COUPLES WORK

 

Stephen and Ondrea Levine, a couple that has been giving talks and writing books on relationships for years, calls being in a couple something like the "ultimate spiritual path." They say we can fool our priest or our guru or our therapist, but we can't ever fool our partners for long—they just somehow always know what weÕre up to—and this makes the choice to be in relationship with them like a 24/7, year-round personal growth "opportunity" (I just heard a whole lot of people clicking back to "EBay") It appears that we will all unfailingly choose the one person (in a room of thousands) who will be both our ideal partner and our most challenging opponent all rolled into one. At every turn, in every argument, in every sweet exchange, there is a choice to help create either an "enemy" or a "lover."

 

This is very challenging—and frightening at times on a level we rarely expect—certainly no one told us this was coming. We seem to be given a free period of time (the "honeymoon," like 6 months to 2 years) when everything's all "floaty" and we just adore one another to no end: "Oh, I just love the way you put on your shoes!" or "We like all the same things!" Then the honeymoon does in fact begin to fade and a period of humbling, sometimes brutal work begins. It's not dissimilar to having kids (who are first cute beyond belief and then become adolescents). At this point, many will think to themselves, "Whoa! did I make a big mistake..." We do have the option of bailing out on our lovers every 18 months or so, so as to stay in a kind of perpetual honeymoon glow, but sooner or later we wonder what it would be like to really be known, and we yearn to go deeper. 

 

Counseling can be a reality check, a place where the patterns and postures of your unique partner "two-step"—as familiar as the air we breathe—can be gently brought to light and looked over with an eye to seeing what's working and what's not. These patterns often have their roots deep in the past, and so have well-worn paths in our brains: they are the "default setting," if you will. The right discussion or exercise can be like turning on a light in a dark room: now you can finally see that chair you keep stubbing your toe on. The patterns, the default settings, are like this unseen furniture—we can't negotiate around what we have no idea is even there! 

In relationships, as in life, there's no problem that doesn't have a gift for you in it's hands. The so-called "honeymoon period" is there for a reason. We need the deep memory of those easy, beautiful moments together to help us through the tough times. Those wonderful moments are every bit as real as the hard times—actually, they're probably more real. As we work through each challenge together, the good times return stronger, deeper. The soft tissue of love becomes something more like "backbone"—dependable, impenetrable, like the shelter of a huge tree.  TB