What does a good relationship look like? There is a really good book out called “The Good Marriage: How and Why Love Lasts” (1996) by Judith S. Wallerstein and Sandra Blakeslee. This was one of the first books I read on looking at what works in a relationship and I read this prior to graduate school. I was seeking answers myself; curious how people make things happen. When I met a couple that seemed to have a good relationship, I would ask what made them so great. I always heard the good one’s say “communication,” as to why their relationship lasted as long as it did. What does this look like though? If you have grown up in a narcissistic household, where you have lost your sense of self – or in a relationship where you are broken down, it is confusing. I am not sure these really good relationship role models, I met, know the answer themselves. I think they just know this is the secret and it is what everyone says.

Until recently, I had no idea myself. After opening my practice, here in Ohio, I began the road toward certification with the Gottman Institute. I learned about couples counseling with advanced training that was based on the research of Dr. John Gottman through the institute’s field instructors. I knew what I had read in books. I had two courses on Effective Communication at John F. Kennedy University. Dear readers, there is intellectual knowledge and there is spiritually connected, taking the challenge in a real relationship knowledge. The idea is to work toward perfect love and perfect trust, which my Wiccan friends understand (and even then, it is understood but do they all really know?). Communication is easy to learn about but to practice is a whole different “ball of wax.” As I tell my couples you must “Practice, Practice, Practice,” you might look silly at first because you are moving a new muscle, talking in new ways but eventually, it will become normal to you. Eventually they can begin to look at each other in new, more mature and healthier ways.

Successful long-term relationships are created through small words, small gestures, and small acts. Dr. John M. Gottman, Eight Dates: A Plan for Making Love Last Forever

Good communication involves two people who are listening to one another. It can happen with anyone – a friend, a co-worker, a boss, a partner, a family member, or even a stranger on a train. This involves two people who are really very interested in hearing what the other person has to say. It is like playing a tennis game. One person hits the ball; the other one hits it back and so on and so on. Except in tennis, you are trying to win. With good communication, you are not trying to do anything except gain better understanding as to where the other person is coming from. A key component in the couples counseling I teach (based on what I learned from the Gottman trainings) is that conflict is a good thing as long as you are 1. Taking responsibility; 2. Validating what your partner has to say, even when you disagree; 3. Having a dialogue about issues of concern; 4. Not use the 4 Horsemen (i.e., Criticism, Defensiveness, Contempt and Stonewalling); and 5. Practicing self-soothing while taking a break before going back to re-visit the discussion.

All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. First line in Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. A novel about a woman having an affair.

Michelle Langley (womensinfidelity.com) writes about women cheating on men for emotional reasons. While she is not a therapist, I have rarely found a woman who has cheated who wouldn’t agree with her in my practice. A woman usually has an affair with someone in the workplace (or someone close to her such as a man at church or in a group she is involved in). The woman starts a dialogue with a guy, he listens, she continues talking to him and before too long they are eating lunch together. Over time; there is a sense of a connection. The emotional affair they have been having is rewarded at some point with a physical connection. In the meantime, her husband has become a first class jerk. She is realizing more and more how much he doesn’t listen. She is pulling away from him. Sex has become common and uninteresting – if it happens at all. If he is not a narcissist, he is baffled and confused by this sudden escape. Naturally, he is going in the direction of “Is there someone else?” If she hasn’t yet had the physical connection, she can honestly say “No.” Over time though; it will happen – unless she sets a boundary or communicates to her husband that they need couples counseling (and he agrees). A woman needs to be emotionally stimulated. A man needs the physical stimulation. This is a stereotype but more often than not, it is the rule of thumb. Michelle knows what she is talking about.

The Good Marriage book, I referenced earlier, by Wallerstein and Blakeslee point out that there are four different types of relationships. These four types they labeled as being Romantic, Rescue, Companionate and Traditional relationships. What stuck out in my head from reading about these types was a consistent level of commitment in each of those types of relationships that you don’t see in unhealthy relationships. No matter what type of crisis occurred in any of these types, each partner was committed to the other. They took up the challenge and supported one another until the crisis was averted. When I read this book, I was in a relationship with a narcissist. I recall feeling a sense of knowing what the authors were saying but unable to imagine how this would happen. It is easy to give up when you are with a narcissist – especially as you are getting on in age and thinking that a good relationship “just isn’t in the cards.”

A good relationship can only happen when the relationship is felt and understood by two people. There needs to be similar values and the relationship has to start out in the right way. I will issue a caveat here (before explaining the right way) because there are relationships that start out in very strange ways – two people are brought together unknowingly, unconsciously, spiritually, and there is confusion. The latter isn’t something that you look for; it just happens. When I am talking about the right way, I am examining two people who are consciously seeking a relationship, have respect for themselves, are on purpose and then when they find each other; they both see the connection.

We have completely lost direction in our society and have fallen apart spiritually, mentally, physically, emotionally, and are more like a bunch of animals being let out of the zoo at nighttime. We are hungry as we have just been freed by our captors (past shoulds), the world around us looks good to us and we can pick and choose anyone we want (Tinder, Match, EHarmony, etc…). I am going to be brutal now with some metaphorical images. We can – sorry to say this – fuck whomever we want because there are so many people out there who will let us. There are apps to tell us where to hook up with this other animal, we arrange a fuck and then we do it and slither back to our cages (home). It doesn’t even matter if bears fuck gazelles or ostriches or elephants, as long as you get a good fuck in before you go back to your cave. This is not what anyone wants, it is shallow and inconsistent, and it is unsafe and stupid to be very honest. Yet this is where we are.

How can you expect to find perfect love and perfect trust in a world like this? You might accidentally hit it one day because fate feels sorry for you. I say this because there is always someone who is going to give me a story about how this happened. When I hear people saying these stories, I often think to myself “Let me know where you are 25 years from now.” I’ve been there myself, in the 80’s and 90’s, prior to the Internet. I know more than you can imagine what that world does to the ego, to the consciousness, to the spirit. David Bowie has a great song “Suffragette City,” with the lyrics “Wham, Bam, Thank you Ma’am.” Thank you is awfully polite, but you rarely get a thank you from a quick shag. How many people wake up after a one night stand and look at the partner lying next to them and say “I could picture myself spending the rest of my life with them?” You definitely don’t say “Thank you.” You might say “Do you have a cigarette,” or “Where is the toilet?”

A good relationship is also not Cinderella or Snow White or Sleeping Beauty. (Disclaimer: I am not anti-Disney classics either, just pointing this out). There are elements of this in the beginning when you are imagining that this is what is happening in the honeymoon stage. There were elements of this when a woman and man married one another. Remember when we walked down the aisle as pure as the driven snow? Well, maybe there was a little bit of yellow in it but, at least we looked the part. Now, the dresses and the consciousness of what walks down the aisle is nothing dreams are made of. It is certainly not the image little girls should be looking at. We have sexualized ourselves to the point that we are teaching little girls that sex is all that is important in life. Is it any wonder that girls are having sex at earlier ages than is really appropriate? I expect that at some point the age of consent for marriage will equal the age of consent for sex. I mean if we can have sex, why can’t we decide to marry? However, teenagers are not old enough to emotionally choose the right sexual partners any more than they can choose the right person to marry. As I have stated earlier, they are dealing with an identity crisis.

A good relationship is based on mutual love and trust. The ability to respect the person you are with. Someone that you feel safe being in a room with, you have awareness that they will protect you. It wouldn’t be a bad idea if we could revisit being a lady and a gentleman; as we did in Victorian times. Having roles that we honor and embody not to control or obsess over but to have this conscious relatedness where both are caretakers of each other but you also have functions that each of you take on. I am not talking about a romance novel but a mature way of being; given this entire modern and knowledgeable new world we live in.

Story: Alexandra and Peter are two professionals who live together in a flat in New York City. He is in touch with his masculinity and prefers to pay for their dates, lead the way, and open doors. He wants to behave like a gentleman and takes pride in this. They are both very strong minded people but she allows him to take the lead. This is a turn on for her because she liked how her father would do this for her mother. It is a way of being she had come to expect in men. She is not threatened by this because Peter does not dominate her or put her in a corner.  She is very much in touch with her femininity and knows where she stands at work and at home.  They are both equal even though they have defined tasks. Both clean the house. Both are in charge of finances. They have a house account and they have joint accounts. Each allows the other the space to be with their friends. They also make sure to have quality time with each other. This is defined each week when they create their schedules. When there is an event that comes up they text each other and make a decision together as to what they want to do in that scenario. When they talk to one another, it is with great esteem for the other. They are not critical of what the other person has to say. He respects her background and knowledge and she does the same for him.

How did their relationship begin? Both of them were involved with a contract for the same company. They would see each other a couple of times a year. Both were in a different relationship at the time so it took a while to develop into anything more than two vendors. Several years later, the two of them were at another event for the company they worked with. A bunch of people got together for dinner and they began to talk more. At this time they were both single and he asked her out. They dated for a month and each time found that they were able to engage in very long meaningful discussions. This led to email exchanges in between and phone conversations that lasted late into the night. A physical relationship developed and they began to discuss a long term commitment. Prior to moving in they sat down and mapped out what this would look like. They understood each other’s boundaries and focused on creating a plan that allowed for each person’s needs to be met in a way that worked for both of them.

Part I ends here. Stay tuned to tomorrow’s episode of Healthy Relationships: What do they Look Like?