The Care and Feeding of Relationships

Synopsis: relationships need maintenance. There’s no magic–there’s commitment to a way of relating

There is certainly a better way to make your point…

I was sitting on the rancho the other day, talking with a new friend, and got to thinking (after mentioning) about my books. I decided to edit one of the old ones, Living Life in Growing Orbits, which I’ve never made available on Amazon, or as an eBook.

That’s led to some editing and redesigning.
And THAT has led to my thinking about topics I find important enough to write about.

Before we came to Costa Rica this time, relationship stuff involving several of our friends was in the foreground.

One topic was “honesty.” As in, a friend of ours wasn’t being totally honest with her partner. The issue was not a big one, but her desire for secrecy was ringing warning bells for me.

Frankly, our conversation has stayed on my mind, so I decided to focus a couple of articles on relationships.

I know this young woman very well. I remember back to her previous “big relationship,” and I talked with her a lot when it ended.

She described the following “conflict process”:

We’d start to argue, and I don’t like arguing, so I’d go curl up in the bedroom while he sulked on the couch. Sometimes we’d not talk for days. Then one or the other of us would make an effort to be nice, and pretty soon, things were back to normal.

But I guess they weren’t, because the break-up, according to him, was due to all the unresolved issues.”

You think?

Here’s how her resistance to talking applies to what’s happening in her current relationship: the thing she’s avoiding telling him has the potential to have some emotion connected to it, and she doesn’t like dealing with negative emotions. But this time, she’s not hiding in her bedroom. She’s hiding the information.

Now, I’ve heard it all on the topic or whether honesty is required in relationships. Many are the justifications for “secrets.” Typically, they boil down to, “I have the right to my privacy! Why should I have to talk about stuff that I’m uncomfortable talking about?”

You mean I can’t just phone it in???
I have a solution! If you don’t want to talk things through, don’t bother getting into a relationship!

I don’t “believe” in secrets in relationships. And yes, that means there are going to be some uncomfortable conversations.

But really, the issue here is “about” communication, pure and simple.

Darbella and I made a pact, back when were were dating, about both honesty (we agreed on total honesty) and conflict resolution. (We agreed to work our issues through to our complete satisfaction, no matter how long it took. The longest one took 18 hours. Straight. OK. We took pee breaks…