CHAPTER SEVEN

Marital Game

ALMOST any game can form the scaffolding For married life and family living, but some, such as "IF It Weren't for You," flourish better or, like "Frigid Woman," are tolerated longer, under the legal force of contractual intimacy. Marital games, of course, can only be arbitrarily separated from sexual games, which are treated is a separate section. Those games which characteristically evolve into their most full-blown forms in the marital relationship include "Comer," "Courtroom," "Frigid Woman" and "Frigid Man," "Harried," "If It Weren't for You," "Look How Hard I've Tried" and "Sweetheart."

1 CORNER

Thesis. Comer illustrates more clearly than most games their manipulative aspect and their function as barriers to intimacy. Paradoxically, it consists of a disingenuous refusal to play the game of another.

1. Mrs. White suggests to her husband that they go to a movie. Mr. White agrees.

2a. Mrs. White makes an "unconscious" slip. She mentions quite naturally in the course of conversation that the house needs painting. This is an expensive project, and White has recently told her that their finances are strained; he requested her not to embarrass or annoy him by suggesting unusual expenditures, at least until the beginning of the new month. This is therefore an ill-chosen moment to bring up the condition of the house, and White responds rudely.

2b. Alternatively: White steers the conversation around to the house, making it difficult for Mrs. White to resist die temptation to say that it needs painting. As in the previous case, White responds rudely.

3.Mrs. White takes offense and says that if he is in one of his bad moods, she will not go to die movie with him, and he had best go by himself. He says if that is die way she feels about it, he will go alone.

4.White goes to die movie (or out with the boys), leaving Mrs. White at home to nurse her injured feelings. There are two possible gimmicks in this game: A. Mrs. White knows very well from past experience that she is not supposed to take his annoyance seriously. What he really wants is for her to show some appreciation of how hard he works to earn their living; then they could go off happily together. But she refuses to play, and he feels badly lei down. He leaves filled with disappointment and resentment, while she stays at home looking abused, but with a secret feeling of triumph.

B. White knows very well from past experience that he is not supposed to take her pique seriously. What she really wants is to be honeyed out of it; then they would go off happily together. But he refuses to play, knowing that his refusal is dishonest: he knows she wants to be coaxed, but pretends he doesn't. He leaves the house, feeling cheerful and relieved, but looking wronged. She is left feeling disappointed and resentful.

In each of these cases die winner's position is, from a naive standpoint, irreproachable; all he or she has done is take the other literally. This is clearer in (B), where White takes Mrs. White's refusal to go at face value. They both know that this is cheating, but since she said it, she is cornered.

The most obvious gain here is die external psychological. Both of diem find movies sexually stimulating, and it is more or less anticipated that after they return from the theater, they will make love. Hence whichever one of them wants to avoid intimacy sets up the game in move (2a) or (2b). This is a particularly exasperating variety of "Uproar" (see Chapter 9). The "wronged" party can, of course, make a good case for not wanting to make love in a state of justifiable indignation, and the cornered spouse has no recourse.

Antithesis. This is simple for Mrs. White. All she has to do is change her mind, take her husband by the arm, smile and go along with him (a shift from Child to Adult ego state). It is more difficult for Mr. White, since she now has die initiative; but if he reviews die whole situation, he may be

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able to coax her into going along with him, either as a sulky Child who has been placated or, better, as an Adult.

"Comer" is found in a somewhat different form as a family game involving the children, where it resembles the "double-bind" described by Bateson and his associates.1 Here the child is cornered, so that whatever he does is wrong. According to the Bateson school, this may be an important etiological factor in schizophrenia. In the present language, then, schizophrenia may be a child's antithesis to "Corner." Experience in treating adult schizophrenics with game analysis bears this out—that is, if the family game of "Comer" is analyzed to demonstrate that the schizophrenic behavior was and is specifically undertaken to counter this game, partial or total remission occurs in a properly prepared patient.

An everyday form of "Corner" which is played by the whole family and is most likely to affect the character development of the younger children occurs with meddlesome "Parental" parents. The little boy or girl is urged to be more helpful around the house, but when he is, the parents find fault with what he does—a homely example of "damned if you do and damned if you don't." This "double-bind" may be called the Dilemma Type of "Corner."

"Corner" is sometimes found as an etiological factor in asthmatic children. Little girl: "Mommy, do you love me?" Mother: "What is love?"

This answer leaves the child with no direct recourse. She wants to talk about mother, and mother switches the subject to philosophy, which the little girl is not equipped to handle. She begins to breathe hard, mother is irritated, asthma sets in, mother apologizes and the "Asthma Game" now runs its course. This "Asthma" type of "Corner" remains to be studied further.

An elegant variant, which may be called the "Russell-Whitehead Type" of "Corner," sometimes occurs in therapy groups.

Black: "Well, anyway, when we're silent nobody is playing games." White: "Silence itself may be a game."

Red: "Nobody was playing games today."

White: "But not playing games may itself be a game

The therapeutic antithesis is equally elegant. Logical paradoxes are forbidden. When White is deprived of this maneuver, his underlying anxieties come quickly to the fore. Closely allied to "Corner" on the one hand, and to "Threadbare" on the other, is the marital game of "Lunch Bag." The husband, who can well afford to have lunch at a good restaurant, nevertheless makes himself a few sandwiches every morning, which he takes to the office in a paper bag. In this way he uses up crusts of bread, leftovers from dinner and paper bags which his wife saves for him. This gives him complete control over the family finances, for what wife would dare buy herself a mink stole in die face of such self-sacrifice? The husband reaps numerous other advantages, such as die privilege of eating lunch by himself and of catching up on his work during lunch hour. In many ways this is a constructive game which Benjamin Franklin would have approved of, since it encourages the virtues of thrift, hard work and punctuality.

2 COURTROOM

Thesis. Descriptively this belongs to the class of games which find their most florid expressions in law, and which includes "Wooden Leg" (the plea of insanity) and "Debtor" (the civil suit). Clinically it is most often seen in marital counseling and marital psychotherapy groups. Indeed, some marital counseling and marital groups consist of a perpetual game of "Courtroom" in which nothing is resolved, since the game is never broken up. In such cases it becomes evident that the counselor or therapist is heavily involved in the game without being aware of it.

"Courtroom" can be played by any number, but is essentially three-handed, with a plaintiff, a defendant and a judge, represented by a husband, a wife and the therapist. If it is played in a therapy group or over the radio or TV, die other members of the audience are cast as the jury. The husband begins plaintively, "Let me tell you what (wife's name) did yesterday. She took the . . ." etc., etc. The wife then responds defensively, "Here is the way it really was . . . and besides just

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before that he was . . . and anyway at die time we were both . . ." etc. The husband adds gallantly, "Well, I'm glad you people have a chance to hear both sides of the story, I only want to be fair." At this point the counselor says judiciously, "It seems to me that if we consider . . ." etc., etc. If there is an audience, the therapist may throw it to them with: "Well, let's hear what the others have to say." Or, if the group is already trained, they will play the jury without any instruction from him.

Antithesis. The therapist says to the husband, "You're absolutely right!" If the husband relaxes complacently or triumphantly, the therapist asks: "How do you feel about my saying that?" The husband replies: "Fine." Then the therapist says, "Actually, I feel you're in the wrong." If the husband is honest, he will say: "I knew that all along." If be is not honest, he will show 'some reaction that makes it clear a game is in progress. Then it becomes possible to go into the matter further. The game element lies in the fact that while the plaintiff' is overtly clamoring for victory, fundamentally he believes that he is wrong.

After sufficient clinical material has been gathered to clarify the situation, the game can be interdicted by a maneuver which is one of the most elegant in the whole art of antithetics. The therapist makes a rule prohibiting the use of the (grammatical) third person in the group. Thenceforward the members can only address each other directly as "you" or talk about themselves as "I," but they cannot say, "Let me tell you about him" or "Let me tell you about her. "At this point the couple stop playing games in the group altogether, or shift into "Sweetheart," which is some improvement, or take up "Furthermore," which is no help at all. "Sweetheart" is described in another section (page 107). In "Furthermore" the plaintiff makes one accusation after the other. The defendant replies to each, "I can explain." The plaintiff pays no attention to the explanation, but as soon as the defendant pauses, he launches into his next indictment with another "furthermore," which is followed by another explanation—a typical Parent-Child interchange.

"Furthermore" is played most intensively by paranoid defendants. Because of their literalness, it is particularly easy for them to frustrate accusers who express themselves in humorous or metaphorical terms. In general, metaphors are the most obvious traps to avoid in a game of "Furthermore."

In its everyday form, "Courtroom" is easily observed in children as a three-handed game between two siblings and a parent. "Mommy, she took my candy away" "Yes, but he took my doll, and before that he was hitting me, and anyway we both promised to share our candy."

ANALYSIS

Thesis: They've got to say I'm right. Aim: Reassurance.

Roles: Plaintiff, Defendant, Judge (and/or Jury). Dynamics: Sibling rivalry.

Examples: (1) Children quarreling, parent intervenes. (2) Married couple, seek "help." Social Paradigm: Adult-Adult.

Adult: "This is what she did to me." Adult: "The real facts are these." Psychological Paradigm: Child-Parent. Child: "Tell me I'm right." Parent: "This one is right." Or: "You're both right."

Moves: (1) Complaint filed—Defense filed. (2) Plaintiff files rebuttal, concession, or good-will gesture. (3) Decision of judge or instructions to jury. (4) Final decision filed.

Advantages; (1) Internal Psychological—projection of guilt. (2) External Psychological—excused from guilt. (3) Internal Social—"Sweetheart," "Furthermore," "Uproar" and others. (4) External Social—"Courtroom." (5) Biological—stroking from judge and jury. (6) Existential-depressive position, I'm always wrong.

3 FRIGID WOMAN

Thesis. This is almost always a marital game, since it is hardly conceivable that an informal liaison would present the required opportunities and privileges over a sufficient length of time, or that such a liaison would be maintained in the face of it.

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The husband makes advances to his wife and is repulsed. After repeated attempts, he is told that all men are beasts, he doesn't really love her, or doesn't love her for herself, that all he is interested in is sex. He desists for a time, then tries again with the same result. Eventually he resigns himself and makes no further advances. As the weeks or months pass, the wife becomes increasingly informal and sometimes forgetful. She walks through the bedroom half dressed or forgets her clean towel when she takes a bath so that he has to bring it to her. If she plays a hard game or drinks heavily, she may become flirtatious with other men at parties. At length he responds to those provocations and tries again. Once more he is repulsed, and a game of "Uproar" ensues involving their recent behavior, other couples, their in-laws, their finances and their failures, terminated by a slamming door.

This time the husband makes up his mind that he is really through, that they will find a sexless modus vivendi, months pass. He declines the negligee parade and the forgotten towel maneuver. The wife becomes more provocatively informal and more provocatively forgetful, but he still resists. Then one evening she actually approaches him and kisses him. At first he doesn't respond, remembering his resolution, but soon nature begins to take its course after the long famine, and now he thinks he surely has it made. His first tentative advances are not repulsed. He becomes bolder and bolder. Just at the critical point, the wife steps back and cries: "See, what did I tell you! All men are beasts, all I wanted was affection, but all you are interested in is sex!" The ensuing game of "Uproar" at this point may skip the preliminary phases of their recent behavior and their in-laws, and go right to the financial problem.

It should be noted that in spite of his protestations, the husband is usually just as afraid of sexual intimacy as his wife is, and has carefully chosen his mate to minimize • the danger of overtaxing his disturbed potency, which he can now blame on her.

In its everyday form this game is played by unmarried ladies of various ages, which soon earns them a common slang epidiet. With diem it often merges into the game of indignation, or "Rapo." Antithesis. This is a dangerous game, and the possible antitheses are equally dangerous. Taking a mistress is a gamble. In the face of such stimulating competition, the wife may give up the game and try to initiate a normal married life, perhaps too late. On the other hand, she may use the affair, often with the help of a lawyer, as ammunition against the husband in a game of "Now I've Got You, You Son of a Bitch." The outcome is equally unpredictable if the husband undertakes psychotherapy and she does not. The wife's game may collapse as the husband grows stronger, leading to healthier adjustment; but if she is a hard player, improvement on his part may result in divorce. The best solution, if available, is for both parties to go into a transactional marital group, where the underlying advantages of the game and the basic sexual pathology can be laid bare. With this preparation both spouses may become interested in intensive individual psychotherapy. That may result in a psychological remarriage. If not, at least each of the parties may make a more sensible readjustment to the situation than they might have otherwise.

The decent antithesis for the everyday form is to find another social companion. Some of the shrewder or more brutal antitheses are corrupt and even criminal.

Relatives. The converse game, "Frigid Man," is less common, but it takes much the same general course with some variations in detail. The final outcome depends upon the scripts of the parties involved.

The crucial point of "Frigid Woman" is the terminal phase of "Uproar." Once this has run its course, sexual intimacy is out of the question, since both parties derive a perverse satisfaction from "Uproar" and have no need of further sexual excitement from each other. Hence the most important item in anti-"Frigid Woman" is to decline "Uproar." This leaves the wife in a state of sexual dissatisfaction which may be so acute that she will become more compliant. The use made of "Uproar" distinguishes "Frigid Woman" from "Beat Me Daddy," where "Uproar" is part of the foreplay; in "Frigid Woman," "Uproar" substitutes for the sex act itself. Thus in "Beat Me Daddy," "Uproar" is a condition of the sexual act, a kind of fetish which increases the excitement, while in "Frigid Woman," once "Uproar" has taken place, die episode is finished.

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