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With low marriage rates combined with high divorce rates and
elevated incidences of father absence currently the norm,
will African Americans be able to regain a sense of
community where healthy, stable, reliable and consistent
relationships and/or families exist?
I talked with a noted intimacy and relationship expert,
Ebony Utley, Ph.D, concerning solutions to the current state
of conflict and disconnectedness that exists, particularly
among men and women, in the black community.
This is part I of our discussion.
Perryman:
It is great to speak with you again Dr. Utley. Today, I want
to hear your perspective on marriages or relationships gone
wrong.
Utley:
My term for it is intimus interruptus. So, it doesn’t
mean necessarily that something has gone wrong. It just
means there’s been an interruption and we have to make a
decision from this point. Think about it as being at a
crossroad. Do we keep going and then nothing happens? Do we
acknowledge the issue and then keep going in the direction
we were heading? Do we decide that we’re going to fix the
issue and go in a different direction or are we going to go
back to where we came from? Are we not going to fix the
issue and go in separate directions? But an interruption, an
intimus interruptus, requires decision making about
what happens next in the relationship.
Yes, so per the Latin,
it’s grammatically incorrect, but it’s conceptually accurate
to call it intimus interruptus, and it’s the idea
that your intimacy with another person is interrupted. And
what happens after the interruption is up to you and the
partner and your partner or your person.
Perryman:
So, for you, it’s a matter of relationship/marriage
interruptions rather than relationships gone wrong?
Utley:
Yeah, because the people are still the same, it’s just an
interruption, and after that interruption then the people
decide, am I going to be the same person that I was in the
past, and if you’re not then maybe you’re not the person
that wants to stay in that relationship anymore, and that’s
okay.
Perryman:
My background in pastoral theology suggests that each
partner brings with them a cultural image of what an ideal
male and female relationship should be. One traditional
expectation is that the male member provides for the female
and children. Whether from a distorted view of true
masculinity or not, it seems as though when black males
cannot be the main breadwinner, relationships begin to
deteriorate. What do you do?
Utley:
You’ve got decisions there that won’t allow you to follow on
this traditional track. So my first piece of advice is to
cross out the traditional track. If you and your partner are
a team, then you sit down at the table and do the teamwork
thing. It’s like okay, what do we need to do to provide for
our family? And then you make a pact to do that. And then, I
know this is probably a really bad example, but one of the
things I really like about shows like Power and
Empire is that when everything hits the fan, like that
black male couple that’s in the center, they sit down and
figure out what they’re going to do. They look each other
in the eyes, like you have to do whatever it takes to
protect our family.
So even if they’re no
longer together, they’re divorced or separated or they’ve
got their own issues, when it comes down to it and the
family’s in trouble or the Empire, I guess in both
cases, is going to crumble, they sit down knee to knee and
they flesh it out until they make the proper decision. So I
think African Americans have greater interruption perhaps.
Well actually, I don’t know that, I can’t say greater, but
we have big interruptions that require big planning and
decisions, teamwork.
That’s the stereotype that
I think is worth perpetuating into the future. This is the
person you picked as your partner, then they should be your
partner, and the two of you should be able to do teamwork
things to figure out what you’re going to do to ensure your
family’s survival at the basic level and then thriving at
the high end of it.
Perryman:
Another stereotypical cultural image brought to the
relationship table is that of the female who is expected to
relinquish her individual focus and “give her life over
completely to the male.” That image, in my opinion, is one
that is very much outdated.
Utley:
Yes. A girlfriend of mine always says a woman always needs
some business.
Perryman:
That’s right.
Utley:
I went to see the Miles Davis movie and at that moment when
Miles tells his wife that he wants her to quit dancing so
that she can be his wife, and she’s like “but I love
dancing,” he was like “I know, but I love you.” And I’m in
the movie theatre going “don’t do it, don’t do it,” out
loud. I was like ‘please find a way to keep what you love.
It’s what makes you you.’ No relationship should take those
parts away from you. It’s one thing if you’re not really
into it or you want to explore something else. If you have a
career and you really want to explore full-time motherhood,
that’s also a career, so you go do that thing. But do it
because you want to do it, not because someone else expects
you to do it.
(To be continued)
Ebony A. Utley, Ph.D.
is an intimacy expert and associate professor of
communication studies at California State University Long
Beach intimacy. Her research explores intimacy interrupted
by infidelity and beliefs about marriage. Utley’s expertise
has been featured on The Oprah Winfrey Network and other
radio, print, and online outlets.
Contact Rev. Donald Perryman, D.Min, at
drdlperryman@centerofhopebaptist.org
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