Real people don't talk in the way counselors and psychologist advise us to communicate. It just isn't realistic when you've been up all night with a crying baby and your partner isn't being the most supportive person in the world to; "talk in the "I". If you come home from work and find yourself confronted by a woman who is a shadow of the woman you married and you haven't had sex for three months, finding yourself being criticized for not doing the dishes. You are hardly going to have the presence of mind to say "when you say things like "can't you at least do the f-ing dishes" I don't feel valued as human being".
It's pretty normal in a relationship for the love to ebb and flow a bit. Its natural to have times where you feel great love for your partner and times where you don't really like them much and everything in between. Real love is not like it is on the movies, where a couple of people get together and are deliriously in love 24 hours a day. I'm sure it does happen however, I'm not sure its as common place as is represented in the media.
What can we do. At some stage in a couples past they fell madly and deeply in love. I personally love that stage of a relationship where the mere mention of the name of your beloved makes your heart skip a beat. Who wouldn't love that first flush of love. The science proves that those initial feeling of love are actually like a drug. It triggers a chemical reaction in your body that is strong. Endorphin and a host of other powerful chemicals are charging through your brain and body. You are high on love. Those feelings don't always last and the chemical response you have when first in love do die off after the first two years. Coincidentally, around this time we start seeing the first signs of lets say "the less attractive attributes" of our partners. It must have been that high chemical reaction that made you not see him leaving the towel on the floor or her tendency to leave her personal hygiene products in the most unattractive places in the bathroom. This is where unconditional love becomes more important than physical attraction.
My brother says "Stick with the devil you know, just be extremely careful about the devil you pick". I agree whole heartily with this theory. In my family my picking skills are somewhat of a joke. While my brother picked extremely well marrying one of my friends. Most experts also agree that we learn more about ourselves by working through our problems with our partners rather than running at the first sign of trouble. How do we translate that to the couple arguing about the dishes with the crying baby, who have stopped having sex and also are sleep deprived. They choose each other, if a couple have also chosen to have a child there must be some very strong feelings of love either now or in the past. Its possible to tap right back into that love perhaps not right at the point when the swear words are flying and sleep deprivation is affecting your thinking processes. Maybe later it will kick in.
If our couple off load the baby to the grandparents, uncle or aunt or best mates who have been dying to have some alone time with that screaming sleepless kid and are just waiting to be asked. The couple might stand a chance. It's really a good thing for kids to have as many loving relationships as possible growing up. These are the relationships that will later become a resource of advise and support. I got awesome advise and support from my Grandmother, my step mother and my aunt and uncles growing up. Advise that I often didn't take in regards to partner choice. It's nice to have more than your parents and your teenage friends to get advise from. Regular visits with these people at the baby stage and throughout life are the foundations for great social support later on in life.
Going on a date with your partner while the screaming kid is off building relationships, is great motivation to dress up and look nice while at the same time is fun and positively gold to the long term happiness of your relationship. One of my best friends has date nights with her husband once a week no matter what is going on they have their date. One week he decides what to do, the following week it's her turn. The rule is, you go even if it is a chick flick or gangster movie that you wouldn't normally see. My friend has said she is often surprised how much she has enjoyed the action movies she thought she would hate.
One of the keys that John Gottman mentions in what sets aside the "masters" of relationships from the "disasters" is the ability to repair the damage of comments like "Do the F...ing dishes". My brother is definitely a master, being married for 30 years. He uses humour to repair he's failures in communication and lack of house work prowess. My partner, also can instantly defuse my bad mood and tiredness by making a joke, usually directed at me, or playing a practical joke like leaving very realistic looking fake spiders in all the draws and hanging off the door jams so that when I open the door a spider falls on my head. Its hard to be mad when you're laughing your head off. Its a good idea to be asking yourself "what can I do to make this relationship a great place to be" rather than looking at all the things that are wrong with your partner and considering how much more superior you are.
It does take work. Some of that work can turn out to be fun. Doing some kind of hobby together, playing a few jokes on each other. It is a good idea to try to talk to each other in a way that is loving and respectful even if it isn't as well thought out as your psychologist had hoped it would be. It is worth sticking it out with the devil you know. If you happen to have chosen the wrong devil and you've made every effort to maintain the relationship. If you find yourself at the point where neither of you can go on. Make it like a band-aide removal, do it quickly and don't play the blame game. That person may find love with someone else and you are holding them back from finding that person. My Grandmother use to say "Love is Everything" she in fact wrote a poem about how much she loved my grandfather which, I will post at a later date. If you can't commit to making the relationship work, through the bad times as well as the good times, at least have the decencies to let the other person know and move on without making them feel like they are a failure. I would lay bets that if you are at this stage you'll be nit picking that persons character to pieces looking for an excuse to get out of there. It's not their fault that you've found them to be, not the best devil for you, so don't punish yourself or them for something neither of you can change.
I believe having a loving relationship even if it's a loving relationship that is outside of what we consider to be "normal" can bring great joy to peoples lives. I suggest that it can be whatever you want it to be. Don't let social pressure determine how your relationship looks, Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracey had a very loving relationship and never lived in the same house together. It's your relationship it's up to the people in the relationship to decide what works. Letting go of the standard model of relationship led me to finding happiness in a bit of an unconventional relationship, I wasted a lot of time trying to conform to something that didn't really suit me. Your relationship can provide so many benefits for example longer life expectancy and better communication skills just to name a few, its worth putting effort into it and being creative. Here's to finding an appropriate devil and sticking with them.
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| Puppy Love |
Sources
Berrison, G.
(2007). Making Relationships Work. A conversation with Psychologist John M.
Gottman. Harvard Business Review, 45-50.
Crooks, R., &
Baur, K. (2011). Our Sexuality. Belmont, CA, USA: Wadsworth.
Gottman, J.
(1994). Why Marriages Succeed or Fail and how you can make yours last.
NY: Simon & Schuster Paperback.
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