Keys to a Positive Marriage--Belief in the Other Person and Their Growth

What is love?  Is it a feeling of romance?  Is it a bonding between two persons?  Is it shared experience?

I think it is many things, but let me tell you one thing I believe it is.   It is an awareness that the other person is important.  They are important not only because you love them, not only because they make you feel good, not only because they are beautiful, not only because they are intelligent, not only because they are funny and sociable, but they are important because they exist.  There is a reason for them to exist on this Earth.

Perhaps you don't see it that way, but stay with me for a moment.  At least hopefully you believe that your partner has a potential to be something special.  My belief is that each person has a capacity for growth for becoming a unique person.  They have a capacity for self-directedness and self-actualization. 

I sometimes think of life as a trajectory.  It is as if we are fired from an artillery piece out into the sky and into the world.  Under the best of circumstances, each person traces a very unique arc to their eventual landing place.  This trajectory is theirs uniquely, and the quality of their life and the meaning of their life will depend on the success they have in this task. 

As a spouse or partner, we can assist the other person in this.  Or we can ignore it, or even fight against it.  When we are in a relationship, it is likely that at different times, we will probably do all three.  But love is helping our partner on their unique trajectory. 

There may be times when what is good for the other will rub us the wrong way.  Perhaps one partner has a desire to go back to college, and we are worried about what that will do to family finances.  Perhaps one partner feels the need to be away from the house to do volunteer work, and we want their time for ourselves.  Perhaps the highest grossing wage earner decides that they really need to do something different in life, but it will bring in less money.  Things such as this may trouble us or frighten us.  But one aspect of love is realizing that our partner needs support and help.  They do not need to be encumbered by our selfishness.

This is essentially recognizing the other person as a person, and not as an object or possession.  It takes joy in letting the other person be who they are while still staying in the committed bounds of the marriage relationship.  While I am not Buddhist, let me use a concept from the Easter religions here.  It is the concept of Mudita.  (Pronounced moo-di-tah.)  This is the idea of taking joy in the good fortune of others.  We take joy and happiness in the other person discovering themselves, developing their talents, and being all that it is possible in their being to be.  This is in many ways similar to the Christian concept of agape.  It is love directed toward the best interests of the other person.  It strives towards being selfless rather than just getting our own needs met.

This is not to say that we don't have the right to speak up when our partners do something which offends us.  We do have the right.  If my spouse wanted to take a trek by herself to the Himalayas, I would definitely speak up.  But I need to be aware of her needs and the things which will lead to her self-actualization, even if they don't seem to meet my needs at the moment.

The opposite of this concept is narcissism.  In narcissism, I want my spouse to be an extension of me.  I want to pull their strings, like one would with a marionette.  Or I expect them to behave as a puppet.  I see them as an extension of me, and not truly as another person with their own wants, feelings, needs, and trajectory in life.

Now, of course, all of this is very idealistic.  It is often beyond our ability to be this selfless.  But then, to quote Robert Browning, "Man's reach must exceed his grasp, else what's a heaven for?"

In Love and Out Again--The Dilemma of Many of My Patients

Why do people fall out of love?  I have asked myself this many times as I have worked with clients.  What went wrong that these two people have come to this point of distance, or indifference, or anger, or even hate?  It is often hard for me to imagine what has caused such a wrenching change in a couple's relationship.

Most of us understand that love cannot continue in its white hot state forever.  But still, why does it go away entirely?

There are both active reasons and passive reasons.

The passive reason is that we ignore it.  It is a plant starved at the roots because it is not fed.  It is taken for granted.  And many times, the energy given to the children is one reason that it is not nourished.  That energy is needed elsewhere.  Or we funnel the energy to our jobs.

On the other hand, there is an active reason as well.  We kill it.  We kill it when we allow discussions to become arguments, and arguments to become fights.  Arguments are inevitable, but they can be limited in their scope and time duration to do less harm.  We kill it when we threaten divorce over and over.  Long, ongoing arguments, or arguments where divorce is mentioned, are destructive.  And then sometimes arguments beomce fights.  In fights, people try to hurt each other.

So my recommendation to couples is to nourish the relationship.  Give it time and energy.  And limit arguing.  Limit its scope and its length.  And never, ever, fight.  That is, never, ever try to hurt the other person.

Try to remember what made you fall in love with the other person to begin with.  Try to bring back those feelings by remembering how wonderful it was and all the things which initially attracted you to them.