Imagine a relationship where power is shared. Where each partner allows the other influence. Where both are equally willing to compromise. Where “yield” does not refer to a traffic sign but a way of relating. Imagine yielding to win! Such is the goal for couples who work with me on increasing the satisfaction quotient in their partnership.
I cringe internally when faced with a couple for whom being right is more important than being loved and loveable. It happens much too often. And the joy of witnessing the transformation from here to one of respectful compromise! I’ll be honest though – this doesn’t happen easily, and it doesn’t happen overnight. When couples are in the habit, or practice, of needing to be right, then they’re usually very good at being right and hardly know where to start to give up ground and be willing to yield.
So we start gradually, with things each is willing to give and take. Is Meg willing to take her book to bed and read there rather than on the couch downstairs in return for her partner Di going to bed half an hour earlier, so they can actually retire at the same time? Is Dan willing to be home from work by 6:00 pm one evening during the week so he and his partner Beth can have dinner together, in return for Beth re-arranging that evening’s workout to the morning?
With success under our belt for the smaller things, we can then move on to the more challenging concerns like holiday destinations, celebrating Christmas with family (or not), how to bring up the children when parents have different religious beliefs and so on.
I am grateful to have worked with a young couple who loved one another so much, but were concerned to have very different backgrounds – she was a committed and practicing Roman Catholic and he was an equally committed and practicing Jew. They were smart enough to seek consultation before making a commitment to one another, wanting to explore how their diverging backgrounds could be successfully blended.
We worked over the period of nearly a year and during that time had many emotional sessions where sometimes there were positive outcomes and sometimes there were setbacks, but our overall outcome was their willingness to allow influence and compromise to inform their decisions in planning a life together. They celebrated their marriage with a specially designed ceremony combining the most important facets of each of their faiths and, while some of their narrower-minded family and friends appeared a little baffled by it all, announced their satisfaction at the first of many hurdles well managed.
To consider:
- where do you dig your heels in, to the detriment of your relationship(s)?
- where could you compromise? how could you make the first step toward making that compromise?
- do you allow your partner to influence you? sometimes? never? how could you make the first step toward allowing an appropriate influence?
- if you’re single, consider with whom you might practice compromising and influencing / being influenced?
