What I have witnessed in a lot of unhappy relationships is that two people come together to live a happy life but they don’t know how to establish and maintain a collaborative relationship! So, now that they are together, they bring in to the relationship, their separate individual lives with their independent decision-making styles they have had before their togetherness… They think if they are strong and independent people, they should be able to make their own decisions on what they want to do when they want to do it… They are, unfortunately, oblivious to the fact that a relationship has a life of its own; the newly established “us.”
A relationship is a living thing… We create it, we feed it, nurture it and then it grows and nurtures us, in return, and offers each one of us, many opportunities for our personal growth… It’s very important to remember that anything we do and any decision we make in a relationship has a big or small impact on our partner and will either enhance or diminish our relationship together…
Then the question remains as to how to preserve our individual identities and at the same time contribute to the life of our relationship so it can flourish and become a long-lasting blooming creation which keeps nourishing us, giving us hope, and opening up possibilities for our achievements? Well, to be honest, that is “the million-dollar question” that if answered correctly will guarantee our happiness in relationships and in life …
To demonstrate the huge impacts that a powerful co-construction of a decision can make on the relationship and each individual’s personal growth and well-being, I will give you an example: I had a 65-year-old male client who had just started a loving relationship with a 53-year-old woman … The relationship had started beautifully and they had been able to establish mutual respect and trust… They were enjoying themselves and it was only when it came for them to go to places and do things together as a couple that the problems surfaced… One instance was when he had been invited to a get together with his colleagues to celebrate his new accomplishment in research. Dinner reservations were made and sightseeing was planned in several locations. On the other hand, his partner was invited to a yearly special traditional dinner over her close friends’ house and it was extremely important to her that he would accompany her to that dinner party and be introduced to her friends and community. She shared her great desire for him to be with her at that party ten days before his celebratory dinner was planned. She did not hear from him for several days and when she once again, communicated with him that it was very important to her that he accompany her to that party, and wondered if he was going to be there or not, he informed her that unfortunately he would not be able to join her for the dinner party and that his friends had invited him to this surprise get together. He then, added that he wished he had been on top of it sooner but the whole thing was already planned and that he felt he needed to join his colleagues as the whole day was planned in celebration of his accomplishments…. He added that he should have been more attentive as his colleagues were dropping hints as to the timing of this event…
She told me later, that she could not believe that he had not taken her honest request seriously and had let days pass without making any attempt to talk to her about the dinner invitation and letting her know about his friends’ plans… and without asking his colleagues if they would reschedule the event for another day so they could both have their needs met, and also to show love and respect to his partner’s priorities and desires… They broke up after many of these little seemingly insignificant problems…He told me that he thought that she wanted him to be a strong and independent man and when he acted like one, she did not want him anymore. She shared with me that she felt invisible and unimportant to him as he did not care enough to include her desires and preferences in his life schedule … Sad huh? They were so compatible, in so many ways that it broke my heart when the relationship fell apart…
The question persisted for so long in my head that what if he had made sure that he talked about his thoughts and concerns or about what he wished to do about the dinner party with his partner’s friends, right after she had invited him to the party … What if he had told her that he did not feel comfortable to meet her close friends this early on in their relationship? What if in case he wanted to join her for the dinner, he had made sure that his colleagues who were planning the celebration party for him were aware that he would not be available on that special evening? What if when they had told him about the party he had asked if they were willing to change the reservations to the day after as he had prior plans for that evening? What if she would not have taken this incident too personally and would have been more curious to find out the true contributing factors to his decision as to not to spend that evening with her and her friends? What if she would have suggested a policy for decision makings in the future to prevent that unpleasant event from happening and ruining their relationship once again? And I still keep wondering what would have happened if they knew from the get go how to make decisions together, as a unit, not as separate entities who only spend time together…