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yeast infections. They had come to me for relief from
their physical symptoms, but they ended up with more
than they bargained for.
I witnessed their marital discord in our first
meeting, when Jenny criticized her husband for
making them late and continued to insert barbs
throughout our conversation. Johnson held his tongue.
Later, I learned that when they first met, Jenny had
been attracted to Johnson’s easygoing nature and
composure under stress. Johnson admired Jenny for
being outgoing and assertive. At first it was a good
match: Johnson calmed Jenny down when she needed
it, and she invigorated and inspired him to accomplish
his goals. This ―pairing‖ of energetic traits, his ability
to calm her and her presence as a motivator for him, is
a typical dynamic between men and women. Here, the
man acts as a yin-tonifying agent for a woman and the
she supports the yang in him.
As is often the case, Jenny and Jacksons’s
strengths became weaknesses. This is a core issue
when considering behavior symptoms in
couples. Energetic imbalances that cause attraction
can, when those same imbalances worsen, cause those
same two people to repel one another. As years pass
the positive attraction and tonification pattern can
reverse itself. He weakens her feminine chi by not
bringing his yang to support her and she hinders his
yang by becoming overbearing. She extinguishes his
fire.
Jenny grew to resent feeling she had to be in
charge all the time, but she feared that if she were to
give up control, the structure of their life together
would collapse. Feeling let down and abandoned, she
belittled Johnson’s masculinity, criticizing him in front
of others and demeaning his accomplishments. This is
typical of a woman whose yin chi isn’t being
nourished in her relationship. Abandonment is the
primary injury to yin energy and if a woman feels
abandoned by her partner this can reflect in energetic
imbalances. Yin energy deficiency is reflected as
yang, hot, aggressive behavior. Women who become
yin deficient in their relationships act with aggression,
a controlling nature and hostility.
Though Johnson felt angry and exasperated, he
swallowed his frustration and withdrew into a shell of
indifference. This is typical of yang chi deficiency
behavior in men. Rather than having moved towards
his woman, setting boundaries and taking a stand for
himself, he moved away. Johnson pulled away from
sex as well. Jenny approached him frequently, only to
be rebuffed. When they did make love, she worked
hard to have an orgasm, but failed more often than not.
She felt deserted and sexually frustrated, which only
made her more edgy. What she didn’t know was that
Johnson had not lost his sexual desire: he was
masturbating daily, having found himself easier to
please than his wife.
When they reached my office, neither was
looking for marital support though, clearly, the couple
was at an impasse. Jenny needed desperately to access
her yin, the softer, more feminine side of her nature and
to be more genuinely receptive sexually. Receptivity is
the primary energetic trait of yin chi. To do so, she
needed Johnson to assert his strength. In turn, Johnson
needed to have his yang, masculine energy emerge and
support Jenny. But for this he had to have Jenny’s
respect, trust and encouragement. After years of
consistent stress, their inherent differences,
complementary at first, had exacerbated and were
poisoning their marriage. As classically psychological
as this scenario appeared, I had already come to see
this kind of situation as an energetic problem that can
be addressed without a direct psychological approach.
I treated them with acupuncture, herbs and diet
with out ever bringing up the marital challenges that I
saw. They presumed we were addressing the physical
symptoms which were their chief complaints. After
about four months, Jenny’s migraines were less
frequent and Johnson’s shoulder pain was gone. To
their surprise, there were other changes as well. The
seemingly intractable conflicts that had threatened their
marriage began to appear solvable. Jenny became less
50 Yang-Sheng (Nurturing Life) Volume 1, Issue No. 7