The Rough Patch

“The older I get, the less I know” is one way people express a growing comfort with complexity.

how we handle our emotions is central to our individual well-being and the health of our relationships.

Staying married by stifling individual needs isn’t a solution either.

In adulthood, we hopefully begin to see that changing our internal perspective is at least as important as changing our outward circumstances when it comes to improving our emotional connections with others. We look within and realize some of the ways that our own emotional style affects our behavior with our partner. In the best case, we perceive that being happy is better than being right, that the golden ring beats the seesaw every time.

The relationship then becomes a shared space for expression. Each partner brings his or her individual feelings into the “ring,” and they think together about the problem at hand.

Couples turn away from each other for any number of apparent reasons, but underneath it all, it’s usually because they feel misunderstood, unheard, or unable to agree.

People start to feel justified in refusing to do things they know could bring back a sense of warmth and harmony (“I shouldn’t have to make the first move”). They focus on their children, their jobs, the laundry. They default to prioritizing their children even when it’s at the price of ignoring their spouse.

But sadly, it’s hard for people to stay clear about how thoroughly their physical depletion is seeping into their emotional discontent.

the single most important thing they can do to stay connected is to hold on to the feeling of wanting to stay connected. Viewing the sweep from first pregnancy to middle age, I’ve concluded that the most significant risk of new parenthood is that couples will stop taking their own emotional needs seriously enough. They’ll let their needs slide, out of the best of intentions, only to realize in midlife that their fuel tanks are empty.

You need to give other people space and not foist your own agenda onto them. You need to embrace your partner, including his flaws, and not be so arrogant to think you don’t have flaws yourself. In hindsight, I think maybe we had to grow apart to grow together.