Tom and Danielle go out on a date. The attraction is immediate. It is so Hollywood. They’re crazy about each other. The other, they think, is finally The One. Each one seems to know exactly what the other needs, emotionally, physically, intellectually. Gosh, they even sometimes finish each others sentences. Before they are said!
Tom is thrilled to have found someone who accepts him for who he is. Danielle thinks the same and happily tells her friends how she can just be herself around him. Imagine that. What with all those losers she’s dated before.
What each one is also unconsciously saying to the other is “I also want you to accept those things about me you might find objectionable.”
Two years later (or two months in some cases) Danielle starts grumbling about some of the things Tom does. He’s always late and messy. He spends on toys for himself and but then has little for things needed around the house. And he spends more time with his buddies than her. I mean, aren’t we supposed to be a couple?
This takes Tom aback. Now he feels he’s not being accepted for who he is. He counterattacks and complains about some of the things she does. That she’s needy. That she wants to spend money on things they don’t really need. And why does she have to be so uptight all the time.
They skulk in and out of this argument over weeks and months. The tension and frustration mounts and eventually reaches a point of no return.
Do you stay and resign yourself to a lackluster relationship or get out? They lick their wounds in their respective corners and tell, text, email, twitter, blog to their friends if only the other would change it would all work out.
What is happening here is what the psychologist John Gottman calls emotional gridlock. You can negotiate vacation or dinner plans, but you can’t negotiate values. We don’t give those up so easily because we are so identified with them. They make us who we are. If there is an unresolved clash of values in relationship you have an emotional traffic jam. It’s get out of the city Friday holiday weekend afternoon traffic and nothing moves.
Tom’s values are to hang out with friends and buy toys. (I’m told the difference between men and boys is the price of their toys) Danielle’s values are obvious: build a nest, spend time together.
Their complaints about each other are an attack on their values; therefore, they take it very personally. Both feel that their values are not being honored and therefore neither are they.
How does this get resolved? Can it get resolved?
It depends on the amount of their commitment to the relationship. If both feel there would still be a lot to lose, there is more willingness to work. It is a motivation as old as humanity. We will work hard to avoid losing things to which we are very attached. The greatest being life itself.
But to resolve it will take some sacrifice and this is hard for some to do. The more heavily people are invested in their position, the harder it is to come out from behind them because they are taking a risk into unknown charted emotional territory. The more it is about “me” means the less I am able to open myself to try and see things from another’s point of view. Because to do that raises the fear that I may not get everything I want.
This is the fork in the road many face as the reality of commitment settles in. It is one thing to say I am committed, it is quite another to be able to live it. Because to live it means having some emotional skills or resources that may still need to be developed.
“Well what are they?” Tom and Danielle exclaim like young birds waiting to be fed by their mother. “Communication skills? Read Men are from Mars?”
“Wake up and smell the coffee.”
They look at each other confused.
“What?! What does that mean?” they shout.
“You’re asleep and not smelling the coffee.”
Their faces turn red as exasperation surges through them.
“Communication skills and relationship self help books are fine but before they will in any way be effective, something else has to happen first and it begins with waking up from the dream you’ve had of your partner. In your mind you hold an image of an ideal of your partner. As long as your partner conforms to that ideal, everything is ok, but as soon as your parenter does not fit that ideal, you complain. You are trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. If you can wake up from that dream and really accept that the other person really is who they say they are you have to ask yourself, is it good enough.”
It is the worst possible nightmare for people who are completely lost in “me.” The more “me” there is, the less room there is for someone else. The more “me” there is, the more there is an idealized version of who a suitable partner should be.
The early glow of relationship, the Hollywood phase of it, provides an illusion of perfection and this traps many “me” oriented people. It is hard for them to move beyond it because to accept anything less than ideal feels like a loss to them and this eventually becomes their tragedy as they go in and out of relationships, the joy of long lasting relationship always eluding them.
But what is good enough? It is a question everyone has to answer for themselves. It is tricky because what is good enough is based on values. Some values are negotiable, like hobbies, vocations let’s say. But some are not: need for honesty, warmth, security, feeling accepted. Moreover, these things are not fixed. When I say “I do” I have one version of good enough but ten years later my values may have changed.
What makes it more difficult is the fact that we live in a consumer driven culture that prizes personal, rather than collective, fulfillment. This creates the illusion that “I can have it all.”
There probably are some couples who “have it all.” I haven’t met any of them yet. But then again, why would they see someone like me?
I’m told in the Navajo tradition of rug weavers, there is always a thread that is left unwoven. It symbolizes that we live in an imperfect world.
