My Marriage: What Conscious Partners Know
This will be my last blog until May. My wife and I are heading to Europe for a month to celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary. As I tell the couples that come to my office, Imago Relationship Therapy is not just theory for me, it is very personal.
Our Marriage
Those of you who know me, know that 15 years into our marriage, we separated. It was over. It was my wife who read Harville’s book Getting the Love You Want: A Guide for Couples first. In it, he makes the point that what often happens is we get rid of our partner but keep the problem and take the same problem into the next relationship. That made sense to both of us, so we said, let’s not waste those first fifteen years, let’s figure out what didn’t work in our marriage so we don’t repeat the pattern.
Back Together
Four months later we were back together again and two months after that we went to Chicago to attend a Getting the Love You Want workshop Harville was conducting. At the end of the weekend, I decided to go to New York and train with Harville, and then two years later went back to train to do the Getting the Love You Want workshop and here we are 35 years later, with a great relationship and heading out to celebrate our 50th anniversary.
Conscious Partners Great Relationship
What makes our relationship great? – living out the statements I have been explaining – What Conscious Partners Know.
In looking over the 25 statements that Harville and Helen compiled about What Conscious Partners Know, they are all important but here are a few that have been very important in our relationship. Some I have already explained, the others I will return to in May.
Safety
- Safety is nonnegotiable for thriving in their relationship.
If I could characterize our relationship for the last 35 years, it is safe. There are no arrows coming, I am not going to get zinged. Pretty nice!!
- They are different from each other and will never be the same. Similarity is as good as it gets.
Those of you who know us, realize how different we are, but the differences aren’t a roadblock – they just are. They make us who we are and we can love each other for them.
- They can assume that their partner’s intentions are good, even if their behavior is not.
If something happens that doesn’t work for us, I know, without a doubt, that it was not intentional. Her intentions are always about what is good for both of us.
- Having a healthy relationship is the best thing they can do for their physical and emotional health.
There is a 75-year study out of Harvard that has shown over and over again that a healthy relationship is the one thing that people state matters the most for longevity and good health.
- They need to acknowledge each other’s “otherness”, accept each other’s differences, affirm each other’s reality, adore each other’s traits, and advocate each other’s reality and potential.
I think we do that for each other pretty well.
Have a great April and I’ll be back in May to pick up where we left off on the 25 statements of What Conscious Partners Know. Cheers.
