What Makes Successful Relationships, Part I

Dr. Jeanne Robertson, Ph.D., LPC, LMFT    

Dr. Jeanne is the Director of St. Paul's Center for Counseling & Education

Relationships – we all know what they are all about, right? We all have relationships, all sorts of relationships. We don’t need to be told what relationships are or what they’re all about because we’re in plenty of relationships and have been since the day we were born, right? Some of us even work with relationships as their career! Surely, we've got this down pat. 

Well, I want to tell you, that even though I’ve been licensed in the relationship field for over 35 years, I’m still learning about relationships. Recently Fr. Rob gave me Fight Right by Julie Gottman, Ph.D. and John Gottman, Ph.D. which is on How Successful Couples Turn Conflict Into Connection.

The details of how to make any relationship successful flows out of the paragraph quoted below from page 39 of Fight Right by the Gottmans.

“A relationship is a constant negotiation of individual versus collective. Each person has their own individual awareness and preferences, interests, emotions, intellect, and even spirituality – all these things that compose, fundamentally, who they are. And all these parts of the individual are calling out for expression. Humans have this individual need to express and embody who they are. But the collective – whether it’s a tribe, a city, a country, [family, church, organization], or a couple – demands something very different. It demands cooperation. Collaboration. Cohesion. Compromise. And kindness, compassion, and sensitivity to each other’s individual preferences and needs. And it will always be there, this tension: between trying to be true to who you are in your own soul, in your own core, versus being true to the collective. This becomes the long-term work of love, of being partners for the long haul.”

Let’s unpack that very dense paragraph from page 39.

Relationship is a constant negotiation. Negotiation is a process of working with, discussing with, another person to come to an agreement. Agreement means a kind of harmony, compatibility, not “Ok I’ll do it.” Negotiation is a process in which we use Collaboration, Cohesion and Compromise. This is how the agreement becomes one that is cooperative, compatible with the needs and preferences of both parties, even when compromise is used to reach the agreement.

But if “each person has their own individual awareness and preferences, interests, emotions, intellect, and even spirituality – all these things that compose, fundamentally, who they are. And all these parts of the individual are calling out for expression,” how can there be agreement when these aren’t the same in any two people? “Humans have this individual need to express and embody who they are.” If this is true, how can we ever have successful relationships?

The collective, that is, the relationship, “demands cooperation. Collaboration. Cohesion. Compromise. And kindness, compassion, and sensitivity to each other’s individual preferences and needs. Kindness, compassion, and sensitivity to each other’s needs is the key.

This tension is what makes democracy so hard – the relationship tension between individuals and a country! It’s no different in our personal relationships. The needs of individual and the demands of the collective are still the same, with the same tensions. The tension between and among members of a family are based on the need for a constant negotiation between the individual and the collective. The level of functioning of the collective is the result or consequence of the relationship itself – between parent and child, spouses, siblings, members of an organization. If the relationship is not cooperative, the tension will make the collective a dysfunctional system.
 
Why are so many countries at war with each this very minute? BECAUSE they are not thinking about the other’s needs. There is a lack of kindness, compassion, and sensitivity to the other country and those who are part of it. They only want what fits their interests and preferences. Too often there is an outright disregard, dismissal of the humanity of the other. But conflict only ends, as the Gottmans put it, by turning conflict into connection. This is a connection on a human level. If I don’t see the other on a human level with valid needs, preferences, emotions and interests of their own, it is much easier to dismiss them and their demands. The cost of this lack of sensitivity, compassion, and kindness is broken relationship. The individual is taking precedence over the collective/relationship. This creates an unsuccessful collective, unsuccessful relationship and is lose – lose. Successful relationships are win – win for the individual and the collective – marriages, families, countries, organizations, etc. It isn’t every interaction, it’s the long-term success of the collective that is a win for everyone.

Without accepting the necessary tension between individual and collective, which means accepting the need for cooperation and all that follows from it, we all lose.

The collective has goals but they tend to be intangible and often hard for the individuals to express, or even define, such as freedom. Families can have goals that seem specific. For example, in one family higher education is a goal all individuals share. Tension arises when dad wants the son to become a lawyer and the son to wants be an art teacher. How will the demands of the collective help this family reach the real goals of this family collective? Can you think through the paragraph on page 39 to find ways to help them with this question?  What will they need to do? What might the actual goals of the collective be?

Stay tuned for Part II of "What Makes Successful Relationships" to further examine how the above description of what relationships are all about can help us improve our own relationships.
 
Blessings,
Dr. Jeanne