What is a double-bind? We should look into this because they are the source of violence or creativity. You get in a lose/lose situation and can’t choose your way out because all choices are bad. In a double-bind one choice, though bad, is not better than the other. The situation is ambiguous. The choices are contradictory yet mutually dependent. Each cancels out the other. The double-bind Is two incompatible commandments that must be obeyed, but only one can be chosen. In Zen this is called a Koan, or a spiritual double-bind.

Double-binds are used to control us by making us incapable of making a choice, thus taking away our center. Our Center is dynamic and it gives our world coherence and meaning. Choice is the function of our center, or sense of I. Unable to choose, we defer to an authority to choose for us. We invest our individual center in an external center, which can be called a False Idol, or your spouse.

In relationship, someone has to be the decider, if the relationship is a WE. We are going here, We are going there. Who decides? Marital conflict is born when there is a conflict in who the decider is. A creative Idea is not one partner submitting to the other, but a new Idea in which both partners agree. The relationship chooses.