How often have you had a friend tell you how to respond to a relationship problem only to have that backfire horribly on you when you test it out? All the while, you probably had a strong, niggling suspicion that it wasn't going to work. So, why did your friend make that suggestion? Was it a deliberate ploy to see you crash and burn, or something else entirely? Usually, friends want good things to happen for us and their advice, no matter how unhelpful, was well-intentioned. This point serves very well to illustrate an important lesson: that what works for one person or couple is rarely what works for another (one man's meat is another man's poison after all). Isn't this why it is often so hard to find one's own life-partner and soul-mate? So, when your friend tells you how you need to respond to your current relationship dilemma, your best bet is to nod in appreciation of their good intentions and then swiftly forget it (unless their advice is to find out more information before making any assumptions)! The chances of their advice hitting the mark are strongly stacked against you for a number of reasons. First off, what you are recounting to your friend is your impression of the events. There are usually 3 versions of the truth: yours, your other-half's and the actual run of events. I don't mean to suggest that you are deliberately omitting the whole truth, simply that we all carry our own 'filters' to reality, i.e. we interpret events according to our own learned core beliefs about ourself, others and the world in general, which can easily get in the way when reaching conclusions. These are usually what guide us in selecting our friends and our likely partners in the first place. So, in recounting your impression of events, your friend has received pretty limited information upon which to build an assessment and then to provide some balanced advice. Secondly, there are a number of possible assumptions being made in soliciting advice about what one can do about one's partner. The main assumption possibly being made is that your partner's behaviour is something to do with you - that you are partly responsible for the problem at hand. If you were not, you would not be seeking advice upon how to change it, you would accept it and leave it well alone. I am not suggesting that you are not partly responsible, nor that you accept abusive or other unacceptable behaviour. Another likely contender in the assumption stakes is that you have the power to alter this thing about your partner or 'problem' person. At best, it is highly questionable that you are responsible or that you have the power to change this. It is a risky strategy for any human being to assume this level of responsibility or power over another, even one's life-partner or child. In fact, particularly over one's life partner or child. Typically, the more we are pushed, the more we push back. The alternate assumption that no-one is responsible for another's happiness, is a difficult one for many in relationships to accept; as is accepting one's partner for who he or she is rather than whom you'd like them to be. Exploring one's own rigid beliefs (we all have them!), expectations and limits, and recognising how these impact upon your satisfaction in this relationship, can be as worthwhile an activity as any. In my professional and personal experience this is not particularly easy to do in practice. Perhaps the best description I've ever read about the human condition, goes as follows:
"What a chimera then is man! What a novelty, what a monster, what a chaos, what a subject of contradiction, what a prodigy! A judge of all things, imbecile feeble worm of the earth; depository of truth, a sink of uncertainty and error, the pride and refuse of the universe! Who will unravel this tangle?" (Blaise Pascal, mathematician, physicist & theologian 1623-62)
My view is contrary to the many mechanistic, 'Cartesian' thinkers, a popular philosophy of the early 20th century and the nirvana of early psychologists, to an extent prevailing still in the workplace: that man is highly predictable, like a clockwork machine, including those who still ply the trade of psychometric testing without balance. Mine, along with my contemporary psychologists, assumes that we human beings are not constant, unchanging beings. In agreement with the sentiments of the quote above, we are constantly shifting, learning, adapting and at times reverting to old styles of being. Now, more than ever, our lifestyles are changing at an increasingly rapid pace. This being so, the relationship itself must be capable of surviving such chaos, of accepting and adapting to it. So, the participants in the relationship must, to an extent, be capable of this too. Is it enough if only one half of the partnership is capable of this, you might be wondering? Well, this sounds a lot like self-sacrifice but that doesn't mean that it won't work! My only query is for how long and at what personal cost in terms of self-esteem and fulfillment?
At the beginning of 2009, with much sadness I read the eulogy at my friend Joan's funeral. Her husband and daughter had written the eulogy, but were unable to give it. Reading aloud Joan's full and loving life, I was reminded of what a remarkable gift this sort of relationship is. To love and be loved unstintingly has to be a prize above all others. It nourishes us in good times and bad and sustains us, even when the other person is no longer there. Reading this reminded me that such remarkable relationships can prevail, where built upon an unstinting love for one another. As Joan's husband remarked to me, they had achieved an incredibly happy life together, thanks in part to their ability to adapt, to accept and so survive the inevitable wobbles that life throws its way. This gift was no more apparent than upon this sad day. Without love, our life can feel a little like counting the hours, minutes and seconds until the end. Joan's life was so full of love and laughter, busy with activities and projects that it will hopefully comfort us all in the months to come. Joan we will all miss you.
Here is a bit of my personal background: I am a 40+ year-old psychologist, psychotherapist, relationship counsellor, corporate coach and hypnotherapist. I work with corporate clients and private clients alike and the contents should be as relevant to either. I am also working my way through a protracted, but mostly amicable divorce. What else could you expect from a psychotherapist? As most psychologists do - or maybe as most philosophers do(!) - I frequently live in the grey area of life and certainty, rather than the black and white. The upside to this is that it makes for extremely interesting, philosophical debates and valued relationships are preserved at all cost. However, this comes with a warning: in life, it makes decision-making more lengthy, deliberated and time-consuming (as well as frustrating for those black and white thinkers!). I believe this is what the UN attempts to do when it intervenes against some of the very black and white thinking Member States. That's as political as I'll get.
So, this blog is going to be (hopefully) an interesting mixture of psychological, sociological, anthropological, philosophical and theological (perhaps not so much, but inputs very welcome) exploration of how we human beings manage to sustain partnerships and relationships, in life, in love and in ourselves.
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