Making Relationship Work “Work”

Marriage is work. If you’re married, how many times have you heard this expression or shared it with others? More important, do you believe this to be true? Which parts of a relationship constitute work? Isn’t it interesting that we look at relationships as an object that requires “work” vs. an energetic dynamic between two people who individually need work?

For years I read how relationships were “mirrors” to ourselves, but never did I truly understand the import of those words or how we mistakenly interpret them. I have spent my life looking at my loved ones expecting, quite honestly, to see myself. In other words, I want the world to think and act just like I do and that’s what I want to see reflected back at me. The relationship becomes “work” because, dammit, you aren’t accommodating my endless demands for a world filled with me.

As long as you put the toilet seat down/up, don’t squeeze the toothpaste tube in the middle, raise kids, laugh at the same jokes, loathe cats and love dogs the way I do, well, we’re going to get along just fine because you have become me and boy do I love the way that particular reflection looks in the mirror.

But if our significant other(s) thumbs his or her nose at us and announces, “I’ll live my life the way I want, thank you very much,” well that’s not quite the mirror I was expecting. Worse, I REALLY don’t like the reflection when I kick and scream in reaction to your rebellion because now you’ve got me looking like an ass. As Deborah Tannen titled her seminal book on relationships many years ago, “You just don’t understand!” and might I add, “What the hell is wrong with you?”

The beauty of relationships, as the likes of Eckhart Tolle have told us, is that they help us progress so much faster than if we navigate life’s waters on our own. After all, if I’m living alone the only mirror I’m looking into is the one in my bathroom and he’s not going to teach me anything. We exist only in relation to others – if I’m the only person on the planet I’m not really “human” or “male” or “Doug” or anything else for that matter. I need an-other to be.

People who struggle with relationships – as do I – struggle with themselves. They are consumed with the idea of how the world – and its inhabitants – should be vs. how they are. And by that I mean, we struggle with the world not living up to our standards. The problem, of course, is that those standards are built upon the illusory sands of a “self” separate and apart from everyone and everything else, and the more we believe in that separate self the more deeply we hold those standards to be true and demand allegiance to them by others.

At my unhappiest moments I am always deeply immersed in “me,” and not surprisingly the world isn’t playing along. Similarly, the arguments and fights with a mate always seem to involve a sense of misunderstanding, a feeling of “you just don’t understand” and “why can’t you see?” and “my point is” and so on. Some of my happiest moments, conversely, are when someone helps me to see something in myself that for so long has remained hidden and that, far from hurting me in this illumination, shows me that there was never anything to fear. It is when I can say, “I’m sorry, I was wrong” and truly mean it.

This, then, is what I believe the relationship mirror is really all about. It is another human being reflecting back to us our own deeply ingrained, highly unconscious thinking. It is another point of illumination attempting to break through the darkness that keeps us trapped in fear and pain. The more deeply I look into that mirror, the more light shines through and I think/hope the faster I arrive at that place that shows me the grand illusion that is existence.