The Work

I know, I know.  It’s true.  We are in the honeymoon stage of the relationship.  We’re all gaga for each other, don’t yet see each other’s flaws, all that jazz.  Nevertheless, we are being proactive in developing some relationship tools I hope will serve us very well in the long run.

The best communication I’ve ever had was with my first husband, the one who was serving 50 years without parole in Cummins Prison in south Arkansas.  We started out with pathetic skills in this area, so I did what I always do when I want to learn how to do something better.  I visited the library.

A few self-help books later, we were learning how to talk.  Bill embraced the process and together we adopted the following rules for airing our grievances:  take turns, no interrupting, no bringing up old crap from the past, no hitting below the belt.  Use “I” statements, not “you” statements.  After the first person has expressed his/her feelings using an “I” statement, the listener must echo back what s/he THINKS the speaker was saying, then ask, “Did I get it?”  The speaker then has a chance to correct or confirm, “yes, that is what I am saying.”

That marriage ended in annulment after seven years.  Bill is, as far as I know, still serving out his sentence for aggravated robbery as an habitual criminal.  As odd as it may sound, I learned most of what I know about good relationship skills during my time with him.

Since then, I’ve had a lot of relationships that didn’t make it to “happily ever after.”  Yet that is what I’ve always wanted.  Lately I’ve been gathering evidence for the idea that this is possible.  I look at Bill and Vi and see it can be done.  My cousins Lynn and Fred are still in love after…how many years, Lynn? Yesterday a coworker, having seen the bouquet Sylvain had delivered to me, told me that her husband of 23 years still calls her at work a couple of times in the week just to say “I love you.”   My new director and I sat down for half an hour the other day simply to become better acquainted.  I learned that she has been married for decades to a man she started dating when she was sixteen.  Communication is KEY, she told me.

It can be done.

Looking back on my failed relationships and seeing my meeting Sylvain as a chance to do it right this time, what did I do?  Ever the researcher, I decided to start reading books on building a healthy relationship.  I have found one book to be particularly helpful; it is called If Love is a Game, These are the Rules by Cherie Carter-Scott, Ph. D.

Some of the chapter sub-sections are on:

• Tools for building intimacy
• Fear of commitment
• Stretching your comfort zone
• Supporting versus controlling
• Boundaries
• Standing up for yourself
• Sharing
• Patience
• Gratitude
• Acceptance
• Forgiveness
• The art of communicating effectively
• Reacting without defensiveness

In the section called No Stones in the Basket, I was reminded of the period during which my last relationship was falling apart.  The author writes:

We each carry a small, invisible basket around in our minds.  In order to operate at maximum effectiveness as a human, it is best for that basket to remain empty and light, so as not to weigh us down….

Occasionally, we might hold on to a feeling of resentment, anger, annoyance, or any other negative reaction, neglecting or refusing to release it to the person for whom it is intended, and that feeling turns into a stone. Each stone gets placed into the basket in our mind and remains there until we consciously choose to root it out and discard it.

Each time you hold your tongue when your partner slights you, you create a stone.  Each time you refrain from expressing a desire, the resulting resentment solidifies into another stone.  Whenever you withhold your anger, yet another stone forms.  You can see how little time it would take for your basket to become full and overflow onto your partner in the form of little jabs, heavy bombs dropping, sarcasm, loaded comments, and, when left unattended over time, explosions of emotional debris.

When I read this, it helped me put my finger on one thing that was poisoning my last relationship.  The first time I got a stone in my basket, I tried taking it out, clearing the air, expressing my hurt.  That’s when I discovered that my partner had a whole shitload of stones in his basket!  He resented my coming to him with my first stone when he had been swallowing all of his.  “What about what YOU did the other day,” he responded when I tried to air a grievance.

Sylvain and I are making a conscious effort to do much better than this.  When I got to a part in this book that suggests a couple set up regular times to check in with each other and make sure there are no stones in the baskets, I asked Sylvain if he would be willing to do this with me.  He was more than willing.

And so we have established our Sunday check-in ritual.  This is good.  I sense that we are already assembling a helpful set of tools for building and maintaining a healthy relationship and for keeping the lines of communication open.

It’s wonderful to be able to say to my lover, “a relationship is like a garden; you have to tend to the weeds,” and have him GET IT and be ready to do the work.

I am filled with hope.