Couple Support

How to Succeed in Marriage - Cooperatively

In marriage, for one of us to succeed, the other has to succeed, too. That's something that couples who have mastered living together cooperatively fully understand. It's also a relationship lesson that some people never grasp.

Many years ago, when I was a sixth-grade public-school teacher, I used an exercise with my students that beautifully points up the difference between those who get it and those who don't .

In case you ever want to try the exercise with kids (or adults?), it goes this way: Assuming you're working with a group of 10 kids, you make 10 identical simple puzzles out of cardboard - maybe 12 pieces/puzzle. When you are finished, you take those 10 identical puzzles and mix them all up. You put an identical number of randomly-chosen puzzle pieces in 10 envelopes and give each kid an envelope.

None of the kids can assemble the puzzle with the pieces that s/he has received, since the puzzles were all mixed up. To complete the puzzle, each kid needs some different pieces. There are rules: You can't speak. You can't take, and you can't ask for what you need. In fact, you can't get anything for yourself. Instead, you have to give other people the pieces that they need. And when the others that you are giving to notice your need and respond, you get your puzzle completed.

When everybody works together, everybody gets the pieces s/he needs, and all the puzzles get assembled - because each person focuses not on "what I need" but on "what you need."

In my experience, most kids relatively easily learned to focus on others' needs rather than their own. Some kids couldn't do it, however: Prohibited from asking, demanding, or taking, they simply sat there. Completing the loop - meeting my needs by attending to yours - was beyond them.

Sometimes I think I met some of those kids later on in my couples counseling practice.

Marriages That Are Blessed

Some married couples are blessed with a connection that doesn't fail. They are openly affectionate with each other. They sleep nestled together. They make love and feel close. And they didn't get married a year ago. They may have been together for a decade - or longer. Some were sweethearts back in high school.

They are the blessed ones. Those of us on the outside of such deeply affectionate, connected relationships wonder how did these two ever get to be that way. We ask and hear, "We were best friends from the beginning," or "We have always loved each other." The answers don't satisfy. They don't tell us how we ourselves could ever have a relationship like that.

We may be tempted to dismiss such couples with an offhand "Well, some people have all the luck." That would be our misfortune: Something more than luck is at work here. Yes, such couples often started out with a deeply fundamental connection that both trusted. In that they were blessed. Life gave them a big gift.

They could have squandered it, though - but didn't. That wasn't luck. It was their achievement. They had the good sense - and the restraint and discipline - never to violate their commitment to each other, never to wrong each other so deeply that the connection between them got severed. They knew all along what they had in each other and protected it.

We could do that even now, late in the game. Maybe we don't have an easy, deep connection. Still we can value what we've got in each other and protect it. We can work not to hurt each other again. We can start from where we are and consider it a good beginning. What do you say?

Change – It’s the Way to Keep Your Marriage Alive

If there is no variety in your marriage, if basically nothing changes, after a while you and your partner won’t see each other.

Lately I’ve gone back to meditating every day. I sit in front of a blank white wall with my eyes half open. After a while, I don’t see the wall anymore. I don’t mean that there is a hole where the wall used to be. The wall is still there, but it has faded from view. Fundamentally, I don’t see it. Why? Because our seeing depends on change – either in what is being seen or in our manner of viewing it. The wall doesn’t change, and I don’t really look at it. I’m focused elsewhere.

If you mechanically drive the same route to work every day – eyes on the road and never looking around – the countryside you drive through basically won’t exist for you – unless one day you make a point of really noticing something along the way. An interesting house stands out. (“Wow, I never saw that house before! How about that?)

Same thing with you and your partner: If your relationship is all routine - all the same “Hi. How was your day?” “Fine” at the same time each day, sex the same old way every time and so forth – after a while neither of you is really there any more. You have faded from each other’s view. No people here – just routines.

Now in some marriages, that’s fine. People want each other in the background – performing services but not making demands. On the other hand, if you’re in the marriage for connection, for experience, for discovery, for love, you better find a way to make each other foreground again. You better find a way to bring change back into your relationship.

Share with us: Tell about a moment of seeing - when your partner suddenly came into focus for you, and you saw that person in a way that has stayed with you since.