It's the Destination, Not the Journey
- Sunday, August 14 2011 @ 12:34 pm
- Contributed by: Jet
- Views: 1,163
Sue and Steve are a couple who have been married for years. When I see them interact, it’s adorable; they share inside jokes and affection without annoying everyone else in the room. They perform small tasks for one another without sighing about it. Perhaps most importantly, they genuinely seem to like one another. It’s clear that they love each other, and that they’re quite a good match.
It’s also clear that the way their relationship works would never work for me.
Do they do anything wrong? No. But their personalities are both drastically different from mine. Steve is the kind of guy who happily holds a purse while standing outside the dressing room door, while I prefer the kind of guys who would rather split up and do the shopping independently. Sue teases Steve incessantly, and while it doesn’t appear to bother him at all, I might take it a little more personally if I were in his shoes. That doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with Steve, or Sue, or my own preferences; they’re just different.
Why, then, do we tend to compare our relationships against those of the people we know? Being in a relationship can be a precarious tightrope walk, balancing the needs and wants of two unique people. Why should we copy the balance techniques of someone who’s top-heavy, when our own weight is skewed to the left?
However, that doesn’t mean that we can’t gain any insight from relationships that aren’t our own. Instead of looking at exactly how couple interacts, try focusing on the end result. For example, instead of thinking, “She waits on him hand and foot!” notice that they try to help each other whenever they can. Instead of thinking, “I could never handle such mean teasing!” focus on the fact that they constantly laugh together. The end result is what you want to emulate; the method of getting there may differ.
It’s also clear that the way their relationship works would never work for me.
Do they do anything wrong? No. But their personalities are both drastically different from mine. Steve is the kind of guy who happily holds a purse while standing outside the dressing room door, while I prefer the kind of guys who would rather split up and do the shopping independently. Sue teases Steve incessantly, and while it doesn’t appear to bother him at all, I might take it a little more personally if I were in his shoes. That doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with Steve, or Sue, or my own preferences; they’re just different.
Why, then, do we tend to compare our relationships against those of the people we know? Being in a relationship can be a precarious tightrope walk, balancing the needs and wants of two unique people. Why should we copy the balance techniques of someone who’s top-heavy, when our own weight is skewed to the left?
However, that doesn’t mean that we can’t gain any insight from relationships that aren’t our own. Instead of looking at exactly how couple interacts, try focusing on the end result. For example, instead of thinking, “She waits on him hand and foot!” notice that they try to help each other whenever they can. Instead of thinking, “I could never handle such mean teasing!” focus on the fact that they constantly laugh together. The end result is what you want to emulate; the method of getting there may differ.
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