To keep a clear mind is not easy when we are buoyed up by our hopes and hormones and conditioned by the Grammar to unreasonably idealistic expectations. ”... once you begin to move on the plane of emotion, reason doesn't answer the bell when you ring ...” (Morgan {L}) Remember “… from an evolutionary point of view, the purposes of life are clear: survival and reproduction.” (Judson {TBA}). You are reading this, you’ve survived, so you have already won half the battle as stated.
Whatever the relationship problem, you’ve got to survive; remember the 1st Law of Relationships, “Don’t become casualty number two”, and that there are such things as insoluble problems (professionally, I’m good at recognising these). Like a character of Murdoch has said {TBA} "Some situations can't be unravelled ... they just have to be dropped." That is the worst case scenario, now we’ll return to more positive thoughts and actions.
In a relationship, as elsewhere, there is no guaranteed path to success; the basic rule is whatever works for you – both.
Everyone remembers the start of a relationship (there is always a start) and the end of a relationship (there need not be an end!) and these are the parts that are most frequently written about. Surely the first trick is to aim to prolong the bit in the middle (life together)?
The next trick is to improve the quality of life, for both of you, within that relationship.
I suggest that these seven keys should therefore be kept in mind, and reviewed, as your relationship develops and becomes more formalised.
If you are not at present in a relationship, take heart, and regard these seven keys as a way of enhancing your armour before you go into battle again.
Militaristic images abound in the subject of relationships, Hendrix {TBA} writes of ”the hidden land mines we bring to our partnerships”.
Tough love is so necessary, for it will be a battle in a never-ending war and I offer this advice as a foot-soldier turned war correspondent.
Keypoints
• One – ‘Love’ is Selfish •
We have seen that the language of love (both in its Grammar and in its semantics) is misleading to the point of deception.
However, if each party in the relationship is prepared to acknowledge (without shame) the "selfish" nature of their love and that their need to love is greater than their need to be loved, this will not only minimize a lot of false expectations but will bring to each of them the realization of using their own power to “make things work”.
Many other authors have recognised this, here are some relevant quotes: "It must be remembered that the real story was that which took place in the soul of the lover himself." (McCullers {TBA}), and "I bet even you two don't know the whole story." (Banks {TBA}).
Everyone has a real need to love, and is likely to imagine still more, as a narrator has said: ” … what one loves is, after all, another human being, a person with other interests, other pains, in whose world one is oneself an object among others." (Murdoch {TBA}). So be thankful if, as that “object among others”, you are simultaneously loved; I deliberately do not say “in return” as there are two distinct “acceptably selfish” actions involved.
• Two – Forget the Fiction •
‘Romantic’ fiction is just that, and it’s persuasively ‘real’, and it sells; it is popular, but it does affect you in the same way that TV and other advertising does. "As young children, most of us learned how to view ourselves as males and females not only from our parents but from the thousands of hours we spent watching television." (de Angelis {TBA}). In retrospect, I was affected by it – when my mother was writing a romantic novel she regularly bought women’s magazines to study the genre and I (an impressionable teenager) secretly read them when I was supposed to be studying. So be warned!
It is also worth noting that, in the earliest stages of a relationship, when physical desire is being justified by any available reason, either or both partners may actually lie about their personal likes and dislikes to increase the apparent mutual compatibility. Although this may be just an example of instantaneous sincerity (see Seven – Would you say that to a Friend? below) it is still fiction.
The question “Why did your last relationship break down?” has got to be asked and answered, and the question is better asked sooner rather than later. Ex’s also have to be talked about, but not excessively (impolite, and the risk of breaking the 3rd Law of Relationships suggested in Chapter 4). As Hendrix {TBA} has said ”Every past liaison began in love, and hope.”.
Remember, every relationship is unique, even every kiss; as Reed has said ”… the ingredients for success in any marriage remain the same and are vitally important whether it is for the first, the second or even the third time.”.
What words do you use when you speak of your beloved to others, and what words do they use when they speak of you? A lot of your true feeling can come out unconsciously, you might have some cause to worry if the adjective ‘nice’ gets used; to quote Dowling {TBA} “Such a pathetic word, ‘fond’. Almost as bad as ‘nice’.”
Another form of fiction are the “lies” that you and your partner can create about each other "With the disarming incoherence of a mind now diseased with love he at once turned this liability into an asset. Her deficiency became her finest achievement." (La Mure {TBA}).
Here there are two forces at work, your likely expectation (see Five – Well, what did you Expect? below) that your relationship will follow one of a number of fictional patterns, and you’re likely surprise when it does not ‘follow the script’. If it transpires that it is you who needs to change your behaviour then remember that "The first step in changing your behavior is becoming aware of it." (de Angelis {TBA}).
• Three – Think Being after Becoming •
Becoming involved in a relationship is comparatively easy, which is one reason that it the area of love to which so much literature and romantic fiction has been devoted. Being involved in a relationship requires constant maintenance - the price of ”liberty … is eternal vigilance (Philpot Curran {TBA}) etc and yet the relationship must not and cannot be oppressive or regimented. I suppose that, nowadays, the exception is if one ‘list-person’ marries another ‘list-person’ (Law {TBA}), but fortunately that is rare.
It is such a pity that the term maintenance is never heard in connection with relationships, apart that is from Court actions and also where “high maintenance” is used as a derogatory (however accurate) description of some women!
So much changes when you are at last, to all intents and purposes, permanently together. "...the security of constant presence alters passion which is fed by jeopardy and the dread of change, of loss." (McCullers {TBA}) and, from another author "That’s the trouble with marriage … People let their minds slop about in carpet-slippers.” (Morgan {TBA}).
Alas, there are no foolproof tests that will establish (beyond reasonable doubt) whether at a particular time a relationship is viable or doomed. However, both the danger signs and the safe signs that I have suggested should now give you a structured indication – be warned, though, that this cannot be a precise science and that one man (or woman) cannot hope to be master of whatever precision there is.
Any form of routine can be a killer, so there’s a delicate balance to be struck between not taking each other for granted and being able to rely on how each other will react to a given situation.
• Four – Togetherness •
Do you always think of you and your partner as a unit? Or does part of you regard your partner as some sort of trophy or fashion accessory for yourself? Even regarding them as a necessary accessory for you is not a good sign.
This is not a case of “sacrificing for love” as some authors (like de Angelis {TBA}) seem to suggest; constant evaluation of “am I giving too much away?” is a form of holdback which has been referred to earlier and which I regard as unhealthy.
However, ‘Relationships of Mutual Selfishness’ (which include so-called marriages of convenience) are possible, may even be long-lasting, and so may be regarded as a stable form of negative togetherness. Such relations seem most likely for what I term “plateau people”, ie those who tend to remain on more or less the same level of emotional intensity. “They do not repine; are contented with the morning that separates and with the evening that brings together for casual talk before the fire two people who know they do not understand each other, breeding children whom they do not understand and who will never understand them” (Eliot {TBA}).
If you are not a plateau person, then you will experience the emotional highs – and you will also experience the emotional lows! It must be said that the togetherness factor does seem to be achievable by all the possible combinations of plateau and non-plateau people.
There are no foolproof tests to quantify the togetherness factor of a relationship, it may be that it’s more apparent to outsiders "When dealing with a married couple one can never be neutral. The hot magnetic power of each one’s view of the other makes the spectator sway.” (Murdoch {TBA}).
If you know who you are, and you are who you said you are to your partner, and they likewise, then that’s a very good basis on which to build the togetherness factor.
• Five – Well, what did you Expect? •
A poignant description of people in the “human condition” is voiced by Eliot’s character O’Reilly (Eliot {TBA}) who describes to his patient how they “... maintain themselves by the common routine, learn to avoid excessive expectation, become tolerant of themselves and others, giving and taking, in the usual actions what there is to give and take.”
That was published in 1950 and it seems likely that, at that time, the “common routine” would have included the accepted relationship norm of (nominally) male-dominated monogamous marriages. It has been said "Society conspires to make a newly wed couple feel virtuous. Marriage is a symbol of goodness, though it is only a symbol." (Murdoch {TBA}).
That feeling is still true today, despite the valiant efforts of the self-appointed liberators, and it is still being reinforced by romantic fiction and new professions like wedding planners. There is a cosy logic involved, and where there is logic there are underlying assumptions (expectations) and that is troublesome.
Do make sure that you and your partner know the extent and content of each other’s expectations for the relationship in particular and life in general;
Before that, though, do make sure that you and your partner thoroughly explore what the lawyers call “common ground”: What assumptions are you making? What are you taking for granted? These are particularly important if you and your partner are not from similar educational and social backgrounds - in that order.
At each of the ‘crucial stages’ {{to be expanded}} of the relationship do ask each other “What do you expect?” and particularly question any answers that start “Surely everybody …”; remember the simplicity of the “Why?”and “How?” questions to get more details (or further and better particulars as our lawyer friends would say).
Undeclared expectations are probably the greatest single cause of relationship breakdown; shared expectations are probably the cornerstone of mutually satisfying and long-lasting relationships.
• Six – Goalposts do move •
In love we change, and we are changed by that love. Later in the relationship “You’ve changed” may be the first cry of discord; it may be true, or it may mean “My perception of you has changed” or even that “My expectation of you has proved incorrect”.
It is more than likely that one of you will “grow up” (in the sense of maturing in wisdom) faster than the other, this need not mean that you’re “growing apart”.
Do remark on, and talk through, any apparent changes as soon as they occur – tell it like it is, naturally. A relationship is neither the place for applying a“three strikes and you’re out” criterion, nor for its resentment-storing format “once is an accident, twice is coincidence …”.
Be prepared for those goalposts to be in constant motion; as Williams {TBA} has said “In love everything changes, and continues changes all the time. There is no stillness, no stopped clock of the heart in which the moment of happiness holds forever, but only the constant whirring forward motion of desire and need, rising and falling, falling and rising, full of doubts then certainties that moment by moment change and become doubts again.”
To help keep a grip on reality, remember the three A’s: everyone changes with time so be Alert for such changes, don’t be Afraid of them, and be prepared to Adapt as necessary.
• Seven – Would you say that to a Friend? •
As well as your lover, your partner in your relationship should also be your best friend. And, just because someone is your best friend, there’s no reason to ignore those little politenesses that demonstrate courtesy. It is unfortunate that, particularly in the last twenty years, politeness is regarded as a sign of weakness (or, worse, subservience under a despised ‘old order’).
Here’s a guiding thought for you: "That's what I want. Someone I would still like running into in the street, more than anyone else, after forty-two years." (Leddick {TBA})
Now, we’re all apt to say things in the heat of the moment. Always remember that the same words often mean different things to different people – this is one of the cornerstones of NLP ”… the only answer to the question ‘what does a word really mean?’ is, ‘To whom?’” (O’Connor & Seymour {TBA}).
They also mean different things at different times, even within the same conversation. "He tried to tread precisely here, their talk had moved from a thick deceptive forest to a desert where every step left a print." (Updike {TBA}).
Open communications between friends is natural; if a particularly close woman friend of mine were upset then I would say “Talk round or results?” and her answer would set the tone of our subsequent conversation. Years later I got ‘official’ confirmation of that my attitude was acceptable by modern standards: “Men are solution oriented … When your man sees you upset about a problem , his mind instantly goes into automatic pilot and thinks: Solution … " (de Angelis {TBA}).
Be on guard against people pleasers of both sexes, and make sure that you are not one; always be sincere in your communications with your partner. A particularly dangerous form is what I term "instantaneous sincerity" – at the time they say it they really believe it; an actress friend of mine was quite an expert.
The therapists Carlson & Carlson {TBA} (already married for fourteen and friends for seventeen years) advised that when in doubt you should ask yourself "If this person were my best friend, how would I act?” ". It is so significant, in my opinion, that they say ‘act’ rather that ‘react’, as the latter has an automatic implication of conflict, whereas ‘act’ is more positive.
Don’t expect the path to be smooth always. But, does every quarrel in fact end by making you closer? If so, you’re doing fine.
ENDS
In these chapters, the falsity of the Grammar of Love has been unmasked as an originally well-intentioned convention, and we are now aware that we have been and still are influenced by its words and phrases.
So, with your new awareness, your attitude in relationship matters may now change. Remember one of the most powerful saying in NLP: “If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always got” (Shervington {TBA}).
However, do go on saying "I love you" in the full knowledge of what you are saying, and why, knowing that between you your Togetherness factor (something bigger and better than both of you) can be created – remember that that something is organic (if it is not growing, it is decreasing and so needs constant attention and input from you both).
Forget the attitudes and words of all those supposedly well-meaning friends and family. If the two of you really want your relationship to endure then these words of Eliot {F} might have been written specifically for your guidance “Go in peace ... work out your salvation with diligence".
|
Contributor's Note
This is the final chapter from a sort of pocket dictionary of relationships – a phrasebook of the grammar of love. All six preceding chapters (and the Preface) are constantly being revised and, up to the end of October 2010, these revisions were being reflected here on Qondio - that I would have continued. However, due to circumstances beyond my control, it is no longer possible for me to edit and update here - so I've provided a reference to the new home. It won't be nearly as convenient as you'll have to login in if you're that interested!
© 2010, Roy Law, all rights reserved..
|
