Posts Tagged ‘Relationships’

Fantasy and Reality in Relationships

Saturday, October 6th, 2012

Fred met Elissa at a community meeting on a topic they both were passionate about.  They chatted some, and he asked her for her number.  When they met for coffee later, they found it easy to talk.  They shared their interests and some of the things they had done in life.  Fred thought Elissa was attractive, and she was drawn to him also.  He liked that she had traveled and seen some of the same places he had.  She liked that he seemed successful in his work.  They held similar political views, which helped.  They soon were seeing each other regularly.  With time, they became physically involved, which was pleasing to them both.  And, with time, they found themselves saying, “I love you.”

Fred thought, “Finally, this is the one I’ve been looking for.”  He started thinking ahead about what life with Elissa would be like.  He imagined being married to her, them living together, and each coming home to see each other every day.  He imagined taking vacations with her, driving across country or flying to destinations together.  He imagined having a fulfilling sexual relationship with her and about having children.  Fred built an elaborate fantasy of how life would be with Elissa.

Have you ever fallen in love with someone?  When you fall in love, everything seems to be perfect for a while.  You live in a series of emotional highs, as you see many similarities with the other person.  And, in the ways you are different, you find pleasure precisely because of the contrast with yourself.  You think you know the other person and see how he or she fits you.  It is easy to start to make up a story about how great he or she is and how your life with them will be.

As you make up the story in your head, though, are you seeing the real person or a fantasy?  Indeed, if what you are seeing is at least partly fantasy, what or whom have you fallen in love with?  Have you fallen in love with a fantasy or reality?

It is not to say that Fred’s love for Elissa was imaginary.  There indeed were wonderful compatibilities and complementarities.  Still, problems began to arise when he started to see things that were not part of his fantasy.  Elissa did not want to get married, as she had had issues in a previous relationship that made her cautious about marriage.   Also, their ability to talk seemed to change as Elissa became more involved in work and also wanted to spend more time with friends she had had.  Fred felt a pronounced decline in the connection he had had with her.  And there were the things that Fred had not even considered.  For instance, Elissa was not a particularly neat person, and her disorganization began to bother him.

Elissa also found her bubble bursting.  To keep the story short, though, I will stick with Fred’s side, because his tale illustrates how fantasy can delude both sides of a partnership.

So reality starts to clash with fantasy, and what happens?  There are several possibilities.  If one clings to the fantasy one might:

  1. Wish the other person would go back to the way he or she was earlier in the relationship
  2. Expect the other person to change
  3. Break up over the differences that have emerged

The 1st option can lead to longstanding, silent suffering, because relationships and how people were earlier in them rarely go back to the stage of mutual infatuation and seemingly perfect compatibility.

The 2nd option can lead to repeated fights in couples relationships, or at a minimum ongoing judgement and dissatisfaction.

The 3rd option can leave one very sad, as one clings to the fantasy of how one thought things would be.  It may include wishes of getting back together and having another chance at the fantasy.

If one accommodates reality, the options are different:

  1. Acknowledge how the other person does not conform to one’s wishes or dreams and work out a mentality to be with the person in spite of the differences
  2. Break up because of the differences

The 1st option allows one to continue in the relationship and perhaps build a deeper, steadier love based on reality.

The 2nd option arises if one or more of the differences is a “game ender.”  That is, one or more of the ways of thinking or behaving of one’s partner is incompatible with one’s values or well-being.  So one ends the relationship without regret and without clinging to the fantasy of how things should have been.

So with Fred, things could go several ways.  If the couple stays together and Fred holds onto how he thought Elissa would be, the couple may become ensnarled in repeated battles over their differences.  Alternatively, the couple might split up, but if Fred has a hard time letting go of the fantasy and how things “should have been,” he may miss her and all the things he had with her for a long time.

Or Fred could accept Elissa for who she is in all her aspects.  If so, and if he can accommodate the ones he does not like, the couple may stay together and enjoy a relatively harmonious relationship.  Or he may accept the reality of who she is and decide she and he are too incompatible to stay together.  Without regrets, he could end the relationship.  Either way, he does not hold onto a fantasy and the concomitant disappointment of “what should have been.”

Are there implications for your relationship?

This is Glenn Stevenson, with Self Sense Counseling and Coaching, until next month, saying watch out for making up a fantasy in your head about your partner.  Rather I wish you clarity in basing your relationship on the reality of who the person is.

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Are Openness and Honesty Necessary in Relationships?

Friday, July 6th, 2012

People often say that they want an open and honest relationship.  But what does it mean to have openness and honesty in a relationship?  People say they want to tell and hear “the truth” and “not have any secrets.”  But do these ideals make for a better relationship?  Well, not always.  Let’s find out why.

First, let’s look at what being open or honest means.  If we are talking about honesty about your own thoughts and feelings, there are times when you may want to be open and times when you may not.

For instance, you want to be open and honest about your feelings of love for another, your preferences for doing things with him or her, and your important hopes and values, such as how to handle money, where to live, whether to have children, and how to raise them.

But there is another class of thoughts and feelings to be handled with care.  These thoughts and feelings are your opinions, judgements, and biases about the other person.  An important thing to realize about these kinds of thoughts and feelings is that they may be your truth but they are not necessarily the truth.  Your opinion or judgement about the other may not necessarily be what is true about them.  Opinions and judgements are just that.  They are not facts, not the truth.

This is important, because if you choose to withhold telling your truth, you are not being dishonest about what is so.  You are not withholding the truth. You are simply not expressing your opinion, judgement, or bias.  Sometimes opinions, judgements, and biases are better withheld.

Let’s look at an example.  What if there is something you do not like about your partner’s physical appearance?  If your partner is sensitive about their physical appearance (and who isn’t?), do you tell him or her what you don’t like?  After all, it would mean you are being open and honest.

Here is the important distinction.  You may be telling your truth, but you would not be telling the truth.  You would just be giving your opinion or judgement about the particular physical characteristic you do not like.  Another person may not mind or may even find attractive what you do not like.  So, your opinion is not the truth.

There is another class of thoughts and feelings to be careful about, your normal human tendencies that can trigger your partner.  For example, let’s say you meet someone you are attracted to and you know that telling your partner would hurt him or her.  Do you tell him or her?  Is it good to be “open and honest?”

Attraction to others besides one’s partner is normal for people in committed relationships.  It is not the attraction that makes you guilty.  It is whether you act on the attraction and violate the trust of the relationship that matters.  If you contain yourself, you have handled yourself well.

Some spouses and partners can hear about their mate’s attractions to others, and others cannot.  If you know that your partner would be hurt or overly jealous, there is no point in sharing occasional wandering thoughts and affections.

In an ideal relationship in which the other is able to hear all your thoughts and feelings, of course be honest and open.  But so long as we are human and sensitive to certain thoughts of our partners, withholding some things is not all that bad.

This is the practical approach I take to openness and honesty.  I call it “truth with compassion.”  It is telling the truth about your thoughts and feelings with some limits on what you say, the limits arising from putting an eye toward the effect on your partner and the relationship.

Let me be clear that being less than 100% open about your thoughts and feelings does not give you license to think or do things behind you partner’s back that are deceitful, violate the trust of the relationship, or subvert mutuality.  Keeping activities secret, telling your kids to keep things from the other parent, outright lying or denial, and manipulating are not what I’m talking about.  These actions go beyond “truth with compassion.”  Openness and honesty in these areas are important for the integrity and harmony of a relationship.

In summary, there are reasons to hold honesty and openness in relationships highly.  They are meant to make sure that trust is kept and mutuality is promoted.  However, as with most things, there are limits to how open and honest to be.  When openness or honesty spills over into telling one’s thoughts and feelings that are hurtful or incendiary without intention to support your partner or the relationship, then “truth with compassion” comes in.  Temper some of your truths with compassion and keep them to yourself.  Instead, ventilate them to a friend, a therapist, a coach, or a pastor/rabbi/cleric.

This is Glenn Stevenson with Self Sense Counseling and Coaching, until next month, encouraging you to use truth with compassion in your relationship.

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Jealousy and Infidelity

Friday, June 1st, 2012

Do you get jealous?  Do you mistrust your partner of being physically or emotionally unfaithful to you?  Jealousy is a complex emotion, because the problem may lie in your partner’s actions, in your own unjustified suspicions, or in the interactions between you and your partner in a cycle of jealousy and withdrawal.

Jealousy for a therapist can be a tremendous puzzle.  If the source of the problem lies with you getting jealous, then the therapy needs to be about helping you manage these feelings and learning to trust.

If your partner is in fact not being faithful, then individual therapy must address what to do about a relationship in which boundaries are being violated—helping you to make choices about whether to stay in the relationship and gaining strength to assert or extricate yourself.

If the issue is that your (faithful) partner behaves in a way that makes you jealous, causing you to say things that make your partner behave even more in the way that makes you jealous, then the therapy needs to occur with both of you (couples counseling), to discover the pattern and break the cycle.

The problem with jealousy is that it is hard to determine the facts, unless your partner has openly admitted to infidelity.  When there is no admission of unfaithfulness, you may obsess about suspicious behaviors and other evidence that seem to substantiate your belief.  You focus on the other person and not on yourself.  You and the therapist can enter a netherworld of suspicion and guesswork that gets you nowhere.

In individual therapy, at least, it can be more helpful to turn the focus back on yourself and try to determine where your jealousy comes from.  If it is not based on actual, admitted indiscretions by your partner, it may come from your own history and insecurities.  Generally, these insecurities can take one of two forms, fear of abandonment and fear of inadequacy.

With fear of abandonment, your fear can originate in a previous adult relationship or go way back to childhood.  It can lie in your adult life if a previous partner was unfaithful to you.  You enter a new relationship with left over distrust that you displace onto your new partner.

The fear of abandonment can also lie in childhood, if you had an inconsistent or troubled relationship with a parent.  Especially if this occurred in the early years, you may unconsciously fear losing an adult partner later in life.  This fear can mutate into being overly jealous of your partner.

The other major cause of jealousy is a fear of inadequacy.  It can play a role if you unconsciously judge yourself as inferior, either to your partner or to a feared rival.  You may feel inferior if you partner is particularly beautiful or handsome, outgoing, liked by others, successful, or some other such attribute.  Or you may unconsciously fear that your imagined rival possesses qualities superior to your own.  This fear of inadequacy gets subverted and hidden by the jealousy you have for your partner, as you blame him or her for indiscretions.

The most complex manifestation of jealousy lies in a vicious cycle of accusations and withdrawal, with both partners having insecurities that play roles.  The jealous person questions their partner’s behavior and blames him or her, expressing an underlying wish to keep them close and in the relationship.  Initially, the partner may reassure the jealous person, try to placate him or her, and make promises to behave the way the jealous partner wants.

However, with time the accused partner experiences the jealousy as controlling, restricting their freedom, or subverting their individuality.  Feeling smothered, this partner starts to withdraw to protect him- or herself.  Or he or she asserts greater freedom in order to escape the pressure.  This only increases the jealous person’s suspicions and accusations, and the cycle escalates.  This dynamic is best addressed in couples counseling.

What if you are the one who is subject to the jealousy of your significant other?  If you have been faithful, you know how frustrating it can be to try to convince your partner that this is so.  When accused of unfaithfulness, it is easy to feel you have done something wrong, get triggered, and be defensive.  This only feeds a cycle similar to the one just described.  When unjustly accused of being unfaithful, the best thing to do is to say to yourself, “This is not about me.”  It is about the fears of abandonment or the fears of inadequacy that your partner has.

This is Glenn Stevenson with Self Sense Counseling and Coaching, until next month, encouraging you to take a look at jealousy and how it may be affecting your relationship.

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Note:  I am grateful for some ideas in this article to Michele Scheinkman, LCSW, and Denise Werneck, Psychologist, “Disarming Jealousy in Couples Relationships:  A Multidimensional Approach,” Family Process, Vol. 49, No. 4, 2010, pp. 486-502.

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Relationships and Valuing Yourself

Sunday, February 12th, 2012

Sue, a client of mine who struggles with self-worth, recently wondered if it would make any difference to anyone if she were no longer here.  Not that she was suicidal, but she just was not feeling very good about herself.

I worked with her to help her see her value, and our discussion led to some important questions.  Does your self-worth come from what you have done in the world or what others think of you?  Or is there something inherently valuable about you, just because you are?

I believe both are true.  What others think of us is important in how we come to think of ourselves.  Yet what we think of ourselves ultimately should have nothing to do with others’ opinions about us.  How can both of these things be so?

Let’s start with the first idea.  Although we are individuals, from birth we are in virtually constant relationship with others.  Psychology posits that we develop our sense of self in relation to other people.

Coming to know ourselves starts in infancy, when we come into this world without any reference for our experiences.  We have no way to know what is in the environment or that we are separate from it.  As our caretakers sometimes mirror and sometimes ignore our oo’s and ah’s, our grunts and sighs, and our smiles and cries, our little brains gradually put together that we are separate from what is outside us–others and the environment.  We also gradually begin to draw conclusions about ourselves.

This process has a parallel in our adult lives, as others mirror to us who we are in different ways.  They tell us explicitly things that we otherwise would never have known about ourselves, and they respond to us in ways that make us draw conclusions about ourselves.  Of course, sorting out what is accurate and what is misperception by either ourselves or others is a major task.  But the fact remains that others mirror us.  Without them, we could not know who we are.

For example, I have learned from others that I often come across as kind or grounded.  I did not know these things about myself before I was told.  Yet others have reflected these qualities enough times to me that I believe they are part of me.  Think about your significant other or about friends.  Have they not told you things about yourself that you did not know before?

Thus, the relationships we have with others are important in how we define ourselves, how we feel about ourselves, and the value we grant ourselves.

But let us look at the other side of the coin, and do so by once again going back to infancy.  Even as the relationship with the caretaker mirrors to us our separate existence, it imparts to us impressions of what kind of person we are.  We start to form a sense of self.  This process continues throughout childhood and into adulthood.  With time, a part of us becomes independent of others and what they think.  We form our own character, which to one degree or another is independent of what person we may be relating to.

Depending on the quality of our experiences, we also develop a certain level of self-esteem.  My preferred definition of self-esteem is that it is the worthiness that we grant ourselves, no matter who we are, what we do, or what others think.  The term itself, I think, says this:  Self-esteem—esteeming oneself, without qualification or reason.

So it is that who we are and our sense of value originates in our relationships with others.  At the same time, with the right kind of experiences—or work to make up for poor experiences—how one values oneself can eventually have little to do with what others say or think.

Getting back to Sue (a pseudonym, not her real name), how can she answer the question about whether it matters to anyone that she is here?  Of course it matters, for she has relationships with others in which she is mirroring them and they are mirroring her.  But the underlying question she may be posing is,  “Do I have any value at all?”  The answer to this question is also yes, because she has her own unique character and occupies her own place in the world.  She is valuable in her own right, and it is important for her to remember that.

This is Glenn Stevenson, with Self Sense Counseling and Coaching, until next month wishing you self-worth in your relationships with others and in how you view yourself just as you are.

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When Your Relationship Doesn’t Work Out

Sunday, November 20th, 2011

What do you do when a relationship doesn’t work out?  We dream about finding the right partner, but sometimes things don’t work out.  We invest a lot of energy into a relationship, and when it doesn’t succeed, it can be devastating.

What I have to say today applies not only to relationships.  In other areas of our lives many times things don’t work out.  And what do we do with that?

We have all kinds of feelings when a relationship fails.  Great sadness.  Feelings that we are inadequate because we could not make it work.  Anger at the other person or the world for not providing what we want.  Fears that we will never find another person like the one we were with.  Remorse about the ways we contributed to the problems.  Longing for the return of the person or the things we had when we were with them.  Relief that it is finally over.

All of this is quite natural, for we have lost an important attachment.  We have also lost the dream of what we thought it would be like to be with them.  Loss is not easy.  It engenders all of these feelings.

So how do we deal with loss and recover some stability?  The first thing to do is to let ourselves feel all the feelings.  Give yourself the room and permission to feel.  The second thing is to ventilate.  Write about all your thoughts and feelings about the person and about what you hoped would be.  Talk to a friend who will listen and who will not downplay the importance of what you are going through.  Talk to a counselor, if necessary.

Coming out the other end also means framing what you have been through in a new way.  If all the feelings become so difficult that you wish that you had never been in the relationship, there is one additional piece that I want you to consider.

Going into a relationship involves risk.  It is risky to give our affection to another, to open up to another, to decide to love another.  We give our affection and trust to another and implicitly ask them to handle us with care.

Now risk is a funny thing.  When we risk being vulnerable to another, we think it ought to work out.  Intellectually, we know there is the potential for it to go badly, but we don’t expect that to happen.  However, risk means there is a potential downside.  It is like when we invest in the stock market and expect it to go up.  Well, risk means that it may go down.  When things don’t work out in a relationship, the risk was taken and the downside occurred.

So when things don’t work out, don’t forget that you risked.  Risking is a valuable thing.  It may not seem to be in the middle of the feelings of a break-up, but it is good that you risked.  We never get anywhere in life without risking.

Through risking, you had a chance to love and to grow.  It is to be lauded that you took the risk.  There is hope and potential for those willing to try—to take the risk—rather than to sit in safety and security without trying.

So “failed” relationships are not so bad.  You took the risk and hopefully learned from the experience.  And this goes in all areas of life—the risks you take in ongoing relationships and the risks you take in other areas of your life.  They are risks you take to see if things will work out.

This is Glenn Stevenson with Self Sense Counseling and Coaching, until next month encouraging you to congratulate yourself on the risks you take in relationships and in all areas of your life.

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The Problem of the In-Laws

Sunday, October 30th, 2011

John likes Sally.  Sally likes John.  They date.  They fall in love.  They form a relationship.  They get married.  They learn even more to form a relationship.  It’s just the two of them, at least until they have kids, right?

Well, not exactly.  Sometimes they bring into their relationship the Problem of the In-Laws!

What is the Problem of the In-Laws?  Actually a variety of surface issues occur involving in-laws, but one basic, underlying issue lies at the center of many of them—lack of differentiation from the family of origin.

On the surface, in-laws may have expectations of how their adult child participates in their family functions and holiday events. They may have expectations about how the spouse treats their son or daughter.  They may have expectations about how their adult child or spouse should parent.  They may expect various kinds of help or contact from their adult child and/or spouse.

The adult child can behave in ways that add to these problems.  They may believe they have to please their parents.  They may go regularly over to Mom’s and Dad’s to help with projects, eat meals, or whatever, to the extent their new partner or family feels the time lost.  An adult child may go to a parent regularly for support in times of conflict with his or her spouse.  Other times, even if they have developed more loyalty to their spouse and own family, an adult child may placate their parents “just to keep the peace.”

In various ways, these ways of doing things can represent a lack of differentiation from the family of origin.  What is differentiation?  Therapists think of differentiation as the capacity to be close to someone yet be different from them.  So, for example, is it possible to be close to your parents yet disagree with them?  Is it possible to be close to your parents and yet say no to them?  Is it possible to be close to your parents and yet have a different way of doing things?

This can actually be a huge problem.  What if the parent is not ready to differentiate from you?  Do you just cut them off?  Well, no.  Cutoff is an extreme strategy that does not represent differentiation either (except when a parent is excessively emotionally abusive and not associating with them is the only way to stop the emotional abuse).  Realize also that if you are a spouse who decides to cut off your in-laws, you put your partner in a difficult balancing act between your needs and the expectations of his or her family of origin.  Usually, true differentiation lies somewhere between cutoff and continued placation of the parents’ way of doing things.  Differentiation involves standing up for oneself without rancor.

These days, cultural differences can complicate good relationships with in-laws.  More and more frequently, couples in the U.S. come from different cultural backgrounds.  This compounds the normal differences that two people inherit from their families of origin even if they come from the same culture.  For instance, what if the culture expects an adult son to be loyal and supportive to his parents, and this runs into his ability to be present with his wife from a different culture?

All of the issues lead back to one answer.  A balance must be struck between being one’s own person and being sensitive to the thoughts and desires of parents who, for better or worse, have their own values and traditions.  By being one’s own person and being big enough to allow your parents or in-laws to be different, you take a huge step toward differentiation, even if they have not.  Therein lies a secret to avoiding the Problem of the In-Laws!

This is Glenn Stevenson, with Self Sense Counseling and Coaching, until next month wishing you the ability to stand up for yourself without rancor with your parents and in-laws.

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Is It a “Stretch” or Is It Losing Yourself?

Saturday, July 30th, 2011

Relationships take work, and any relationship will involve each partner adjusting in ways that he or she did not anticipate when he or she started out.  As time goes on, thorny issues arise that call on us to think or act differently to get along with our partners.  But when is acting differently a “stretch” and when is it asking too much?

On the one hand, changing to meet one’s partner’s wants and needs can represent growth.  In fact, being in a relationship offers a unique opportunity to learn where one needs to change.  This involves “stretching” beyond one’s comfort zone and facilitates growth.

On the other hand, some people find themselves in relationships in which they are constantly trying to please their partners.  They try this way and that to accommodate the other person.  Changing oneself in this fashion may not represent growth but rather losing oneself in the relationship.

So in any given instance when we change ourselves to accommodate our partners, which is it?  Is it a “stretch” or is it losing ourselves in the interest of the other?

There is no silver bullet to tell the difference between the two types of change.  It can take reflection on oneself, experience over time, and possibly even talking to a counselor to figure out what one is doing.  Still, I can give you some guidelines to help.

First, we can tell the difference between a “stretch” and losing ourselves to the other by how we feel after we have done an action that does not come easily in order to support our partners:

  • Do you feel accomplished, proud, calm, and/or happy, even if it took some effort, for having tried the new behavior that supports your partner, or
  • Do you feel stressed, fearful, exhausted, depressed, angry, and/or resentful that you once again let the other person’s wants or needs supercede your own?

If one has the first set of feelings, the stretch, even if difficult, probably was in the interest of your growth and facilitates the relationship.  If one has some of the second type of feelings, one probably has failed to set proper limits and denied oneself yet again in an attempt to please the other or make the relationship work.

A second guideline for whether the change is a “stretch” or is about losing ourselves to the other involves the other person’s response.

  • Does the other person respond with less reactivity, possibly appreciation, or even engage in new behavior him- or herself, or
  • Does the other person continue in their old behaviors, whether they are demanding, withdrawing, erratic, or addictive?

If the other’s response involves the first set of actions, then your “stretch” has increased the other’s willingness to be vulnerable as well.  If the other person continues in old behaviors even after you have changed yours, especially if you have done so repeatedly, then you may be feeding into their behaviors and giving up yourself as well.

So, for example, Janice found herself in her first marriage trying to change how she communicated with her husband to get some emotional response from him.  He tended to be “even-keel” all the time.  She also tried to please him, because he tended to be controlling, especially with money.  After years of trying, she realized she was giving herself up too much and exited the marriage.  In a new relationship several years later, she found it difficult to set limits with her boyfriend.  However, when she made the stretch to do so and told him he could only come over a couple of times during the week because she got tired after working all day, he understood and respected her boundary.  He appreciated the opportunity to support Janice and checked with her more carefully about when it was okay to come over.

So which is it for you in your relationship, whether past or present?  When you look at changing yourself, is it a “stretch” or is it giving yourself away?  It can be difficult to discern between the two, because we only look at the situation with our own eyes.  Still, it is worth the look.

This is Glenn Stevenson, with Self Sense Counseling and Coaching, until next month wishing you the ability to “stretch” in your relationships without giving yourself away.

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Why Do We Fall Out of Love?

Monday, June 20th, 2011

When Danielle met Mark, she found him interesting and handsome.  He was of course immediately attracted to her beauty and liked her outgoing personality and wit.  He asked her out and wined and dined her.  Soon they were seeing each other two or three times a week, and they called each other in between.  Mark would go to great lengths to do things for Danielle, writing little notes that she would find in unexpected places, leaving work early to get her a present, and even writing a poem or two, though he was hardly a poet.  Danielle loved the poems anyway.

They married a year and a half later.  Several years after that, Danielle was wondering why Mark did not communicate with her.  It had been a while since he had even told her he loved her.  Mark was tired of her talking “all the time,” and he often thought she was silly in how she looked at things.  They got in arguments over how the house was kept.  Mark liked things neat, but Danielle complained that she didn’t have time to keep things to Mark’s “immaculate” standards.

What happens between the initial infatuation we have and the rejection of our partner down the road?  Danielle and Mark’s story is all too common.  It may be more or less extreme than what you have experienced, but it represents the process of our chosen mate going from the “perfect” lover to the person who would be better if they were just different in this or that way.

There are two stages in a relationship that are important to recognize if we are to be happy with our partners in the long run.  In fact, it may be important to recognize them if in some cases the relationship is to survive at all.

We all recognize the first stage of a relationship, romantic love.  In this stage, the other person can almost do no wrong.  We think of him or her as perfect.  Often in this stage, we also notice all the similarities we have with the other, whether it is taste in activities, behaviors, politics, experiences, sense of humor, music, or whatever.  In fact, these two traits characterize this first stage—perfection and sameness.

It is almost as if two personalities could merge and be happy in doing so.  For this reason, this stage is called symbiosis.  There is even research showing that the brain chemistry of this stage supports attraction to the other person in obsessive ways.

With time, however, we notice things we do not like in the other—imperfections or incompatibilities that are significant.  We find out that the other person is different than we are in ways that bother us.  We may have known about some of these differences before but overlooked them through romantic eyes.  Or we may discover differences that we didn’t know about before.  Either way, the differences matter.

This stage is called differentiation, because if we can allow the other person to be different, the relationship can survive and be harmonious.  The problem arises if we do not allow differentiation.  If we try to remain symbiotic by expecting our partner to be what we want them to be and the same as we are, trouble arises.

An important lesson when the romance has faded and conflict arises is to understand that your partner is different than you.  Many times people will say, “Well, I would do it this way.  Why doesn’t he?” or “I think of it this way.  Why doesn’t she?”  The simple answer is, the other person is different.  Allowing the other person to be different can be a huge step to resolving conflict.

Research also shows that if we allow differentiation to occur, certain brain processes support long-term attachment.  Feelings of calm, security, social ease, and emotional bonding are possible in “companionate love.”  A key here is to accept the differences in the other while being able to assert one’s own essential character.

This is Glenn Stevenson with Self Sense Counseling and Coaching, inviting you to accept your partner as different than you and not fall out of love.

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