Issue 41 –
The Top Ten Challenges to Relationship:
Keeping Your Love Alive Amid Life’s Routines
Challenge 1: Television
The basic requirement for the care and feeding of a relationship is this: Partners must make the linkage – or connection – between them a priority in their lives.
There are many challenges to relationship, some of them come from outside of us and some come from within. We are going to show you the top ten challenges so that you can recognize them and do something about them. Meeting these challenges takes commitment, time, and effort. But a good relationship is well worth this effort and, we might point out, a great deal of this effort can be fun.
There is one very simple principle to keep in mind. The basic requirement for the care and feeding of a relationship is this: Partners must make the linkage – or connection – between them a priority in their lives. If they do so, the relationship will flourish. Anything that disrupts this linkage will disrupt their relationship.
Even the most devoted of partners will have interests other than their relationships and they will form attachments and linkages elsewhere. This is an important part of life. However, if your primary linkage in life shifts away from your partner and remains elsewhere, it is likely to prove fatal to your relationship.
There is a great deal of competition for our attention. All of us have a great many distractions in our lives and we do not have to go far to find something that will divert our attention from our partners. We will describe the ten major distractions that we have seen over the years. At the end of each of these, we will give you a chance to answer the question: Where is your primary linkage? You can use these questions to look at your own relationship to determine which among these are your major challenges.
Challenge 1: Television
Most homes have a television set. Actually, many homes have more than one so that each family member has a set all to his or her own. This is a very compelling distraction. Television sets and television programs are designed to attract us and keep our attention. That is their goal. The entire industry is based upon linking us irrevocably to the TV set. They seduce us with the weekly shows, the news, the stock market, our favorite ball team, the Olympics, the latest scandal, our favorite soap opera, that special program we cannot miss. Others among us are seduced by the sheer power inherent in the remote control. We are in charge! We can do or watch whatever we like, whenever we like. We can change stations to our hearts content without anybody scolding us. We are not forced to finish anything.
In addition to this seductive quality of television, there is its lack of confrontation and complication. It essentially complements your every mood and gives you whatever you want, whenever you want it. After all, has your TV ever made demands on you? Has it ever been disappointed in you? Has it ever criticized you? Has it made you feel vulnerable? Does it pressure you to finish anything? Does it frighten you or make you feel insecure? Do its feelings get hurt? Does it ever disagree with you? In short, there is no way that a TV set makes you as uncomfortable as your partner can!
Is it any wonder that we frequently find partners spending a great deal more time linked energetically to the TV than to one another?
Think about it! Are you more attached to your TV than to your partner? Which would you rather do without?
If you would rather do without your partner, it seems safe to say that something is missing in your relationship. We find that one of the first things to disappear in a relationship is time together. Both partners get so busy that they forget each other. Life today is difficult and demanding. People are usually so overworked, overstressed, or exhausted that when they do have a moment, they drop into a comfortable chair and watch TV. It takes real effort to stay on your feet and do something different.