The Disappearing sense of “we”

Posted on May 17, 2012 by Aimee

Greetings from San Francisco everyone :)   I know I promised to write more about how to help one another with our insecurities, but I just can’t take my mind off of another very important issue. Don’t worry, I won’t leave you hanging, I will fulfill my promise next week. What I am talking about today has every thing to do with insecurity, but on a much bigger scale!

I am writing to you from the American Family Therapy Academy annual conference. It is so great to be around people who share my passion for equality. Here it is not all about equality in couple relationships, but in all of society. I am deeply moved by the presentations and also very disappointed and disturbed at how our society has evolved and the direction we are heading if something does not change, and soon. I am horrified at how well-established and respected organizations, blatantly lie about certain groups in our society to further a political or personal agenda, sadly even our government. I am equally horrified at how there are so many groups of individuals organizing together in the name of perpetuating hate against other human beings and social groups. On what level is that okay? I admit that I have lots to work on in this respect, not that I am a member of a hate group, but I have done my fair share of perpetuating hate. If anyone says they haven’t, they’re fooling themselves….and contributing to the falsity of thinking we live in a civilized society. If we all had a little more compassion for one another, maybe our differences would not feel so big.

I challenge you to think about how certain beliefs about other people and groups such as racial groups or the gay, lesbian, and bisexual community can affect the lives of others and if these beliefs about others are helpful or harmful. Also to think about where our beliefs originate from and question, why DO I think that? Who do my beliefs benefit?  We as family therapists and researchers have been challenged to make a difference not only in the lives of our clients, but also on a larger scale. I am passing this challenge on to you.

The more we focus on individualism, the more we think “me” and “I” and start to forget about “us” and “we.”  I think this is not just on a global level, where our sense of obligation for other human beings is diminishing, but it is also starting to permeate communities, families, and couples, where what “we” need starts to suffer at the expense of a sense of entitlement to what “I” need.  What has happened to “community”?  If everybody was a little more worried about making someone else feel safe and cared for, whether that is your partner, neighbour, someone you walk past in the street, or the person who cuts your hair, this world would be a much better place. We would all feel more secure if we knew that people were interacting with us from a place of care, we wouldn’t have to have our guards up or expect to be let down. If there is one thing that research has shown time after time, it’s that the more people we feel connected to, the bigger our sense of shared community, the better off we all are. What are you going to do to extend kindness to others? Even someone you think doesn’t deserve it? How are you going to forge a sense of connection with everyone you come into contact with?

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Insecurity ~ The best way to ruin a relationship….or is it?

Posted on May 6, 2012 by Aimee

Insecurities…we all have them right?  But in our society insecurity is a dirty word, loaded with negative connotations.  A person with insecurities is seen as damaged goods, needy, or just plain hard to deal with.   This seems to be something that makes being in a relationship hard, even friendships.  Why is it so hard?

I think it has a lot to do with how individualistic our society is.  If you have insecurities, it’s your responsibility to deal with them and to make sure they do not negatively affect your relationships.  The problem with this is that by its very nature insecurity is a relational issue.  You cannot have an insecurity all by yourself, it is generally about someone else, i.e. women feeling insecure about their bodies, they are worried about how others perceive them because of how deeply our society promotes a specific ideal for beauty.  Or the biggest one for people in intimate relationships are insecurities about other men/women.  Typically, people are not born with these insecurities, they develop within either family relationships, friendships, or other intimate relationships.  Something tells them that it is not safe to fully trust other people, even when they REALLY want to.  Here’s an example:

Let’s say the male partner has been cheated on in the past by an ex-girlfriend and now he sees his now girlfriend hug a male friend.  All of his anxiety and insecurities about a past relationship come flooding to the surface, he starts to feel hurt that she is doing this, but at the same time he really wants to trust her…two things can happen at this point:

  1. He can try to stuff it by shutting down, but she will probably be able to sense his distance and it may cause an argument later
  2. He can act on his heightened emotional state and probably freak out on her or the male friend to the point where others watching think there is something wrong with him and they will probably end up arguing about it later.

Both of these options are individualistic ways of trying to cope with something that is relational.  In the first, he tries to deal with it within himself, in the second he tries to deal with it by changing her.  Both of these actions/reactions end in an argument at some point and likely create distance in the relationship.  So what’s the answer?

Well, there is third way to deal with this; one that most people do not typcially think about because of how individualistic we are taught to be, even in relationship with others.  In individualistic thinking it’s about what is best for him and for me….this seems relational right?  But it’s not really because it’s still about each person separately and what is usually best for him and for her, ends up being contradictory and only adds to the problem.  If we took this approach with the preceding example, it would be best for her  if he just stopped being so insecure and making her pay for what his ex-girlfriend did and it may seem best for him if his now girlfriend attempted not to do things that might make him feel insecure.  Both of these actions leave one person as responsible for making things better for both people.  The girl stops doing things to make him feel insecure, but now she has to constantly watch herself and may start to resent it.  He stops acting insecure, but that does not mean his insecurity goes away, it will still be there and creep into the relationship in other ways.

It’s important to note a gender difference in how this gets worked out, depending on if the insecure person is the male or female partner.  If it is the male partner, what typically happens is the female partner tries to accomodate by not doing things that may make him feel insecure, i.e. giving him full access to her phone, email, etc., and trying not to get too close with other men.  If it is the female partner who is insecure, she is usually told that she is crazy and needs to work on herself and not make her male partner pay for her problems that she brought into the relationship.  In both of these scenarios it is the female partner who is the one changing to make the relationship better.  Hardly fair right?  But this happens so naturally that no one even notices the difference.

So back to a better of dealing with insecurity, better for both partners.  The issue turns away from what is best for you or me, to what is best for the relationship between us.  When importance is shifted to the relationship, rather than the individuals in it, and both partners are equally concerned about the well-being of the relationship, gender inequality in how things get worked out disappears.  So how can couples talk about what is best for the relationship?  Talking about the impact each partner’s actions has on the relationship is a great start.  If you find yourself getting into a discussion about the impact each partner’s actions has on the other, you’re getting off task and blame and defensiveness is going to make your discussion very hard.

If I continued this post, it would be very long!  I know we all have short attention spans these days, so I will save the rest for next week, where I will get into more detail about how to shift conversation away from the individuals in the relationship, to the relationship itself.

 

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Relational Development Part III: Relational Dread

Posted on April 29, 2012 by Aimee

We've all felt this right?

 

In last week’s post I talked about how men are steered away from connection and into a focus on difference from others.  Regardless, men still seek out connection with others in intimate relationship.  This weeks post is about “relational dread,” a term coined by Dr. Bergman to describe the process that occurs when push for connection overpowers men’s ability to stay in it.  Reading about this has shed light on something I have had difficulty understanding as a woman and a couples therapist.  Men want to connect and stay connected, but their emotional and physiological response overwhelms their ability.  Here’s a simple example of how this happens in interaction:

“Woman: What are you feeling?

Silence from the man.

Woman: Can you tell me?

Man: I don’t know

Woman: Sure you do, please talk to me?

At this point a man may take evasive action, falling silent, changing the subject or yawning, striking with anger or sarcasm, or making a rapid exit.” (p. 8 )

What makes up this sense of relational dread?

  1. Inevitability of disaster – nothing good can come of this
  2. Timelessness – this will never end
  3. Damage – immense and irreparable
  4. Closeness – the closer I feel, the more intense my dread becomes
  5. Precariousness – even if I start to feel better, it can turn back to dread at any moment
  6. Process – a quickly forward-moving process in which I am unsure of the validity of my perceptions
  7. Guilt – I feel guilty about not being enough relationally
  8. Denial of and fear of aggression – if I feel trapped or pushed too far, and I’m unable to withdraw, I may panic and become violent and hurt someone
  9. Incompetence and shame – not only does she know the territory better, but she also seems to know me better than I know myself
  10. Paralysis – if I can’t fix it, I won’t say anything at all

I’m not going to pretend that I fully understand men’s experience of this, but it does help me understand my fear around approaching men about relational matters.  As women I think we sense men’s relational dread and try to adjust ourselves accordingly by picking our battles, strategizing how to approach, and backing off when things feel tense.  The ways we try to skirt around men’s dread speaks to the power of this male response. To men this may seem contradictory because I’m positive that no man would say he feels powerful in this process.

In the beginning, women seem able to tolerate male dread in the interest of keeping conflict low and protecting the relationship, but after awhile can start to feel hurt that her efforts to connect are rebuffed.  She begins to react to male dread with anger or sadness, which increases men’s sense of incompetency and intensifies their sense of dread ~ and here we have a vicious cycle that many couples have difficulty breaking.  Each time the cycle is enacted it, the emotions driving it intensify, making resolution appear impossible to attain.

So what can men and women do?

Well there are a few things, but none will be as effective as partners coming together to change this process together.

Continued next week….

Bergman, S. J. (1995). Men’s psychological development: A relational perspective A new psychology of men (pp. 68-90). New York, NY: Basic Books; US.

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Relational Development: Part II – Early childhood

Posted on April 15, 2012 by Aimee

“Relationship informs identity in a continuous, ongoing process, the more connected, the more powerful.” (p. 4).  Last week I identified relational development as missing in traditional theories of normal human development and implications this has on men and women’s efforts to be in relationship with one another.  Focus on relationship is often lacking in male development.  Why and how does this happen?

Men and women are treated relatively the same in terms of emotional connectedness and mutual responsiveness, until about age 2, when gender socialization begins.  By age three, there is a shift in the “relational context” and mothers and fathers begin to relate differently to sons and daughters.  Boys begin to break away from mutually empathetic relationships, the first happening to be with the mother.  This disconnection from a whole relational way of being has tremendous implications for subsequent male development.  How does this disconnection happen?

There  is no one factor responsible, but rather powerful cultural forces in the name of “growth.” Boys are heavily pressured to turn away from the process of connection, and mother’s and father’s believe it is their duty to support this….least their son turn into a “mama’s boy” or a “wimp.” If a young boy cannot connect relationally with his own mother, than how is he to learn to do this in friendships, with siblings, and finally with romantic partners? Why is one of the biggest insults boys can hurl at one another, being called by a girl’s name?    Girls are taught to empathetically attune to other’s feelings, boys are not.  When we don’t know how to do something, we typically avoid it, devalue it, and even deny its existence in order to deal with feelings of inadequacy.  What are boys doing when girls are learning to be in relationship?

Boys make a declaration of difference from others, especially females.  A focus on differences implies comparison and feelings of better than or worse than, and the idea of one person having power over another.  Comparison with others leads to what we commonly see among males – competition and aggression.  There is a strong yearning for connection and on the other hand a strong desire to be somebody, achieve, be good at fixing and doing things, and demonstrate competence.  What happens when these desires collide?  Often being somebody special wins out, and the more that this becomes focal, the more incompetent he feels in relationship.  “Being someone special seems often to come at the expense of being with or nurturing others.” (p.5)  The result of this process is men become deathly afraid of conflict with others, so much so that they are more inclined to start physical fights instead of engaging in it relationally.  This is supported by another study I cited in a previous post, Distress: The Message, Delivery, and Reception, where the researchers found that men have difficulty handling other’s distress.  So we know that men want to connect, just as we all do, this is as much of an instinct as seeking food and shelter.  But what prevents men from engaging?  From being fully in relationship?

Continued next week….

Bergman, S. J. (1995). Men’s psychological development: A relational perspective A new psychology of men (pp. 68-90). New York, NY: Basic Books; US.

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Relational Development: Part I – Identity Before Intimacy

Posted on April 8, 2012 by Aimee

“Men find a way to relate, when they see their lives depend on it.” (p. 2)  Although this is not always true, as a therapist, I do see quite often men changing relationally, when their female partner threatens to end the relationship.  Men often agree at this point to join their female partners in therapy —- for some it is too late.  Their failed efforts often confirm their belief that they are powerless when it comes to being in relationship.  Where does this sense of powerlessness originate from?

I recently came across some very interesting material on a Relational Perspective of Male Development.  The author, Dr. Stephen Bergman, holds an M.D, as well as a PhD and taught at Harvard School of Medicine!  Holding the position of power and success that he does in society, would make him seem, at least to me, an unlikely candidate to be standing up for the so often neglected relational side of male development.  As human beings, we only survive in relation to others, without someone to nurture us, we would never make it.  It never ceases to amaze me, how this is overlooked!

His work, along with colleague, Janet Surrey, is over 20 years old!  I think that speaks to the power of traditional male discourses that promote autonomy and individuality ~ identity before intimacy. 

I really admire how he describes feeling a “huge sense of relief” in learning about relational mutuality because as a man he felt he was missing a vital part of the human experience.  He describes his experience from that of a middle-class, white, privileged, heterosexual, American male.  His disclosure of all the systems he is a part of that afford him privilege shows me a sense of humbleness about his experience that entice me to trust what he is going to say next….

He gives a brief, comprehensive overview of how traditional theories of development all focus on control and power over self, and only when we are a strong individual, can we enter into a mature relationship.  Many of these theories were developed by white males, and as such, were primarily based in their own experiences and perceptions of life.  Hard to believe they are so widely accepted as truth!!!  As a psychiatrist, trained well in these theories, he questions why theories written primarily by men, “fail to describe so much of men’s authentic experience.” (p. 3).  He points out the contradiction in that becoming a strong self, often requires learning to be uninfluenced by others, so how does that prepare one to be in a healthy relationship?   Isn’t the whole foundation of relationship, to be influenced by another and to influence them?

He suggests that participating in relationships which are not mutual is a source of sadness and rage, which can lead to depression, withdrawal, insecurity, aggression, and violence; for both men AND women.  While women are socialized in ways that make experiencing the relationship, easier, men are often socialized in ways that are counterproductive to being in relationship in a mutually healing way.  He believes that men have difficulty perceiving, feeling, understanding, and being in the process of relationship.  That they fail to experience the relationship as an entity of its own, in movement, defined by a strong mutual empathic connection.  WHY?

To be continued next week…..things in male development that make it hard for them to experience relationship as a separate life force….

Bergman, S. J. (1995). Men’s psychological development: A relational perspective A new psychology of men (pp. 68-90). New York, NY: Basic Books; US.

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Relationship Satisfaction and Emotion Work

Posted on March 18, 2012 by Aimee

In my quest to find literature for my dissertation proposal I came across a very interesting article that was published over 10 years ago.  It’s research studies like this that make me wonder how much more great research there is about the benefits of mutual support that we do not even know about.  The study surveyed couples coming in for therapy and the researchers were trying to determine if emotion work in the relationship was something only important to women.  Emotion work refers to efforts each partner is making to enhance emotional support and well-being in the relationship.

This is a really important thing for us to find out because if it is only important to women, what does this mean for the relationship?  That they will only be satisfied if their male partner is putting in as much emotion work?  Where then will that leave males?  If relationships changed and relational ways of being focusing on emotion work became the new norm, would men be less satisfied?

This study examined the relationship between emotion work and relationship satisfaction in couples.  It also compared who was more satisfied in the relationship and who was doing the most emotion work.

They found that women report doing significantly more emotion work than men.  Also, men were more satisfied in their relationships than their female partners.  Both of these findings have been found in many other studies and is typically attributed to female responsibility for maintaining relationships.  Here are some of the more surprising findings:

  • Both men and women were most satisfied when the emotion work was balanced
  • Balance in emotional work was significantly related to relationship satisfaction for men, but not for women
  • Expression of affection was one of the most important contributors to relationship satisfaction for both men and women

These findings suggest that both the giving and receiving of emotional support is important for relationship satisfaction for men and women.  When both partners are working to create an environment of emotional safety it contributes to shared relational responsibility.  Men are usually not socialized to give emotional support, which is unfortunate because it seems that being able to offer support to someone on an emotional level may be a very strong factor in building solid relational connections.  It also makes me wonder if men started doing their share of emotion work in the relationship, how this could seem like a loss for some women or if it may be difficult at first to receive emotional care from their male partners?  What do you think?

Holm, K. E., Werner-Wilson, R. J., Cook, A. S., & Berger, P. S. (2001). The association between emotion work balance and relationship satisfaction of couples seeking therapy. American Journal of Family Therapy, 29(3), 193-205.

 

 

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Relational Equality and Health

Posted on March 10, 2012 by Aimee

My primary area of interest in terms of research is relational equality and how this affects each partner’s health.  It has been widely documented that men are not only more satisfied within relationships, but also experience greater mental and physical health benefits.  Why might this be?  In my dissertation I will try to answer this question for African American couples.

I have just completed a preliminary analysis on data of primarily White married and cohabiting couples, collected in 2010 (National Center for & Marriage, 2011).  The results are very interesting….

I examined factors thought to be important to relational equality between partners and how they are related to relationship satisfaction and each partner’s health.  The relational factors were how well does each partner feel listened to by the other, how much does each feel encouraged to do things important to them by their partner, and how much is their partner there for them when they need someone to talk to (emotional availability).  I predicted that how much one feels listened to and encouraged by their partner, as well as how emotionally available they feel their partner is, the more satisfied they will be in their relationship, and subsequently experience better health.  A little complicated right?  I used a method called path analysis that is quite diluted!!  I originally thought that since women are typically more relational, that more of these relationships would be true for them and not for men.  What I found was very surprising!  It turns out that feeling listened to, encouraged, and that your partner is emotionally available is important for both men’s and women’s health, through the impact on relationship satisfaction.  That is, the more satisfied one is with their relationship, the healthier they perceive themselves to be.  It turns out that equality is important and needed not only for women, but also for men!  The disappointing part of my findings suggest that men are in fact happier in their relationships, feel like they are listened to more, and their female partners are more emotionally available to them.  So although equality is important for both men and women’s relationship satisfaction and health, men are still benefiting more.

I wonder if my results will be different for African American couples, we will have to wait to see!  How do you think we can overcome this discrepancy in emotional availability and feeling listened to between partners?  This is one of the many things we are working to find out in our clinical research group.

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Chronic Illness…MY vs OUR problem

Posted on February 20, 2012 by Aimee

I am currently working on developing my unique approach to working with couples with life-threatening, chronic illness.  As a medical family therapist I am working with patients awaiting a liver or kidney transplant and their families.  I typically see patients with their primary caregivers, sometimes this is a partner, a sibling, or an adult child.  I draw heavily from John Rolland’s groundbreaking book, Families, Illness, & Disability in my work.  My personal touch to his integrative model is a dash of critical thought about how gender, power, and culture influence the process of facilitating a new sense of connection through this extremely difficult time.

In reading the chapter on working with couples with chronic illness, the part that particularly caught my attention addresses MY vs. OUR problem.  In our society, this process is taken for granted, and the medical model promotes an attitude of MY problem.  Illness is seen as in the individual and this promotes an invisible boundary that encompasses the sick role.  Along with the sick role are feelings of entitlement to care, love, and attention.  Attention becomes a one-way street, directed only at the sick one, and relationships become skewed, resentment creeps in, and intimacy fades…

What can we do to change this?

First we must challenge the belief that the illness belongs to the person who has it.  Illness inevitably affects the ill person’s most intimate relationships.  Sometimes it is as simple as bringing it to the attention of a couple I am working with, other times we have to process cultural and societal beliefs that support an individualistic view of illness.  When illness becomes OUR problem, the burden can be shared and support can be offered from the ill person to the caregiver as well.  Rather than pulling partners apart, illness can become the glue that binds partners through increased shared vulnerability, mutual attunement, influence, and shared relational responsibility. 

As medical family therapists we need to challenge the belief that this time in life is only filled with terror, fear, loneliness, and meaninglessness – and that well-being can only be attained when the illness is avoided or denied.  We need to reframe this time as an extraordinary opportunity for growth and connection and empower couples to seize the moment to increase intimacy.

Dominant gender discourses are central to understanding how different this process will look, depending on whether the male or female partner is ill.  Traditional ideas about gender facilitate the centrality of the  MY view of illness.  When the male partner is ill, his female caregiver typically adapts to the role of caregiver quickly, and may experience intense feelings of guilt associated with having personal needs.  We need to normalize that as a caregiver she still has valid needs that deserve to be met.  When the female partner falls ill, feelings of guilt may manifest as denying the impact of illness so as not to burden others.  Male partners typically describe feeling “lost” in how to connect on a deeper emotional level with their partner, whether she is ill or the caregiver.  Most men I have worked with desire deeper emotional intimacy, but have difficulty enduring the uncertainty and vulnerability that comes with learning something different.

Enactment provides a particularly powerful agent of change in how couples communicate around chronic illness.  Facilitating partners in sharing a new experience around illness based on shared vulnerability and mutual attunement has often been the motivator for continued attempts at mutual support outside of the therapy room.  I work to support and validate male partner’s efforts in communicating in ways that feel foreign at times.  At the same time, I give voice to experiences female partners typically feel uncomfortable saying, such as asking for quality time from their partner.  This is only one stereotypical example, each couple I see bring unique strengths and challenges that influence what their process will look like and what will need to be focused on.

What has the process looked like for you as a therapist or a partner in a relationship?

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Distress: The Message, Delivery, and Reception

Posted on February 9, 2012 by Aimee

What you communicate, your body posture, eye contact, and tone of voice is more important than the words you actually say.

I recently read a very interesting study published in a psychology journal about emotional skills and marital health.  The emotional skills required to successfully navigate couple relationships are particularly unique in that there is such a deep level of personal vulnerability experienced.  As shared vulnerability increases between partners, sensitivity to being hurt by that person also increases.  I think this extends to other relationships that feel very intimate, such as friendships and family relationships.  So how can we deal with these emotional challenges in a way that brings us closer?  How can we stay connected with one another even through disagreement and hurt?  How does the way we handle our emotions, and the emotions of others, contribute to equality or power imbalances?

This study found that for both men and women, having good emotional skills increased marital satisfaction, by increasing emotional safety in the relationship.

So what does it look like to have poor emotional skills?  Hurt can be enacted in defensiveness, withdrawal, hostility, retaliation, and avoidance.  If one has good emotional skills hurt in the relationship is enacted as self-disclosure, confident emotional communication, repair seeking, positive approach, appropriate self-care, assertive communication, and forgiveness.

They also found differences in the level emotional skills displayed by men and women.  Women were rated by ‘experts’ as more emotionally skillful then men.  Women tended to exhibit their negative emotions in less hostile ways and identify their emotions by name.  Women reported having more empathetic concern and less discomfort with the personal distress of others.  I think this last point is particularly important to understanding communication between partners.  So….a man and a woman come together in a relationship…. women can typically handle the distress of their male partner and male partners have more difficulty handling their female partner’s distress…..one person here is receiving support and the other is not.  Do you see how this creates an imbalance?

The differences in emotional skills based on gender are likely because of how differently boys and girls are taught to be when they are growing up.   Girls are taught to read and express verbal and nonverbal emotions and boys are taught to suppress emotions such as vulnerability, guilt, fear, and hurt.  If you don’t allow yourself to experience a feeling yourself, how can you learn to tolerate it in someone else?

As a woman myself, this has really shaped who I feel I can talk to about certain issues, and who I cannot…I feel sometimes that I cannot be authentic about who I am in certain relationships – not just couple relationships…but those I see as intimate…and it makes me really sad.  I want nothing more than to reach out and share my real self with someone I love and yet there is a sense that it is not safe for me, and  that I don’t want to create distress in another by sharing my distress.  If I tell this person about some of my struggles, what meaning are they making of that?  Are they going to panic?  Are they going to tell me what to do to ’fix’ it?  Are they going to get mad at me and make me feel like I did this to myself or I deserve it?  So I choose to lie….  I think this puts women in a bind…. I can lie to preserve the relationship, avoid conflict, and protect my loved one from distress and perhaps over time be seen as ‘manipulative’ or ‘fake’  OR I can let it all out and be seen as ‘dramatic’ or ‘emotionally unstable’….so what am I to do?  Be silent…sometimes that feels like the only choice.

Mirgain, S. A., & Cordova, J. V. (2007). Emotion skills and marital health: The association between observed and self-reported emotion skills, intimacy, and marital satisfaction. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 26(9), 983-1009.

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Striking Gold in Love

Posted on January 28, 2012 by Aimee

This is a guest post by Melissa Wells one of the founding members of the clinical research group.  Melissa is a gem of a person, she is so sweet and caring.  What really impresses me about Melissa is her passion for learning beyond the requirements of the PhD program.  Melissa is going to be doing some very important research looking at how therapists use the Circle of Care with couples who have traumatic histories. I really admire the relationship Melissa has with her partner, Gary, who is a wonderful man.  This post centers around their experience on vacation.

My husband and I love a good story. He’s always on the lookout for economic news and I am interested in narratives on what makes marriage work. We both struck gold at the Azure Gate Bed & Breakfast in Tucson during the Christmas holiday. For three years now we have met interesting couples at this arty B&B (www.azuregate.com). One couple in their mid 60s travel everywhere with their bicycles, even to Europe, so they can pedal their way into the local culture. Others have had fascinating professions, such as the former school teacher who is now engaged in social work graduate studies and conducts research at John Gottman’s Love Lab in Seattle. We had a great conversation.

Most recently a couple at our gourmet breakfast had traveled from their home in the Italian Riviera on the northwest Mediterranean coast of Italy to celebrate their 50-year wedding anniversary with their son and daughter-in-law who live in Arizona. The older couple did not speak much English, but their son offered to translate so that I could ask their advice about successful relationships. The wife answered, “Be patient.” “That’s it?” I puzzled. “That’s it,” she affirmed. The husband said, “Do things together.” And I wondered aloud, “Does that mean go on vacations together?” The husband then told the story of how, in his work as a certified public accountant and economist, each day before going to his office he would walk his wife to her shop and open it, then they would join for lunch during the traditional Italian afternoon siesta, and at the end of the day he would return to close the shop and walk home with her. This was their way for many years.

What I observed of this couple over three breakfasts and a dinner celebrating a half century of marriage was a kind, gentle regard for one another as evidenced in many shared glances of affection. They seemed to really appreciate and to enjoy one another. In their story of intentionality of being together in their daily activities, I interpreted this as the couple’s expression of how they shared responsibility for maintaining and nurturing their relationship. This relational responsibility, upheld by each partner, provided a foundation for a mutually supportive relationship that has sustained an emotional connection for five decades. I saw this couple as an exemplar on how sharing power supports love.

Oh, and Gary had a great conversation about the Italian economy.

 

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