A client, a husband and father, sat in my office, reflecting about the steep decline that had occurred in his ten-year relationship.  “It’s unbelievable… completely unbelievable!   How did we ever get to this point?!”

Kari and Michael had married in their early 20’s.  Two outgoing, fun-loving people, they had considered each other “my best friend”.  Kari became pregnant within months of marrying, sooner than either intended, but as children had always been a part of their dream together, they welcomed their new baby.  A second pregnancy came when the first was just seven months old.  Soon they were the parents of a 14^th month old little girl and two precious twin infant boys.

Michael sought out a better-paying job and found one out-of-state.  In moving, they left a large extended and supportive family network.  But being young and adventuresome, they looked forward to living in an entirely new part of the country.

They moved from a warm, sunny climate to our grey, damp Northwest.  Michael’s job required he work long hours. Kari had her hands full with three toddlers while trying to paint, remodel and decorate their new home.   Michael had no time or energy to help her when he came home.  He buried himself into his computer, working, often not even hearing her requests for assistance with the children.

Kari, feeling isolated and lonely, fell into a depression.  Michael described it this way, “After moving here, she changed.  The way she talked to me, always nagging, always complaining.  Nothing I did was ever right.  This was not the woman I had married.”

Kari began an affair.  With the husband of one of the few couples they had come to know and socialize with together.  That’s what brought them into my office:  Kari deeply remorseful and aghast at what she had done; Michael, stunned, hurt and angry.  Despite the deep gash the betrayal cut into their bond, their connection, both were committed to rebuilding their marriage.

Kari accepted full responsibility for her choice to step outside the marriage for intimacy and closeness, betraying Michael, regardless of the state of their marriage at the time.  That piece fell firmly into her lap and she never sidestepped it.  Michael was able to see his role in the demise in their relationship:  he had hunkered down, making his job his top priority, closing Kari out.  He had assumed that their marriage would simply go on, with little or no attention.  “I knew it wasn’t great between us, but I didn’t realize just how far down we both had let things slide.” The affair proved to be a startling wake-up call for Michael; an opportunity to create a stronger and more harmonious marriage, an opportunity for each to grow.

A key moment occurred one session when Kari turn to Michael and said, “What I need most from you is to listen.  Listen to my thoughts and feelings with your heart.  Not with your head.  With your heart.”  They stared at one another for a few, long moments.  I could see the wheels churning for Michael. Then he smiled.  He got it. Something clicked.  He reached out, took her hand and said, “I can do that.  I know I can do that.”

The only reason we don’t open our hearts and minds to other people is that they trigger confusion in us that we don’t feel brave enough, or sane enough, to deal with.

To the degree that we look clearly and compassionately at ourselves, we feel confident and fearless about looking into someone else’s eyes.

~  Pema Chodron

I was ready to kill him.

The hike was 4 miles in, 4 miles out.  Up to a supposedly breathtaking panoramic view of the Methow Valley.  Out beyond those acres and acres of scorched trees lay our destination.  Somewhere.

The hike began on paths winding through arched fields of sunflowers and towering pines, the sky a cerulean blue.  We felt giddy with the beauty of it all.   Then came a steep and exhausting switchback.  Hot and dusty, I kept thinking, It’s just around the corner.  Keep going, the ridge will be just around the corner.

Not even close.

Instead we entered a forest of blackened ponderosa pine.  A graveyard of standing trees.   Beautiful in an exotic and other-worldly way, we fell into a quite reverie walking among the tall, ghostly spears.   On and on we hiked.  No end in sight.  After an hour of what-felt-like walking in circles, the same path over and over again, over streams and fallen trees, blisters forming, I became impatient.  I fumed.  In my mind I blamed Paul.  He had chosen this trail.  He was the one determined to reach the ridge.  He was even chipper about the whole thing!  With each step, I felt more and more glum.

We met two hikers coming down.  The woman looked at me leaning on my walking stick and said, “The last stretch, it’s brutal.”

Brutal?

Our two friends had stayed back, after the difficult switchback, wishing us well, telling us they’d meet us back at the trailhead.  The love-of-my-life was determined to get to the top.  At any cost.  I asked to turn back; he wanted to forge ahead.

Who was this man I had married?!

My head down, I put one foot in front of the other and plowed ahead.  But mentally I left that landscape.  With each step, I entered an old familiar internal world.  A sour place, a critical place.  The thoughts, the mental pathways, the peaks and troughs, well-worn, and oh so familiar.  So very easy to slip into.

Step by step, brick by brick, I built my case against him; itemizing all of the things he had done wrong in the past, that only substantiated how wrong he was now.  How he, of course, was completely responsible for how lousy I was feeling.

The last stretch of the trail was brutal:  steep, rocky, exposed.  We both felt it.  But we were too close now to turn back.  The top?  Anti-climatic.  Compared to mountain ridges just an hour from our front door, this view was not that spectacular.

So who turned to whom first?  I really can’t remember.  Perhaps Paul asked me to tell him what was up  (that would be so like him).  I know at some point he apologized for insisting we go the whole distance.  When he did, I visibly softened.  He asked, I answered.  Bringing my thoughts and feelings to the surface, to the ‘light’, exposed them for what they were:  my stuff.

Not his.  Mine.

He tenderly stuck someone’s business card into the heel of my shoe to slow the blister and we headed down the mountain.  We talked the whole way down the long trail, through the scorched landscape and the fields of sunflowers, back to the car (where our friends had waited three hours for us).  The last stretch I leaned heavily against him.

As uncomfortable and as challenging as that long day had been, there is no one I would rather have had at my side, to walk through my inner muck and to traverse that steep, dusty trail.

Simplicity if not an objective in art,

one achieves simplicity despite one’s self

by entering into the real sense of things.

~  Constantin Brancusi

When you wake up in the morning, pause.  Just for a few seconds.

Pause and contemplate all that you have to be grateful for.

The comfort of your bed.  The gift of sight.  The roof above your head.  The sweet fragrance of the lilacs you cut and placed on the kitchen table the day before.  Your health.  The neighbor who smiled and waved on his way to work.  The friend you know will always be there when you call.  Your partner breathing softly beside you.

For this day, be grateful.

“I’m not in-love with him any more,” a wife said sadly in my office this week.

She had been.  Once, over a decade ago.  Before the brutal murder of her husband’s younger sister.  Before the years of tracking down the killer, the long, long trial, the life-sentence in prison.  Before the birth of their own two children.  Before Todd’s promotion at work that required 70-80 hours a week at the office.  Once, a long, long time ago Carol had been in love with her husband.

When her sister-in-law’s life had been taken in an unimaginable way, Todd had changed.  He became bitter, withdrawn, angry.   “Who wouldn’t?” said Carol.

I certainly would have, I thought to myself.

Now, a decade later they find themselves in my office.  Carol describes her situation this way:  “I’ve pulled away, far, far away, from Todd.  I don’t know how to come back, and worse, I don’t even know if I want to.

Todd panics when he hears this.

As I listen to their story, it begins to make sense.  After the sister-in-law’s death, Carol and her needs took the back seat.  As someone who avoids conflict, she pulled back in the face of Todd’s hurt and anger.  She withdrew.  Todd’s only objective for two years was finding the man who had killed his sister.  He was dogged and relentless and eventually succeeded. Carol became pregnant.  She reported how she felt very alone in the pregnancy and the birthing of their two kids.  When Todd wasn’t at the office, he was off running or biking, something he said he absolutely needed to manage the stress at his job.  Carol kept quiet and shouldered the burden of raising their two children.

When the children entered school, Carol began to pursue her own interests:  coaching children’s soccer, starting a book group.  Her needs for feeling valued and for emotional sustenance and support began to be met elsewhere.  She continued to fulfill her child-rearing and household responsibilities, but found she sidestepped opportunities to be with Todd alone.  She preferred to be by herself  immersed in a good book or with her friends.  Sex became a chore.

The good news was she came to counseling willingly.  Tentatively Carol began to express her anger and her hurt regarding how they both had allowed Todd’s needs to dominate their marriage.  But more importantly, she was beginning to see her part in that damaging dynamic.

Todd, in the meantime, worked to manage his anxiety and to listen to Carol’s story.    As he comprehended how hurtful his behaviors had been to her, he validated and acknowledged her experience.  He told her he had no idea that what he had been doing had been so harmful, but that he got it now.  He encouraged her to tell him what she wanted and needed from him.  He wanted to show her he could change.

Will this be the end of their long marriage or will it be a new beginning, the opportunity for a new chapter, of a much deeper and rewarding connection?

No one knows for sure at this juncture, but there is always hope.

John Gottman took his 35 years of research on the masters (and disasters) of marriage and distilled it down into the concept of the Sound Relationship House.  The seven levels of the house depict his understanding on what creates a strong, viable relationship. [1]

I love this metaphor.  Houses are universal.  Seeking and creating shelter has been around since the beginning of time.  Houses are built using the materials at hand – brick homes come from Midwestern clay, homes in Thailand are built from teak.  In India homes are constructed from wood, stone and mud and here in the Northwest, houses are built from wood from our abundant forests.  Similarly, our relationships are built from the internal resources of each person involved.  What we bring is what we have to offer.

Houses are meant to offer shelter – from the sun, the rain, the wind, and worse.  So is our primary relationship.  Within both structures, we seek to feel sheltered and safe.

There is a science and an art to building houses;  there is a science and art to building a strong, viable, harmonious relationships.  Maintaining a house takes consistent time, effort and attending.  It takes work.  So does a relationship.  After years, most houses needs remodeling, a new coat of paint.  So do long-term relationships.

Not all houses are welcoming:  not all houses are ‘home’. The same is true with relationships.  There are relationships that exist “for the kids”.  Or because it would be too costly to divorce.  Relationships where two people lead parallel lives, walk through their days feeling distant and emotionally disengaged.

People who strive to make their relationship ‘home’ recognize that physical and emotional safety is imperative, absolutely imperative.  Maintaining and deepening the connection is also a priority.  Both parties are willing to accept responsibility for his or her thoughts, words, feelings and actions.  And each person demonstrates interest and caring for their partner’s experiences and inner world.

This is ‘home’ in the best sense of the word.

In a recent Op-Ed in the New York Times, titled How Marriage Survives, Justin Wolfers examined current statistics on marriage.  He noted that the numbers have not changed significantly with the recent recession, thus concluding, “Truly, the recession has not torn young couples apart; it has pushed them closer together.”

Could have fooled me.

The number of couples who have legally married, or who have chosen to stay married at this time, young or old, is no indicator of the viability nor gratification of those marriages.  All of us know people who are married and miserable.  Divorce, on the other hand, is very expensive.   Who can surmise the number of couples who are choosing to not divorce for the sole reason they cannot afford to do so? The number of people marrying, or choosing to stay married, is no indicator of a quality nuptial situation.  And isn’t quality the point of intimate relationships not simply the numbers?

A few months ago,  Henry Olson of the Wall Street Journal looked at our current economic malaise through a different lens.  He examined the ratio of the civilian employment to population. In these terms, America is suffering the largest employment drop since World War II.    A number of recent news articles estimate the true unemployment rate to be between 17 and 22% (when you take into consideration those individuals who have been unemployed for so long they’ve given up looking, or those thousands of part-time workers who desperately need full-time work.)

Most people would agree:  this is a hard time, an uncertain time.  People everywhere are significantly more stressed.  Stress breaks us down physically, emotionally and relationally.

So, what can be done about it?

Dwelling on those aspects of our lives that lie beyond our control will leave us feeling unsettled and insecure.   The high unemployment rate, the price of food and daily expenses, the boss or coworker you can’t stand, and finally what other people feel and think or how they act:  these are all areas beyond our control. Focusing our attention and our efforts on those areas where one does have influence or control is where we find solace and satisfaction.[1] Pulling together a scrumptious meal for loved ones, planting bulbs that will bloom in the spring, babysitting for a neighbor so she can interview for a job, taking a friend who is struggling out to hear some music:  these are examples of places where we can have a positive impact.

If one of your priorities is to strengthen or deepen your primary relationship, consider any of these ideas:

• Working to manage your anxiety or arousal (Flooding).
• Being mindful of the words or tone you use.
• Notice every day what your spouse or child or sibling or coworker is doing right and communicate your appreciation to them.   Be specific (“That was great how you rubbed my feet last night as I vented. I woke up feeling so much more relaxed this morning.”  Or, “You look gorgeous.  I love that sweater on you.”) Every day.
• Take the language of love test together with your mate. http://www.afo.net/hftw-lovetest.asp Discuss it with him or her.  Make an effort to express your love to your partner in his/her language.  Every day.
• Ask your spouse, How are you these days?  Listen intently, and then at some point during the conversation, ask “What do you need from me right now?  What can I do to help?”

Make the changes you can make.  Pull your attention, your focus, to what’s right in front of you:  the person speaking, the article you’re reading, the car you’re driving.  Give it your full attention. The quality of our lives is an amalgam of our choices, our actions and our attitudes.  Especially towards those closest to us.

As much as I would love to, I cannot take credit for this great metaphor.  Hats off  to Andy Greendorfer, a brilliant clinician in Seattle who said:

‘Repair’ is the duct tape of relationship – it’s versatile, it’s strong and a little bit can go a long way. Effective repair is like hitting the reset button.  It gets communication back on track.

So true, so completely true.

The concept of Repair  is another gem from John Gottman’s research on the “Masters of marriage.  Repair are those expressions – verbal and nonverbal – used during or after conflict to soothe, to invite softness or to maintain connection with one’s partner.

John’s research shows that  the masters of marriage stumble as much as the rest of us.  What they do differently is they are consistently gentle with one another; they are kind and they right their boat quickly by ‘repairing’.

Examples of relational repairs are accepting responsibility, offering an apology or a touch. Taking a step toward one’s partner’s point of view is a very potent form of repair:  ”I didn’t think of  it that way.  What you’re saying makes a ton a sense.”  ”You’re right.  I really was defensive.”

Repair early and repair often.

No one likes to feel – or be in the presence of – a negative emotion:  sorrow, embarrassment, anger, disappointment.  It’s uncomfortable, unpleasant;  sometimes really unpleasant.  For many of us, our first response is to shut down the circuits, to move away from a negative emotion, ours or someone else’s.   On a different day, our approach might be to move in to fix it, to take action we believe will alleviate the distress.  The common underlying desire is to DO something to lesson the pain, ours or someone else’s.  Especially when that ‘someone else’ is our spouse.

Then there are feelings about certain emotions:  maybe we learned somewhere anger is disruptive, or even dangerous, or that grief means a debilitating depression.  Our feelings about feelings can be just as challenging to navigate as the feelings themselves.

The full spectrum of emotions is a part of our treasured human existence – the joy, the sorrow, the times of fear and the times of frustration.  In our primary relationships, the negative emotions, while not fun, offer a unique and meaningful opportunity.  Yes, opportunity.   In very much the same way some of the deepest human connections are forged in the most despairing of situations (combat, natural disaster, life-threatening or life-taking accidents), a doorway to levels not-otherwise-accessible opens when in conflict with a precious loved one.

Behind every challenging emotion lies a longing, a story, a tale steeped in meaning.  Something very precious.  Bringing these aspects of ourselves ‘up’ and integrating them into our relationship adds layer upon layer of depth and intimacy and enduring strength.

Ok, ok, it doesn’t always work that way … but it can! It truly can.  When both people are able to take a step back, self-sooth, rein in their reaction or defensiveness and truly listen to their partner, this doorway creaks open.

What is also true is we all stumble with this.  We fall back on our old stress patterns: we react, we attack, we counterattack.  One of the heartening lessons from John Gottman’s research with over 3000 couples is that even the ‘masters of marriage’ stumble and fall into old, reactive patterns with one another.  It isn’t the stumbling that’s the problem, it’s what do we do with our blunders that matters in the long run.  My work with couples echoes John’s research:  when we learn how to dialogue differently with one another, when we learn how to soothe ourselves and our partners, when we repair early and often, when we honor each person’s experience,  we strengthen and deepen our connection in ways not previously imagined.

Just as the person who leaves home to fight in Iraq cannot foresee what he or she will experience while there, and the intense, life-long bonds that are born in a combat zone, by moving toward our conflicts with our spouse in a meaningful, conscious fashion, we enable a relationship of unimaginable depth; a relationship with the potential to withstand and hold all of our parts, the good, the painful and the difficult.

Middle age.  It sounds so much sexier in French:  d’âge moyen.   In German, it practically has a forgiving ring to it:  Mittleres Lebensalter.

Sexiness and kindness are two attributes that soften the edgy terrain of middle-age.  Let’s throw sense of humor into the mix as well.  Resilience seems to come on its own accord.  The rest we have to coax.

From this older vantage point, life’s landscape is significantly more layered; at times rocky yet also soulful and labyrinthine.  Two phrases I keep hearing: “Well, it’s complicated.” And “I never imagined I’d find myself here!”

But here we indeed are.  Right here, in whatever magic or mire life offers us that particular day.  The joys, the disappointments, the challenges, the mystery.  We all need someplace soft to fall.  The man who finds himself suddenly without a career where he had excelled for 30 years, only to then stumble across a previously untapped talent with autistic children.  Another who at 40 is diagnosed with Parkinsons.  The woman who after 25 years of emotional abuse, finally leaves her marriage, finding strength in herself – and a capacity for joy – she had not previously known.  Another who had always believed she would eventually end up raising a family on a small parcel of land, finds herself childless, in a stale marriage, living in a small apartment, working in an office, waiting for retirement.  On top of all this, in middle age many of us have our elderly or dying parents to care for, while our own bodies creak and moan.

Here we are indeed.

I do not claim to have all of the answers; I don’t even have a handful of them.  There are many paths to the mountaintop.  This is but a simple, momentary musing on the topic.  I believe firmly in the need to have people around into whom I can lean when troubled or fatigued:  physically, but most importantly emotionally.   That look, that touch, that knowing;  that embrace that consumes and comforts.  For a few precious moments, the world indeed recedes, edges soften, smiles return.  Someone to lean into when I’m wrestling to make sense of my inner and outer worlds.

It brings my world’s axis back on point.

May you have someone nearby into whom you can lean.