In successful marriages, people get to like themselves and each other. The husband has a “place” in the marriage that he is glad to occupy - a role or roles where he gets to be a person he respects and enjoys being. The wife has the same experience.
Perhaps, she likes to exercise initiative - to come up with interesting activities to do with her partner. In this relationship, she gets to do that. Her husband does more that passively make room for her initiatives. He appreciates her being that way. He often follows her lead in the activities that she suggests. In behavioral language, he rewards her for being whom she likes to be.
The fact that each has a place in the relationship that is favored both by themselves and by their partner means that tolerating the inevitable roles that they would rather not occupy becomes easier.
Conversely, when there is no place in the marriage for a “me” that I can respect and that is appreciated by my partner – then, of course, I don’t want to be there. I may stay, but if I do it will be with resentment and perhaps also the sense that I am betraying myself.
If you want your relationship to succeed, make sure to provide a place in your life – and in your heart – for some of the skills and sensibilities that your partner values in herself or himself.
Make sure, too, that you take the initiative in seeing to it that, in ways that matter to you, you get to be some significant part of the person you also want to be.
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