Reviewed January 2, 2006.
Broadway Books, New York, 1997. 300 pages.
Sonderbooks Stand-out 2005 (#4,
Relationships)
Here’s
another book that I
read awhile back but didn’t want to review, since I wasn’t ready to
admit that
we were having problems in our marriage. Now
that my husband has moved out, I can’t exactly keep
that secret any
more, and I want to tell people about this excellent book.
I’m reviewing it today so that I can put it
on my list of Sonderbooks Stand-outs for 2005.
I like it that the title does
not mention divorce or relationship “rescue” or at all imply that your
relationship is on the rocks. If you
only want to get closer to your spouse, the ideas in this book can help. I wish I had read it before I knew there were
problems in my marriage.
The author
herself says that
this book is appropriate for individuals in a wide range of
relationships. “Perhaps you are feeling
disillusioned or
disconnected from each other. You are
confident the phase will pass; but you are finding it most unpleasant
and
worrisome. Or, you may be in the
transition from infatuation to enduring, everyday love.
This passage can begin on your wedding day or
even three or four years later, but whenever it comes it is
disorienting. Maybe you are in a crisis,
caused by a sudden
event or by a long, slow buildup of resentments and unresolved problems. You may even feel on the verge of
divorce—that your relationship is beyond hope.”
She says, “No
matter what the
present status of your relationship, you will find an approach in this
book
that is refreshingly different from all the two-way ‘discussions,’
‘communication skills,’ and ‘listening’ exercises you’ve heard about
and maybe
tried before. Many people have found
that working alone is both less hassle and more effective than trying
to work
together.”
At the end of
the book, she
talks about evaluating whether you should stay in the relationship or
not. Though she does admit to situations
where you
should end the relationship, I like what she says here:
“Happy couples seem right for each other
because they do what they need to do
to make their marriage happy. Thriving
couples start out with the same
incompatibilities, power struggles, dissatisfactions, and conflicts
that beset
most marriages. But—because they
believe in their relationship and want it to work—it does.
It is not the raw materials they have to work
with, but what they do with
the raw materials that makes them happy.”
Susan Page
gives you ideas
for helping to make your marriage happier. One
way she does this is in the form of “experiments.”
She says, “I quite deliberately call my
action suggestions ‘experiments.’ The
sole purpose of an experiment is to gather data, so no matter what its
outcome
you can never fail; you will have gathered some kind of data! If your result is not what you wanted or
expected, that is important information for you. It
doesn’t mean you failed; it means you
succeeded in eliminating one strategy because it isn’t going to bring
expected
results. So you will go on to a
different experiment.”
The author
begins by
explaining why the book only needs to have one member of the couple
read
it. How often it is that one partner in
a relationship wants to “work” on the relationship, but the other one
isn’t
interested. Then that disagreement
becomes an issue in itself, a new form of conflict.
The author
says, “The reason
one person acting alone can make a major impact is that a relationship
between
two people is a single unit with two parts. When
one person acts, the other is affected. Your
behaviors and attitudes have an impact
on your spouse. Right now, you may not
be consciously choosing exactly what impact you want to make. If you decide to start improving your
relationship, you have to make deliberate choices about the results you
want to
achieve.”
“A marriage
is like a
seesaw. Even when one partner acts
alone, it affects the other.”
I like where
she discusses
couples who have lost hope. “That’s
okay. A feeling of hopelessness may be
quite appropriate for you right now, and it won’t affect the results
you will
get if you follow the suggestions in this book. It
is quite natural that you cannot imagine your
relationship any
different from the way it is now. When
you are deep in the middle of one feeling, you can’t feel, or even get
a
picture of how it will feel, to be deep in the middle of a completely
different
feeling. But that doesn’t mean such a
change can’t happen.”
She also points out that
“Deciding to work alone on your relationship gives you enormous power,
not
power over your partner but inner power, personal strength, and an
unparalleled
opportunity to grow. Suddenly, instead
of looking unfair, this system seems exceptionally fair, because now
you do not
have to wait for your partner to change before you can take your life
into your
own hands! What would be unfair is for
you to allow your partner’s lack of cooperation to hold you back.”
“By
undertaking to work on
your relationship alone, you will be, in effect, giving your spouse a
gift,
possibly a quite powerful gift. And it
is not in the nature of gifts to be fair. You
don’t give a gift with the idea that you will get an
equal gift
back. This wouldn’t be a gift but some
kind of barter or bargain.”
As part of
this working
alone, she says you need to “let go—just a little bit—of your ego. You don’t worry about getting acknowledged
for what you do. You give up being
right, or making sure your spouse knows you are right.
You become more interested in good results
for the other person than in being acknowledged for what you did.”
After
convincing you that
this method can work, the author goes on to discuss specific strategies
and
experiments to help you become closer to your partner.
The first
strategy is: “Give away the booby prize
and go for the
gold. The booby prize of life is being
right.”
She explains
this view: “Pause for a moment and figure
out what you
are right about in your relationship. What
are your complaints about your spouse? What
would you say if you were in a group to
improve your marriage by yourself, and you were asked to describe the
problem?
“Probably,
few would argue
with you that you have a difficult problem, and that you have a perfect
right
to be upset, to feel angry, possibly even betrayed, and to be
completely
exasperated. Whatever your problem with
your spouse is, I and probably many of your friends feel a great deal
of
concern and anguish right along with you. How
I wish things were different for you! Why
can’t that blankety-blank spouse be more
reasonable?”
“You are
right. Your partner is being difficult,
and you at
least have the satisfaction of knowing that you are on the right side,
that you
are the fair one, the reasonable one of the two of you.”
However, she
continues, “The
problem with being right about the way you analyze your problem is that
that’s
all you get. That’s it. You get to be right. You
don’t get to solve the problem. You don’t
get to be closer to your spouse. You don’t
get to reduce the conflict in your
relationship. You don’t get to stop
feeling angry. You don’t get the changes
you long for.”
Another bad
thing about being
right is that you usually conclude that the problem is your spouse’s
fault. “If the only solution to the
problem is that your spouse needs to make a change, this puts you in a
terribly
weak position. Because if you can’t
induce your spouse to change, there is nothing left for you to do. Another dead end.
“Besides, as
you work on getting
your spouse to be different, you are always giving the indirect
message, ‘You
are not okay.’ This will drive him or
her away from you even more, when what you truly want is closeness!”
Instead, she
asks you to try
to figure out what your own role is in the situation.
“Your ultimate goal is to let go of being
‘right’ about how thick-headed your spouse is about some area of your
marriage,
to find your role in perpetuating whatever is going on, and to stop
trying to
change your spouse.”
She helps you
see that
instead of criticizing your spouse when he does something you don’t
like, you
need to accept him or her—and change your own reaction.
Then surprising changes will happen.
After the
chapter on going
for the gold, Susan Page teaches the Emergency Resentment Abatement
Procedure. Whether you are an Anger
Expresser or an Anger Eclipser, she gives you ideas for dealing with
your anger
without it hurting your relationship.
Then she
talks about what you
should do when your partner is angry with you. It’s
natural to get defensive, and then the situation gets
even
worse. She says, “You can’t expect
yourself not to feel
defensive when your mate hurls a verbal assault or
accusation at you. The idea is to feel
defensive, but to avoid a verbal defense.”
“Acknowledge
your
spouse. Don’t express your defensive
feelings, if you can help it. Just
listen to his or her side of the story and let your partner vent. Think ADD: Acknowledgement. Don’t get
Defensive. This requires courage and
restraint.”
But there’s a
payoff: “It doesn’t matter who is right. If you take care of your partner’s feelings
and needs, the assaults and complaints will stop. Your
partner will appreciate you. And you’ll
both feel good. Isn’t that the result you
want?”
The next part
of the book
deals with short-term strategies for creating a thriving relationship. The first of these is creating harmony in
your home by focusing on the positive things in your relationship
rather than
the negatives.
“You can be
happy together,
even if you don’t solve all your problems. Focus
on your desire for a close relationship. Pay
far more attention to the parts of your
relationship that you like, and to the positive qualities in your
partner, than
to your areas of dissatisfaction.”
“If you
believe you have to
solve all your problems before you can be happy, that will be true for
you. But if you can make an inner shift,
adopt a different ‘mind-set’—believing that first you can learn to be
happy
together and later you can work on certain problems—transforming your
marriage
becomes a whole lot easier. You don’t
have to convince your partner to believe something different. All you have to do is change your own belief
about your marriage.”
“The
difference between
couples who thrive and couples who don’t is not that the couples who
thrive
don’t have problems. They have
incompatibilities, conflicts, annoying habits, personal weaknesses just
like
all the rest of us. The difference is,
thriving couples begin with a desire to be happy together, a belief
that they will be happy
together, and a commitment to staying close through
adversities. They begin with a picture
of themselves as a happy couple, and they actively nurture that picture. You can do the same.”
“After all,
your goal in your
relationship is not to get more help with housework, to spend your
money the
way you want to, to be on time to dinner parties, to be able to watch
TV
without being pestered, or whatever you feel your problem is. Your goal is to feel close, to enjoy each
other’s company, to experience pleasure, and to feel mutually
supportive. It makes sense to focus on
your true goals,
and not forever on your lesser ones.”
Then she
gives some specific
ideas for helping that happen.
First, “act
as if” you are a
loving spouse. “If you can ‘act as if’
you love and adore your spouse and you are happy in your relationship,
even if
only for five minutes a day or two hours a week, you may be doing more
to
‘solve your problems’ than if you spent five hours ‘working things out’
with your
spouse. You can create the atmosphere
and the feelings you want with your mate directly, rather than assuming
that
these feelings are the light at the end of a long tunnel of ‘hard work.’ If you start to behave as you would if you
were happy, and make your body behave as you would if you were happy,
your
feelings will actually follow suit.”
“‘Acting as
if’ is a critical
skill for a happy marriage. You act as
if, not as a deception, but as an experiment, a deliberate effort to
change,
and a gesture of good will. ‘Acting as
if’ is a simple, direct way to set change in motion.
If you want to feel close, act as if you feel
close, even if it just for a moment. If
you wish you were looking forward to seeing your partner at the end of
the day,
act as if you are happy to see him or her.”
Another
important idea is to
think “good will.” “Because good will is
such a predominant distinguishing characteristic of thriving couples, I
believe
the cultivation of good will is the most direct route to turning a
lagging
relationship around. If you just begin thinking good will, positive
actions will occur to you, but without good
will, positive actions will occur to you; but without good will, even
the best
of intentions are likely to fall flat.”
A third way
of building your
relationship is to focus on positive qualities. “What
would happen if you forgot all about the things you
have been
trying to change or to put up with, the things you wish were different,
and you
focused all your attention on what you love about your partner? What would happen if you started to look for
evidence that your mate loves you, instead of always focusing on any
evidence
that your mate doesn’t love you?”
You should
also focus on the
positives in your own life. “When you
pay attention to what makes you happy, you will enjoy yourself more and
feel
better. When you enjoy yourself more,
you will be more attractive and more fun to be with.
When you are more fun to be with, your spouse
will find you more appealing and will start to feel good also. When your spouse starts to feel good, you’ll
feel better.”
I think that
women tend to
want to say “We need to talk,” when something negative comes up. I know I do. But
Susan Page says, “Focusing on the positive qualities
in yourself, your
partner, and your relationship means that you will need to put your
negative
thoughts and feelings on the shelf for awhile. Don’t
talk about them. Talking
about them often only escalates them anyway. When
you find yourself thinking about problems, gently
encourage
yourself to think about something positive instead.
It is difficult to make yourself stop
thinking about something; what is far more successful is to replace a
negative
thought with a positive one.”
The fourth
concept is to
change “incompatible” to “complementary.”
“What most
people really want
in their relationship is to feel close, to be friends, to be allies. If you focus on your closeness, you will be
able to manage your differences. If you
focus on your differences, you will lose your closeness—and then wonder
where
it went.
“When you pay
attention to
and nurture your closeness, differences become something you appreciate
and
manage. For example, when you are
feeling close, if one of you likes to save money and the other spend,
you will
be able to see the balance this brings to your family and be grateful
that you
have complementary attributes.”
The fifth
idea is to create
relaxing time together. It’s pretty
self-explanatory, but needs to be made a priority, if you want to feel
close.
For the sixth
idea, the book
presents seven specific things you can do to bring the two of you
together—things like a surprise date or a love letter.
Chapter Five
deals with
resolving your most upsetting problems by yourself.
She’s got eight specific approaches.
The first
approach is Act On
Your Own—sometimes, the problem is solved by taking matters into your
own
hands. “Don’t expect your partner to
take care of your needs. Instead, be
certain that you meet your partner’s needs often, so that when you feel
a deep
inner certainty about something you need for yourself, you can feel
fine about
doing it even if it makes your partner uncomfortable or unhappy.”
The second
approach is
“Reverse Direction: Do the Opposite of
What You Have Been Doing.” This matches
the “Do a 180” approach mentioned in the book The
Divorce Remedy.
“Doing the
opposite works
because it shifts the roles the two of you have been automatically
playing. When you do the opposite, you
give your partner a chance to do the opposite too.”
The third
approach is
“Reframe the Power Struggle.” “When you
get into a tug-of-war with your partner over something, that awful
feeling of
powerlessness and frustration may emerge: You
feel as though you are in an arm wrestle, struggling
to survive but
being pushed almost beyond tolerance. The
anger rises, and you find yourselves in opposite
corners. The more you talk, or shout, the
more you
polarize your problem.
“A
black-and-white, either/or
view of any problem is virtually always inaccurate, and always limits
the
possibilities for solutions and for personal growth.
The secret to getting out of the trap is to
depolarize, to find the third way out.”
“Creating the
conditions that
will allow a third alternative to present itself involves two steps: (1) Develop empathy for the other point of
view, and (2) relax the urgency about your own.
“Taking the
initiative to
depolarize a conflict is not easy. But
commensurate with its difficulty is its potential to expand and deepen
you. Here you are, doing all the work
again. But here you are reaping all the
personal rewards too.”
A fourth
approach is to
“Enlist Your Partner’s Help in Solving Your Problem.”
“Sometimes it is possible to reframe what
seems to be a problem between the two of you so that it becomes your problem,
and you can persuade your partner to help you out of your distress.”
The fifth
approach is simply
“Express Empathy for Your Partner’s Position.”
“Expressing
empathy out loud
is usually not difficult. Most often we
fail to do it only because it doesn’t occur to us.
The secret to success is just to remember to
do it.
“First,
figure out what your
partner’s position is. Then, sometime
when the subject arises naturally, or when you feel comfortable
bringing it up,
casually affirm your partner for what he or she is doing or what he or
she
believes. You must be very careful not
to let any sarcasm or cynicism creep into your message.
This doesn’t mean you have completely
overcome your anger or upset about this issue, and it doesn’t mean you
are
agreeing with or that you understand your partner; it only means that
you can
express your partner’s point of view.
“After you
make your empathic
statement, add the phrase, ‘Is that right?’”
“Expressing
empathy could be
the single most powerful suggestion in this book. It
can de-escalate hostilities, calm tension,
create a safer atmosphere to talk. It
will feel loving for both the giver and the receiver.
It is the simplest action you can take to
bring the two of you closer.
“Remember,
expressing empathy
for your partner’s position does not mean that you are agreeing with
it, or
that you are giving in to it in any way. Not
at all. Expressing
empathy
for your partner’s position will make it easier for you to express your
own,
and will make your conversation far more effective.
When you develop the habit of expressing
empathy, you will find that you use it several times a day—in a whole
variety
of situations, from happy to excited to disappointing or frustrating.”
Approach Six
is to “Gracefully
Accept What You Can’t Change.” “One of
the most empowering inner shifts you can make is to stop fighting the
quality
or situation you don’t like, and to accept it. Simply
stop labeling whatever you don’t like a ‘problem,’
and start
labeling it a ‘fact of life.’”
“When one
partner is trying
to change the other, the conflict is usually caused by the partner who
is not
willing to be accepting, not the partner who is not willing to change. If you are experiencing a conflict with your
spouse, ask yourself, Is it your demands, your opinions, your judgments
that
are causing the problem, or the circumstances themselves?”
“Every
couple, without
exception, fails to meet each other’s expectations in some ways. The primary difference between couples who
thrive and couples who don’t is that couples who thrive gracefully take
what
they get, even when it turns out to be different from what they thought
they
were getting. They adapt.
They focus on what they love and graciously
accept what they don’t love but can’t change.”
The seventh
approach is to
“Ask for What You Want.” However, Susan
Page warns us, “Ironically, asking for what you want is usually the least
effective method of getting what you want.” She
tells us when not to ask and gives some tips for when
you do ask.
The eighth
approach for
solving problems is split into two parts. Men
are told to “Space In.” Women
are told to “Stop Coaching.” I’ll focus
on that one, since that’s the one I need to learn.
She says,
“Exactly what are
you accomplishing with your persistent coaching? You
are certainly not causing the behavior to
change; otherwise, you wouldn’t still be harping on it.
“Instead,
your subliminal
message to the man you love is, ‘You aren’t quite good enough the way
you
are.’”
“Do not read
his
unwillingness to change as deliberate stubbornness or lack of
cooperation. The truth is, he is doing
what he needs to do
to feel good about himself in the face of your criticisms.
(No matter how you phrase them, that is how
he hears them.) Your husband is taking
care of himself. But in order to do
this, he has to keep a certain distance from you.”
This ties in
completely with
what was said in Love and Respect and For Women Only. I have to admit that this is a big change I
need to make in my own relationship with my husband.
I was trying to be helpful—but it’s not going
to be heard that way. It sounds like a
lack of respect.
We are
reminded, “No matter
what he is doing that upsets you, your
relationship is more important than any
particular behavior or habit you don’t like.
When you coach and advise, you aren’t succeeding in
changing your
husband’s behavior; you are only making it hard for your husband to
feel close
to you—the one thing you most want.
“Just stop. Your husband does not need your advice, your
suggestions, your reminders, or your corrections. Give
it all up, right now, cold turkey. You
don’t get to call all the shots in this
marriage. You don’t get to control your
husband’s behavior. That wasn’t in the
marriage vows. Both you and your husband
will start feeling better right away when you go on total abstinence
from your
coaching and advising.”
I’m up to
Chapter Six in my
summary. I’m going over this in great
detail in hopes that will help it stick in my head and my behavior. There are powerful ideas in this book.
Chapter Six
talks about the
Intimacy Gap between men and women. We
have differing ideas of a romantic relationship. Women
“want men not only to love us, but to
realize that they love us, to pay attention to how it feels to love us,
and to
express those feelings. We don’t want
men to take us or our love for granted.”
But men seem
to want
something different. One man said, “I
don’t stop and reflect on our relationship. I
take it for granted. I
believe
that ‘taking the relationship for granted’ should not have a negative
connotation! For me, taking the
relationship for granted is a good thing. It’s
what I long for. I’m
confident and secure. The relationship
is easy. I know we love each other deeply. I have real joy in having found my soulmate
and in being at ease with that. I don’t
have to worry about it. And I don’t have
to do anything to make it happen—or to keep it that way.
“If a
relationship is going
badly, I can’t take it for granted. I
was in a marriage like that for years, and it was awful.
I was always on edge. I
couldn’t relax.”
The book then
gives some tips
on closing the Intimacy Gap by yourself.
First,
“recognize that the
intimacy gap is equally felt by both sides.”
I like the
way the author
puts it:
“Women feel
deprived of a
kind of intensity of closeness and overt expressions of love. They feel taken for granted.
“Men feel
deprived of the
ability to relax into the relationship and trust it.
They feel unappreciated for all they do to
contribute to the relationship.
“Women feel a
double
bind: If I ask for intimacy, he backs
off. If I don’t ask, he spaces out. Nothing I do gets me the result I want.
“Men feel a
double bind: If I ask her to back off and
let us relax
together, she gets sad and angry. If I
don’t ask her to back off, she’s on my case all the time.
Nothing I do gets me the results I want.
“(Remember,
you experience a
double bind only when you are trying to get the other person to change. If you focus instead on changing yourself,
the double bind disappears.)”
Second,
“don’t make your
partner wrong. Recognize that your
partner has a right to be the way he or she is.”
Third, “as
much as possible,
create what you want in your relationship by yourself.
Take care of your own needs.”
For women,
she says, “You are
the partner who is more affectionate and demonstrative, so go ahead and
be that
way with pleasure. Tell your partner
your loving feelings. Initiate
hugs. Touch your partner affectionately. Enjoy this, and let it be okay that
you
are the one who does most of it.
“As the man I
quoted above
said, one reason he is disinclined to say ‘I love you’ all the time is
that he
feels verbal affirmations are ‘handled’ by his wife.
He enjoys her being lovey-dovey, but he does
not feel he has to duplicate what she does. He
appreciates that she speaks for both of them. See
if you can feel okay about playing that
role for the two of you, even if your hugs and words are not
reciprocated as
much as you would like.”
Fourth, “look
for the
contribution your partner’s style can make to your personal growth and
your
mutual happiness.” The idea here is to
learn from your differences instead of resenting them.
Fifth, “give
some attention
to giving your partner what he or she wants.” Again,
I’ll focus on her suggestions for women: “Your
husband would love for you to notice
and thank him for all the contributions he makes to your family. . . . Even if you see these actions as his ‘duty,’
acknowledge and thank him for being the great guy he is.
And take pleasure in what he does.”
Chapter Seven
begins the
fourth part of the book: Long-term
Strategies for Keeping Your Relationship Robust. The
first of these is to practice taking care
of yourself.
Among other
things, in this
section, she reminds me of a principle I learned in the book Against
Depression. “The simple phrase,
‘I can
do this,’ can make an actual physical difference in your life. According to psychiatrist and writer Daniel
Amen, when you think negative thoughts like, ‘I can’t do that,’ or
‘Things in
my marriage will never change,’ your brain actually releases chemicals
that
make you feel bad. On the other hand,
when you think positive thoughts, your brain releases chemicals that
make you
feel good. Positive thoughts like ‘I can
do this!’ help to sustain and fulfill themselves!”
She also
reminds us to be
patient and let go. “As long as you are
doing all you can to make your marriage into what you want it to be,
you can
relax. You are responsible for the
activities of self-care and good will, but you are not responsible for
the
results. You have enormous control over
what you do, but none over what you do does. If
you lack patience and the ability to forego specific
outcomes, you
run the danger of giving up on yourself or your spouse too soon and
losing out
on the rewards that would have been there if you had been patient.”
Chapter Eight
focuses more on
cultivating good will. “Since it
incorporates qualities like tolerance, forgiveness, and generosity,
good will sounds like it is
all designed to benefit your partner. But
in fact, good will will do more to make
you into a happy person than anything else you can do, and it is the
ultimate
secret to success in marriage and long-term love. You
should practice cooperation and good
will, not only because this is a nice way to be, but because good will solves
problems.”
She’s not
asking you to just
to put up with a bad situation. “The
main reason good will won’t make you into a doormat who just puts up
with
things is that exercising good will is not a passive activity but an
active
one. A spirit of good will requires
initiative, imagination and courage. While
it sometimes means that you have to become
vulnerable, it also
puts you in control. ‘Putting up with’
something, and deciding you will graciously tolerate it and make the
best of it
are two entirely different things. Good
will is empowering. It puts you in
charge and gives you a sense of accomplishment, even victory. Any average wimp can grudgingly ‘put up with’
a bad situation while constantly complaining about it; it takes a
strong,
independent self-loving person to respond with good will.
Offering good will to another person is as
much a gift to yourself as to him or her. It
makes you feel good about yourself, in control, a Good
Housekeeping-type seal of approval that says you are managing
well.”
“Remember,
accepting
something is not the same thing as liking it. It
just means that you stop spending useless energy
fighting something
that is not likely to change. Until you
make the shift to acceptance, you will never know what other shifts may
also
take place.”
Another
strategy that
sometimes works is telling yourself, “This has nothing to do with me.” This “is most appropriate when you feel your
mate is doing something to
you. If
your mate is advising you, criticizing you, ignoring you, being
impatient with
you, even yelling at you or lying to you, try on the idea, ‘This has
nothing to
do with me. My mate is just being my mate,
just doing what my mate does.’”
One woman
even was able to
forgive a husband’s affair and lying about it with this strategy. Eve said, “I realized that lying was Gary’s way of
surviving
in the face of what he had done. Lying
was his defense mechanism, the way some of us deny things to ourselves
or get
judgmental or defensive. He felt
terrible and was terrified he was going to lose me.
I was angry, but I also felt a lot of
compassion for him. . . . Gary wasn’t lying
to
me. He was just lying.
That is what Gary
does. It
had nothing to do with me. . . . I
don’t believe affairs should always be treated this
lightly. I had a big context in which to
see what Gary
did, and I knew I
would be a fool to throw away what we had. Only
because I know what a struggle he was going through
could I forgive
him and get on with things. I knew his
affair and his lying were not about me but about him.”
The author
comments, “The
affirmation, ‘This has nothing to do with me,’ allows you to pour out
good will
toward your partner without having your judgments stand in the way. Eve didn’t like that Gary had lied. But
she was able to separate her judgment
about his behavior from her support for Gary, the person.
She was able to support him though not the
behavior she didn’t like. She didn’t
take it personally, and she didn’t take on the responsibility of
‘fixing’ Gary
so that he wouldn’t
lie.”
“A spirit of
good will
requires that you take the focus off yourself and put it on the other
person. Hurt, resentment, anger and the
urge for revenge keep the focus on you. Compassion
and forgiveness put the focus on the other
person. Eve was thinking not about
herself, but about Gary. This requires courage and vulnerability.”
Sometimes, of
course (and
even in the above example), your mate does something that is definitely
wrong. Now you have a choice.
“When your
partner does
something thoughtless, inconsiderate, or hurtful to you, you will
probably feel
sad, angry, hurt, betrayed, and/or cheated. That
is normal and appropriate—but it doesn’t have to stop
there.
“You also
have the option of
forgiving your spouse and feeling compassion toward him or her. Anybody can feel angry after being wronged;
it takes a more evolved, more conscious person to call upon good will
in these
difficult situations.”
“People screw
up. People make mistakes.
People do nasty things, dreadful things.
Why? Probably because other
people have done nasty, awful
things to them in
the past. You can either continue that
cycle, or reverse it by offering your compassion and forgiveness in a
spirit of
good will. You always have a choice.”
In Chapter 9,
Susan Page
talks about how the topics of the last two chapters, Self-care and Good
Will,
need to balance each other. Ideally,
couples doing well “don’t experience themselves as either asserting
themselves or being accepting. What
they experience instead is a blend: assertiveness
and
acceptance at the same time. They feel
like they are taking and giving at
the same time. The WE and the I work in
rhythm with each other in a way that supports both the WE and the I.” She calls this blend “Loving Leadership.”
She finishes
up the book with
a chapter of evaluating whether you should stay in a relationship, and
then a
chapter on your relationship as a spiritual path.
“The most
spiritual question
you can ask yourself in any situation, whether it be painful or joyful,
is,
‘What is the lesson in this for me? What
can I learn about myself?’ Usually, we’d
rather ask, ‘What is this other person’s problem?’ or ‘Why did this
happen to
me?’ But if you can make yourself look
for it, you are bound to discover some new nuance on who you are.”
She also
points out that what
she’s suggesting in this book fits in well with the principles of all
major
religions. “The program laid out in this
book offers you practical, easy-to-implement techniques for behaving in
accord
with the great spiritual principles. Everything
we have suggested grows out of love,
forgiveness, generosity,
authenticity, and reverence for life.
“I’m quite
well aware that
some of what I have suggested asks a lot of you. Accepting
qualities in your mate you don’t
like, acting as if you are happy when you are angry.
These endeavors aren’t easy. But
you don’t have to be a master to understand
spiritual principles and to live by them to the best of your ability. Indeed, that is probably what you are already
doing. The ideas in this book are simply
a boost. They suggest specific ways that
you can behave like a
spiritual master without actually being one.”
I went into
great detail in
this summary because I wanted to remind myself of all the wisdom found
here. If you want to have a loving
relationship, there are many tips here for making yourself a more
loving
person. I highly recommend this book to
anyone in a serious relationship, whether happy or troubled.
Copyright © 2006 Sondra
Eklund. All rights reserved.
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Book Reviews by Sondra Eklund 
