The Cause Of Relationship Problems
I appreciated D’s comment this week on my post. She touched of the following reflections in me.
One of the most tragic processes I continue to see is that two people who fall in love and marry end up in a few years almost hating each other. Alice and Bill’s wedding and early years are marked by an atmosphere of love and affection, then slowly it sours and not only dies, but turns into its opposite. What is going on? Neighbors and friends looking on thought it was a perfect marriage and are shocked and frightened when the worm turns with such vengeance.
What is going on is that as we grow, we build up a world view. Our world view is built up of family, community and religious values and experiences, combined with our personality type. We build up a way of seeing ourselves and the world which makes sense to us. When we marry, we connect with someone who has their own, different, world view.
At first, it feels like our two world views meld perfectly. It is only over time that we discover that the two of us are not such a perfect fit. The way that Alice treats Bill is not really how he expects to be treated. He feels dismissed and that he gets no respect. Alice feels the same way. She feels misunderstood, taken for granted, used and often abused. Tragically, this is too often the case.
Both start to get a mad on and refuse to change. Both tend to see their partner as the problem. Neither is eager to look at their own behavior and make the necessary changes. If one suggests they go for counseling, the other refuses because to go would mean admitting that they are partly at fault. If one decides to leave, the other often panics, saying they will do anything and they did not know the other person was so upset, and angry.
Much of their problem is based on projection, which is seeing the other person as the source of the problem. This is a big subject and all I have done here is note its power. I am presently going to do a workshop which will extend over a week or two on how projection works and what gives it such power. For now I will say that what we project is closely related to our personality type.
November 14th, 2005 at 11:25 am
I understand that projection causes couples to blame the other for their marriage problems; and the problem of different personalities eventually becoming a problem when it was the attraction in the first place. I am wondering how much a trait that irritates a spouse may be a trait that they have `and dislike in themselves.
November 15th, 2005 at 4:08 pm
D. You’re right on the money. The things we dislike about someone else is the thing we have not dealt with in ourselves. That is true whether they are our partner, work mate, store clerk, teacher etc.
January 18th, 2006 at 7:11 am
Getting Along: Sensing vs Intuitive
“I have to buy some presents for a couple of people,” I said to my wife just before Christmas.
“What are you planning to get?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ll just walk through the mall and see what jumps out at me.” For me, this…