales as though they were dreams. One way of interpreting a dream is to see each aspect of the dream as belonging to the same person. Aurora, the Sleeping Beauty, or Briar Rose in the Disney Movie, is “all-good”. She is attractive, light, loving, and engaged with life. However, being all-good, Aurora is incomplete.
Equally incomplete is the evil sorceress who is “all-bad”. Maleficent casts her evil spell on the infant princess because “she was not invited” to the party. In Jungian terms, the witch in this fairy tale is the Shadow side of the princess. The Shadow refers to those aspects of a person’s personality that are unacceptable to them and are denied or not consciously admitted. Interestingly, if we cast off our Shadow side and do not acknowledge it, the Shadow will reassert itself and “crash the party”. If we interpret this fairy tale as a dream, “The Sleeping Beauty” or Princess Aurora and Maleficent are two cut-off aspects of a single woman.
And so in our tale, we see Maleficent, the Shadow of Aurora, cast off. As revenge, the sorceress casts a spell on the baby so that when the child becomes 16 years old, she will prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel and die. (Up until the end of the Victorian era, women used to be referred to as the “distaff sex”, a reference to the spindle on a spinning wheel.) The curse takes effect when Sleeping Beauty arrives at puberty. The drawing of blood, by this not very well hidden symbol of the woman’s defloration, would have occurred in more traditional times at the time of her marriage.
Aurora and Prince Phillip meet and are engaged at birth. In many cultures, marriage is considered the “rebirth” of two individuals into a new entity.
In order to protect the princess from “the curse”, or her own sexuality, the three good fairies take the princess off to the woods to raise her as their own. They rename Aurora “Briar Rose” and hide from her the fact that she is a princess. As in most families, during childhood and adolescence, women and men are taught to subdue their biological drives, sublimating them in the process of socialization. In the process, the libido, or basic life force gets sublimated too. At the time of marriage, sexuality is now socially appropriate. What was once forbidden now is acceptable. Once repressed, sexuality becomes an important part of the marital bond.
Quite by accident, a day before the “curse” is supposed to take effect, Briar Rose meets the prince she was unknowingly betrothed to at birth. On the day that the curse is supposed to be broken, the three fairies inform Rose about her true identity and take her back to the castle to meet her parents and marry the prince. It’s at this point, where Briar Rose (the woman whose sexuality is repressed) is supposed to be come Aurora (the woman who is in touch with her libido again) that Rose is seduced by the witch, or her Shadow Side, and becomes “The Sleeping Beauty”.
Phillip and Aurora know nothing of each other at the beginning of the marriage. Prince Phillip believes that Aurora is a commoner. Aurora knows nothing about her true identity. At the beginning of a relationship, while the couple is attracted to each other, even though they might feel like they have met before “inside my dreams”, one of their first tasks is to learn about the person they have decided to marry. As a couple, they are ignorant of each other’s real natures.
Typically, we are in the throws of romantic love in the beginnings of relationships; we tend to see only the positive aspects of our romantic partner. We are inclined to ignore their difficult aspects. Most folks are aware that the real work of a relationship starts after “the party is over” when the fires of passion and romance fades. Often, at this juncture in the relationship, spouses will comment “they just don’t seem like the person I originally married.” Inevitably, the woman’s Shadow side will reassert itself and attempt to control the male by becoming “a witch”.
In our fairy tale, the prince doesn’t realize that the commoner he just met is really “a princess”. In real life, spouses who lose the initial romance in their relationship forget that their husbands are still the same “princes” and the wives are still the same “princesses” that they originally married. This is why on the eve of the wedding night, Prince Phillip is captured by “the witch”. It’s at this time that each partner must look squarely at their spouse and work within the relationship to find a way to integrate the more unpleasant and toxic aspects of their partner’s personality into their relationship.
Men are typically socialized to address adversity by becoming stolid and silent. While this worked well when we lived in situations that required endurance of physical adversities, this impassive approach backfires when confronting a mate’s noxious behavior. As a result, men have the tendency to retreat within themselves to avoid or keep conflict from escalating. We’ve heard about this tendency as a man “retreating into his cave”, becoming more and more expressionless.
Of course, this has the opposite of the intended effect. Instead of avoiding or de-escalating the conflict, the female partner usually attempts to get the male to respond by becoming increasingly confronting or demanding. From the male partner’s perspective, after weeks, months or even years of this behavioral dynamic, the man’s cave becomes a torture chamber or dungeon from which there is no escape – a dungeon whose jailer is a “wicked witch”.
Let’s go back to our story. Prince Phillip is rescued from his dungeon by the three fairies. Magically, they apply their wands to Phillip’s shackles and they simply fall off. If we look at the nature of the “dungeon” that men construct for themselves, we’ll find that what keeps them locked into their plight is their fear of confronting their partner and losing them or exchanging their current situation for one that is worse. Indeed, these two fears really do hold the potential that their partner will escalate the problem or leave the relationship. Whether these fears materialize as reality depends upon the character of their spouses and the nature of their relationship.
Before leaving the dungeon, the three fairies give Prince Phillip the means to defend himself and slay the evil witch: “The Sword of Truth” and “The Shield of Courage”. The prince escapes the dungeon to rescue his princess. Ultimately, the risk of action exposes whether or not the other partner cares for the man as much as the woman cares about themselves. Some men will choose to remain trapped in their “dungeon” to avoid finding out about the truth regarding how their spouse really will react to confrontation. Others, who get sufficiently tired of their situation, will feel like they have nothing to lose and will assert themselves. Most will, for the most part, choose the status quo and remain imprisoned. Prince Phillip, however, is no “commoner”. He is a “Prince”. He rises to the occasion to fight.
When Phillip escapes his bonds, the witch becomes enraged and turns herself into a dragon. Dragons are usually considered symbols of change and transformation. In this case, the fiery dragon is the woman in crisis over losing control over “her prisoner”.
It’s important to notice that the prince doesn’t go off to attack and slay the witch. Rather, it’s the prince (the higher and loving aspect of the male self) who goes off to rescue the princess (the higher and loving aspect of the female) by slaying the dragon. Again, it’s important that the male confronts his mate courageously and truthfully with the goal of reclaiming the higher and loving aspect of the woman in the relationship by resolving the crisis with the truth. Meaning, the male must take responsibility for emerging out of the emotional shackles that he has constructed of his own volition and confront the “witch” with her shadow side.
Because the witch and the Sleeping Beauty are cut off-aspects of the same woman, it’s easy to be gulled into thinking that the destruction of the witch is the goal. If the male’s goal is to simply “destroy the witch”, he will try to punish and blame his spouse. Since the witch and the princess are both cut-off aspects of the same woman, killing the witch will kill both the witch and the princess. The relationship will become wounded, suffer, and die. Blame and punishment will only erode and destroy the relationship. If the prince’s goal is to rescue the princess, he will simply confront the woman with the truth of her behavior with the intention of preserving the relationship. Along with confronting the woman with her faults, he must also confront his spouse with their love and the reality of their emotional bond.
In the Disney film, the prince rides off to rescue the princess. However, the witch surrounds the Sleeping Beauty’s castle with thorns. Because the shadow side is split off and not consciously available to the woman, confrontation will be with emotional defenses is inevitable. The prince has to cut his way through what seems like an unending thicket of thorns. One thicket of emotional defenses gets cut down and another one springs up to take its place.
Phillip kills the dragon by hurling the “sword of truth” into its belly. In other words, the male confronts the woman with her shadow side and exposes the core issue, Aurora’s ambivalence regarding her need for control. If the woman manages to integrate her shadow sufficiently, the relationship moves to a more intimate relationship. It is at this point that the dragon and witch disappears. The thorns and flames vanish and the Prince wakes the Sleeping Beauty with “true love’s first kiss”.
True love’s first kiss is none other that both partners demonstrating their love to each other, acknowledging both their good and bad sides. Love cannot be “true” unless both partners embrace each other’s positive and negative sides. Both the good and bad aspects of a person must be accepted for a person to experience themselves as being loved in a complete and true fashion.
All too often, both women and men will attempt to push away, hide, rationalize or defend their darker aspects. Typically, this will make them feel unacceptable or unworthy of their spouse’s love and acceptance. This has the effect of destroying intimacy in the relationship. Acknowledging one’s Shadow or Dark Side leaves one emotionally vulnerable to rejection and abandonment. However, if each partner can embrace their Shadow and allow themselves to be loved, Shadow Side and all, they will be able to fully receive and embrace their spouse’s love and acceptance. The couple will then regain the sense of emotional intimacy and romance that was lost.
Interestingly, a similar fairy tale exists for women in “Beauty and the Beast”. However, that is another story….
A Fable for Men: The Sleeping Beauty Next To You
A couple of years ago, I was watching Disney’s version of “Sleeping Beauty” with my daughters. I was struck by the scene where Prince Phillip is held captive in a dungeon by the wicked Sorceress. Phillip sits in the dungeon cell fuming as Maleficent explains that she intends to hold the prince captive until he is 90 years old. Then, he and his horse, old, wasted and broken, will ride off to rescue the Sleeping Beauty. As I watched, I realized that this was the paranoid fantasy of most men who, early in marriage, experience themselves trapped and emotionally abused by their wives. The fantasy that some men complain about is that: “I will be stuck in a marriage with this witch until she or I die. And then, even if I survive, I’ll be too old to find another relationship where I can appreciate my youth and sexuality.” While I might understand why feminists are appalled at this tale, complaining about Sleeping Beauty’s “passivity”, I am convinced that this tale has some important wisdom for men. I’d like to share this with you.
Students of analytic psychology will often consider fairy tales as though they were dreams. One way of interpreting a dream is to see each aspect of the dream as belonging to the same person. Aurora, the Sleeping Beauty, or Briar Rose in the Disney Movie, is “all-good”. She is attractive, light, loving, and engaged with life. However, being all-good, Aurora is incomplete.
Equally incomplete is the evil sorceress who is “all-bad”. Maleficent casts her evil spell on the infant princess because “she was not invited” to the party. In Jungian terms, the witch in this fairy tale is the Shadow side of the princess. The Shadow refers to those aspects of a person’s personality that are unacceptable to them and are denied or not consciously admitted. Interestingly, if we cast off our Shadow side and do not acknowledge it, the Shadow will reassert itself and “crash the party”. If we interpret this fairy tale as a dream, “The Sleeping Beauty” or Princess Aurora and Maleficent are two cut-off aspects of a single woman.
And so in our tale, we see Maleficent, the Shadow of Aurora, cast off. As revenge, the sorceress casts a spell on the baby so that when the child becomes 16 years old, she will prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel and die. (Up until the end of the Victorian era, women used to be referred to as the “distaff sex”, a reference to the spindle on a spinning wheel.) The curse takes effect when Sleeping Beauty arrives at puberty. The drawing of blood, by this not very well hidden symbol of the woman’s defloration, would have occurred in more traditional times at the time of her marriage.
Aurora and Prince Phillip meet and are engaged at birth. In many cultures, marriage is considered the “rebirth” of two individuals into a new entity.
In order to protect the princess from “the curse”, or her own sexuality, the three good fairies take the princess off to the woods to raise her as their own. They rename Aurora “Briar Rose” and hide from her the fact that she is a princess. As in most families, during childhood and adolescence, women and men are taught to subdue their biological drives, sublimating them in the process of socialization. In the process, the libido, or basic life force gets sublimated too. At the time of marriage, sexuality is now socially appropriate. What was once forbidden now is acceptable. Once repressed, sexuality becomes an important part of the marital bond.
Quite by accident, a day before the “curse” is supposed to take effect, Briar Rose meets the prince she was unknowingly betrothed to at birth. On the day that the curse is supposed to be broken, the three fairies inform Rose about her true identity and take her back to the castle to meet her parents and marry the prince. It’s at this point, where Briar Rose (the woman whose sexuality is repressed) is supposed to be come Aurora (the woman who is in touch with her libido again) that Rose is seduced by the witch, or her Shadow Side, and becomes “The Sleeping Beauty”.
Phillip and Aurora know nothing of each other at the beginning of the marriage. Prince Phillip believes that Aurora is a commoner. Aurora knows nothing about her true identity. At the beginning of a relationship, while the couple is attracted to each other, even though they might feel like they have met before “inside my dreams”, one of their first tasks is to learn about the person they have decided to marry. As a couple, they are ignorant of each other’s real natures.
Typically, we are in the throws of romantic love in the beginnings of relationships; we tend to see only the positive aspects of our romantic partner. We are inclined to ignore their difficult aspects. Most folks are aware that the real work of a relationship starts after “the party is over” when the fires of passion and romance fades. Often, at this juncture in the relationship, spouses will comment “they just don’t seem like the person I originally married.” Inevitably, the woman’s Shadow side will reassert itself and attempt to control the male by becoming “a witch”.
In our fairy tale, the prince doesn’t realize that the commoner he just met is really “a princess”. In real life, spouses who lose the initial romance in their relationship forget that their husbands are still the same “princes” and the wives are still the same “princesses” that they originally married. This is why on the eve of the wedding night, Prince Phillip is captured by “the witch”. It’s at this time that each partner must look squarely at their spouse and work within the relationship to find a way to integrate the more unpleasant and toxic aspects of their partner’s personality into their relationship.
Men are typically socialized to address adversity by becoming stolid and silent. While this worked well when we lived in situations that required endurance of physical adversities, this impassive approach backfires when confronting a mate’s noxious behavior. As a result, men have the tendency to retreat within themselves to avoid or keep conflict from escalating. We’ve heard about this tendency as a man “retreating into his cave”, becoming more and more expressionless.
Of course, this has the opposite of the intended effect. Instead of avoiding or de-escalating the conflict, the female partner usually attempts to get the male to respond by becoming increasingly confronting or demanding. From the male partner’s perspective, after weeks, months or even years of this behavioral dynamic, the man’s cave becomes a torture chamber or dungeon from which there is no escape – a dungeon whose jailer is a “wicked witch”.
Let’s go back to our story. Prince Phillip is rescued from his dungeon by the three fairies. Magically, they apply their wands to Phillip’s shackles and they simply fall off. If we look at the nature of the “dungeon” that men construct for themselves, we’ll find that what keeps them locked into their plight is their fear of confronting their partner and losing them or exchanging their current situation for one that is worse. Indeed, these two fears really do hold the potential that their partner will escalate the problem or leave the relationship. Whether these fears materialize as reality depends upon the character of their spouses and the nature of their relationship.
Before leaving the dungeon, the three fairies give Prince Phillip the means to defend himself and slay the evil witch: “The Sword of Truth” and “The Shield of Courage”. The prince escapes the dungeon to rescue his princess. Ultimately, the risk of action exposes whether or not the other partner cares for the man as much as the woman cares about themselves. Some men will choose to remain trapped in their “dungeon” to avoid finding out about the truth regarding how their spouse really will react to confrontation. Others, who get sufficiently tired of their situation, will feel like they have nothing to lose and will assert themselves. Most will, for the most part, choose the status quo and remain imprisoned. Prince Phillip, however, is no “commoner”. He is a “Prince”. He rises to the occasion to fight.
When Phillip escapes his bonds, the witch becomes enraged and turns herself into a dragon. Dragons are usually considered symbols of change and transformation. In this case, the fiery dragon is the woman in crisis over losing control over “her prisoner”.
It’s important to notice that the prince doesn’t go off to attack and slay the witch. Rather, it’s the prince (the higher and loving aspect of the male self) who goes off to rescue the princess (the higher and loving aspect of the female) by slaying the dragon. Again, it’s important that the male confronts his mate courageously and truthfully with the goal of reclaiming the higher and loving aspect of the woman in the relationship by resolving the crisis with the truth. Meaning, the male must take responsibility for emerging out of the emotional shackles that he has constructed of his own volition and confront the “witch” with her shadow side.
Because the witch and the Sleeping Beauty are cut off-aspects of the same woman, it’s easy to be gulled into thinking that the destruction of the witch is the goal. If the male’s goal is to simply “destroy the witch”, he will try to punish and blame his spouse. Since the witch and the princess are both cut-off aspects of the same woman, killing the witch will kill both the witch and the princess. The relationship will become wounded, suffer, and die. Blame and punishment will only erode and destroy the relationship. If the prince’s goal is to rescue the princess, he will simply confront the woman with the truth of her behavior with the intention of preserving the relationship. Along with confronting the woman with her faults, he must also confront his spouse with their love and the reality of their emotional bond.
In the Disney film, the prince rides off to rescue the princess. However, the witch surrounds the Sleeping Beauty’s castle with thorns. Because the shadow side is split off and not consciously available to the woman, confrontation will be with emotional defenses is inevitable. The prince has to cut his way through what seems like an unending thicket of thorns. One thicket of emotional defenses gets cut down and another one springs up to take its place.
Phillip kills the dragon by hurling the “sword of truth” into its belly. In other words, the male confronts the woman with her shadow side and exposes the core issue, Aurora’s ambivalence regarding her need for control. If the woman manages to integrate her shadow sufficiently, the relationship moves to a more intimate relationship. It is at this point that the dragon and witch disappears. The thorns and flames vanish and the Prince wakes the Sleeping Beauty with “true love’s first kiss”.
True love’s first kiss is none other that both partners demonstrating their love to each other, acknowledging both their good and bad sides. Love cannot be “true” unless both partners embrace each other’s positive and negative sides. Both the good and bad aspects of a person must be accepted for a person to experience themselves as being loved in a complete and true fashion.
All too often, both women and men will attempt to push away, hide, rationalize or defend their darker aspects. Typically, this will make them feel unacceptable or unworthy of their spouse’s love and acceptance. This has the effect of destroying intimacy in the relationship. Acknowledging one’s Shadow or Dark Side leaves one emotionally vulnerable to rejection and abandonment. However, if each partner can embrace their Shadow and allow themselves to be loved, Shadow Side and all, they will be able to fully receive and embrace their spouse’s love and acceptance. The couple will then regain the sense of emotional intimacy and romance that was lost.
Interestingly, a similar fairy tale exists for women in “Beauty and the Beast”. However, that is another story….
posted by Jacob Spilman, LPC, LMFT at 5:25 AM
