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Issue 45 –

 

The Top Ten Challenges to Relationship:

Keeping Your Love Alive Amid Life’s Routines

Challenge 5: Children
We devoted chapter 8 to the effect of children on relationships because it is so common for children to replace the partner as our primary linkage. They are a marvelous gift but, just because they are so fascinating and delicious, they are also an almost irresistible distraction from the primary relationship. For many of us, it is the easiest thing in the world to shift our primary linkage from our partners to our children.

Basically, when a baby is born, the mother must bond to the new infant so that it will flourish. This usually means that, at least for a while, she will shift her primary linkage from the relationship to the child. These days with the increasing involvement of fathers in child rearing, the father is likely to shift his primary linkage to the child as well, for the same reason the mothers have done so in the past. It feels good.

It is absolutely necessary for both parents to realize how important it is for themselves, their relationship, and the well-being of their children, to stay connected to one another. This means that they will do whatever is necessary to maintain their own linkage.

When the linkage between partners is broken because one partner shifts the primary linkage to the child, the other partner is left hanging out alone, like an atom with an unpaired electron commonly known as a free radical. This “free radical” will look for someone or something else to bond to. Then any of these other “challenges” we have been discussing may become the object of the primary linkage. Let’s see what this can look like.

John and Jane have just had a baby after eight years of marriage. Before the birth of the child, John and Jane were inseparable. Jane taught school full time and John worked in computer software development. Now that the baby, Nancy, has entered the scene, Jane has taken a leave of absence from teaching, she is busy all the time and her primary linkage shifts from John to the baby. John feels rejected and is a bit worried about money, but he does not like to feel vulnerable so he does the sensible thing. He spends more and more time at work. After all, there are more bills to be paid and Jane is no longer teaching full time. Now Jane is linked to the baby and John is linked to his work. But there is a problem, a big one, their connection is no longer primary.

Sometimes the primary connection remains within the family but instead of being between the parents, it shifts to the children. Each partner links to a different child. The mother’s primary connection may be to her son and the father’s to his daughter. One parent may connect to the most successful child while the other parent’s primary connection is to the most needy child. If there is a single child, it sometimes happens that both parents’ primary linkage is to the same child.

If you have children ask yourself these questions: Is your primary linkage to your partner or to your children? What about your partner’s primary connection, is it to you or to a child? When did you and your partner last take time to be alone and to reconnect in intimate ways that did not include your children?

Issue 44 –

The Top Ten Challenges to Relationship:

Keeping Your Love Alive Amid Life’s Routines

 

Challenge 4: Friends
It is extremely important to have friends and not to depend solely upon your partner to fill all your interpersonal needs. However, it is possible for our friendships to divert our primary linkage to someone other than our partner.

In the past, this has been particularly true of women. Their friendships have been deeper and more intimate than their marriages. They felt that they could say anything to their friends, but that they had to be cautious about what they said to their husbands. When they needed comfort they spoke with their friends not with their husbands. When they were unhappy about something that their husbands said or did, they did not speak to their husbands about it, but aired their concerns with their friends instead. Rather than saying to their partners, “I did not like it when you . ” they called their friends and discussed the matter with them. This shifts the primary linkage from the husband to the friend.

There is another way in which the primary linkage moves away from the relationship and to the friendship. This is a particular problem when one partner is an overly responsible person who gets very involved with the needs and problems of friends. There is a point where the balance between the friend and partner is shifted and the relationship loses. The energy is withdrawn from the partner and goes to the needy friend.

For instance, Bob and Jill are sitting at the dinner table. Jill tells Bob a funny story about their daughter’s success with her potty training. Bob proudly tells Jill about his contract to build three homes in the new housing development in the next town. They are having a great time together. The phone rings. It is Jill’s friend, Marla, who is having marital problems – again. Rather than finishing her meal with Bob, Jill leaves him at the table and talks for an hour with Marla. She links to Marla, her friend who needs her. She breaks her linkage with Bob who, she thinks, can manage on his own. If this happens frequently enough, the primary linkage is no longer in the marriage but in the friendship, and the marriage becomes an empty form rather than a living relationship.

As you might notice from this interchange, friends often carry our disowned selves, or missing pieces. If we look at the example of Bob and Jill, we see that Jill is not allowed to be needy like Marla. Jill, as a responsible type of person, must abandon her own dinner in order to care for Marla. She does not have the option of saying, “I’m sorry but I can’t talk just now, Bob and I are eating dinner. I’ll call you back tomorrow.”

The question to ask yourself here is Who is my best friend? In general, when you have something really important on your mind would you rather talk to your partner or your friends? For a truly intimate relationship, the answer will be “my partner.” There is a saying “It’s wonderful to be married to your best friend.” When the primary linkage is in the relationship, that is just the way we feel; our partners are our best friends.

Issue 43 –

The Top Ten Challenges to Relationship:

Keeping Your Love Alive Amid Life’s Routines

 

Challenge 3:

Other Relationships in Fact and Fantasy
There was a period in the late 1960s and early 1970s when people realized that they could not expect a single romantic or sexual relationship to meet all their needs. This was a reaction against earlier over idealized expectations of marriages “made in heaven” and dreams of “happily ever after” when all that was needed was one Cinderella and one Prince Charming. It was a time of cultural revolution during which there was a good deal of experimentation with extramarital relationships and deep extramarital friendships.

Quite often this worked beautifully for a while. Each partner felt more alive and fulfilled. They brought back new energy to the primary relationship and the linkage between the partners intensified. But what we noticed during those years was that, sooner or later, the linkage between the partners began to dissipate as the linkage to outsiders increased in intensity. Most of the time the primary linkage finally shifted from the partner to someone else.

As normal, ordinary human beings, we can expect to feel attractions to people other than our partners. This is totally natural. It just means that we are alive and that our hormones are functioning properly . There is a great deal to be learned from these attractions if we do not panic about them or feel too guilty.

There was definitely a kernel of truth in the thinking of the sixties and seventies. One person does not hold everything; therefore one relationship cannot hold everything. We have our primary selves and we have our disowned selves. In our relationships there are selves that are acceptable or primary and others that both partners disown.

If you think about what we said earlier regarding disowned selves (see chapter 2), you get the picture of what happens in relationship. Our disowned selves, and the disowned selves of our partners, are the selves that we find fascinating in others. These are the selves that exert the fatal attractions that cause us to drop the linkage to our partners and develop a primary linkage elsewhere . This linkage does not have to become sexual in order to challenge the relationship. It just needs to be primary.

Sometimes this is not even a linkage to an actual person, sexual or otherwise. Sometimes it is a preoccupation with a fantasy. One of the partners develops a strong fantasy life and disappears into it. This can be a fantasy about another person, about an imagined person, or a fantasy about a different kind of life. The primary linkage shifts from the relationship or the partnering to this fantasy or this fantasy character. For some people, this can be as strong an involvement as an involvement with another person and it can disrupt the linkage between partners as much as an actual affair. Just as in an actual affair, the primary linkage has been shifted. Here, the primary linkage is to the fantasy rather than to the partner. Where does this linkage go? Just as in an affair or an attraction, the linkage is always to a person or a situation that is carrying a disowned self.

What can be done to reestablish the linkage within the partnership? If you follow our thinking, look for the disowned selves that are operating. What is it that is irresistible about this person who is not your partner? Where does this person carry either your disowned self or that of your partner? You can actually use this attraction as a teacher and either you or your partner can claim the disowned self so that this irresistible attraction becomes more resistible and your primary linkage returns to the relationship.

What does this look like? Perhaps you and your partner have become rather complacent and predictable. Your routine is safe and comfortable because each of you has disowned your spontaneity and wildness. We might expect that someone who is more spontaneous or unpredictable would be very attractive to one or both of you. If you take this attraction as a sign that you need a bit of fresh air and that your lives need a bit of change, you may be able to incorporate this change into your relationship rather than changing relationships.

These missing pieces that we find irresistible in others can be almost anything. Each of us is different. The person who carries this attraction can be a rebel or a conservative, sexual or proper, a professional or a homebody, fiscally responsible or fiscally impulsive, cautious or spontaneous, thoughtful or selfish, powerful or sensitive, passionate or cool, sophisticated or simple. The list goes on forever, but we just wanted to give you a picture of the variety of possibilities.

Think of the people in your life who exert a fascination over you and who pull your energetic linkage toward themselves and away from your partner. What is it that they carry that is missing in you, your partner, or the relationship? How might you bring more balance into your life and into your relationship by including some of this missing energy?

Issue 42 –

The Top Ten Challenges to Relationship:

Keeping Your Love Alive Amid Life’s Routines

Challenge 2: Work

Our work is very important. It gives us power and money and keeps us safe in the world. It helps us to define ourselves. Hopefully, if we give it enough attention, our work will always be there to support us and we do not have to worry about our work abandoning or divorcing us. Most important, as long as we have our work, we do not have to think very much about our vulnerability. Anything that helps us to deal with our vulnerability, without us having to face it directly, is extremely attractive.

Is it any wonder that many of us develop a primary linkage to our work and relegate our relationship to second place? When we feel vulnerable deep down inside and we do not want to know about it, going to work can make us feel better. At work, we make a difference. We are needed. We are wanted. Here we have mastery, or at least we can work toward mastery. This is extremely reassuring. Life feels safe and structured and our priorities are set for us. We know what is expected and we are able to do the right thing. Add to all this, the fact that we are earning money and contributing to the financial security of both our inner and outer children and you have a total win-win situation.

Unfortunately, the more our linkage is to work, the less energy there is left for relationship. Since the lifeblood of any relationship is linkage, this is not good for the relationship! The tendency to link to work rather than to one’s partner is a major challenge to relationship.

Traditionally, men have buried themselves in work when they felt vulnerable or their emotions became too uncomfortable. Now women, too, have this marvelous option available. Many women have learned to drop the linkage in the relationship and shift their energies to their work. When the going gets rough for a two-career couple and each partner has satisfying work, there is a strong temptation for the partners to shift the primary linkage from their relationship to their work. As this happens, each feels abandoned by the other and each links even more intensely to work.

This linkage may be to the work itself, to the clients they serve, or to their coworkers. This linkage is frequently to a particular person at work, an understanding coworker or a particularly supportive assistant. Traditionally it was the man’s secretary. This may or may not become a full-blown extramarital relationship.

We find this can be a particularly subtle challenge for people who work together. For instance, it is very easy for the two of us to get so involved in a project that we lose contact with each other. We may both get so interested in our writing that our linkage goes to the book rather than to one another. It may look as though we are still in a relationship because we are both linked to the same object, but we are not. Not really. We are like two oxen yoked to the same cart. We are pulling together and doing a great job, but we have blinders on and we no longer see each other. We just see the road ahead. When this happens, there is a loss of intimacy. We do not feel good and we do not know why.

There are many times in life when being linked to work looks like a natural and necessary move. This is particularly true when there are financial pressures, either real or imagined. One or both partners will deal with this underlying vulnerability in the most seemingly sensible fashion by working harder and earning more money. This is not a problem if the connection between the partners stays strong and intimate. Usually, however, at times like these the truly strong connection switches to work and the partners gradually and unobtrusively drift apart until they are almost like strangers to one another.

Of course, there are times when any of us will feel better at work than at home, but think about it. Over all, where do you feel better, with your partner or with your work?

To deal with this challenge, see what you can do about putting a limit on the amount of time you spend at work or thinking about work. Set boundaries. Try to set realistic time limits that you can meet; for instance, no work or work-related activity between 8:30 P.M. and 7:00 A.M. This will probably be extremely difficult to do at first. To help you do this, keep a notepad with you so that when you have a work-related thought during your off-hours, you can write it down and not think about it until the next work session. For instance, you remember that you should send an E-mail to double check on yesterday’s order. Write it down on your notepad and put it away until tomorrow. Otherwise you will probably spend a great deal of time (1) trying not to think this thought and (2) fearing that you will forget to send the E-mail.

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.