THAT'S MEN:DO YOU HAVE the perfect partner? Does she complete you as a person? Is she easy to love? Will you be in love with her forever? If the answer to all these questions is yes, you are either lucky or deluded.
The questions describe four myths that get in the way of long-term relationships. The myths are outlined in a book called ACT With Loveby Australia-based psychotherapist, Dr Russ Harris. ACT stands for acceptance and commitment therapy, which applies mindfulness to psychotherapy.
What matters for our purposes, though, is ACT’s entirely realistic approach to relationships.
Hollywood has told us that the answer to all of those questions at the top is, or can be, yes. Indeed, Hollywood is certain that your perfect partner is out there somewhere. All you have to do is to find her, survive a series of mishaps and stroll off into the sunset with your princess to, yes, live happily ever after.
Fortunately, as Harris points out, there is no perfect partner waiting for you. I say "fortunately" because if such a person existed, you might spend several lifetimes searching for her among the inhabitants of the planet in a giant, real-life Where's Wally?puzzle. The fact is that partners who love each other deeply and for a long time also annoy, frustrate and disappoint each other. If you love someone, you accept that they have characteristics that are not going to change and that you won't ever like. Sometimes, of course, the differences are so great that you have to leave him or her, or he or she has to leave you – but, stay or go, differences are inevitable.
The notion that one partner “completes” the other is an attempt to explain the fact that people so often get together with their opposites, extroverts with introverts, and so on. But if you buy the idea that you need someone else to complete you, then you are very likely to be clingy, needy and dependent. Or you may be demanding and controlling: you must be the way I need you to be in order to complete me. Far better for each person to take responsibility for his or her own happiness while collaborating to produce a usually satisfying relationship.
Is your partner easy to love? Well, yes, when you’re infatuated at the start of the relationship. But you would do well to remember the old joke retailed by Harris in his book that there are only two types of couples: those who have a wonderful relationship, and those whom you know really well. When the infatuation dies down, love isn’t easy. There’s a lot of negotiation, compromise and, sometimes, just plain stubbornness. Inexplicably, your partner is not like you in every respect and, even more inexplicably, your partner is never going to be like you in every respect.
Will you love each other forever? The figures for divorce suggest that the answer is uncertain. But, as I suggested above, if you expect to feel that romantic glow forever, you may be disappointed. It’s more likely that sometimes you will feel the glow and sometimes you won’t. The fact that sometimes the glow is absent does not necessarily mean you need to consult your lawyers.
Harris suggests, though, that while the feeling of love comes and goes and is beyond your control, the “action” of love is something in which you can engage whatever your feelings may be. I think that’s what people who love each other for a long time actually do: they engage in the actions of love even when they’re not feeling that way, admittedly with the occasional sulk to smooth the path.
None of this, in my opinion, is cause for pessimism. Clearing away these fairy tales creates the space in which love can grow and deepen between real-life, contrary, loveable human beings.
For more on Russ Harris go to thehappinesstrap.com where, you will be pleased to hear, you will find tons of good, free stuff.
Padraig O'Morain (pomorain@ireland.com) is accredited as a counsellor by the Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. His book Light Mind – mindfulness for daily livingis published by Veritas. His mindfulness newsletter is free by e-mail.