Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart: Thirty True Things You Need to Know Now

by Gordon Livingston

It is surprising how often the closest relationships in our lives come, over time, to resemble power struggles in which we become intimate enemies. Gone is the sense of shared fate, replaced by a daily battle in which the stakes appear to be a survival of self-respect that is somehow threatened by the person who knows us best. Who would want to live this way, in a state of hyper-alertness and competition for stakes that are obscure, even for the participants? And yet, when people are asked to stop making the disparaging comments that are at the root of much marital conflict, they shift responsibility for change from themselves to “the other” in a way reminiscent of international conflicts in which everyone wants peace, but no one wants to be the first to cease retaliation, fearing that it will just make them vulnerable.