Aging Capriciously

I participate in a high school mentoring program which matches up young students with older experienced men and women.  This was my second year in the program.  My mentee last year graduated and has become an alumnus of the program.  This year I was matched up with another student.  My new mentee was a young high school junior.  She wrote to me one day that she was in a relationship with someone and that it had become serious.  She wanted my advice.  Never one to shirk giving advice, I seem to always fail to hew to the dictum that “Wise people won’t need it, and fools won’t heed it.”  I sent her some comments based on my two marriages and nearly 60 years of being in a committed relationship.  The sixty years includes both my marriages.

Some days later, I found some notes from my retreat this summer.  These notes also addressed the subject of relationships or shall I say a “theory” of relationships.  I want to talk about my theory in this blog.  For many of you it will probably be “common knowledge.”  Nevertheless, I am hoping my insights might be useful to anyone out there either beginning or struggling with a relationship.  A relationship might be a friendship, a family member, a group you belong to or a loved one.  I think my theory will have some value to any such relationship.

According to Google AI, a good theory consists of the following:

• A good theory is falsifiable (can be tested and potentially disproven).
• Theories are designed to explain and predict phenomena.
• A theory should be parsimonious, meaning it uses the simplest explanation possible while still adequately explaining the phenomenon.

A theory consists of concepts, constructs, precepts, variables, relationships between variables and assumptions.  I am going to posit five assumptions about relationships and then try to explain each adding in some of the above parts of a theory.  I will explain why I think each of my assumptions is critical to a good relationship.  I am not going to try to claim that my theory is a “good” theory by any scientific data.  Rather, I would justify it based on my ups and downs with relationships over sixty or more years of experience.  But as Dr. W. E. Deming often said, “Experience without theory teaches nothing.”  Thus, herein is my “Theory of Relationships.”  I hope some of these ideas will help you or others along the pathway of love and life.

My five key assumptions about relationships are as follows: 

1. Relationships require risk
2. Relationships require change
3. Relationships require more than commitments
4. Relationships require sacrifice
5. Relationships require knowledge of self and other 

1. Relationships require risk

Almost any effort in life will entail some element of risk.  As the saying goes, “The turtle only makes progress by sticking its neck out.”  Risk is a key concept that runs through life.  It can be thought of as the probability that something will happen either good or bad.  For instance, when you bet at a Casino or perhaps take a Caribbean cruise.  You hope to win the bet, and you hope your cruise will be safe and fun.

In life, we try to minimize risk by back-up plans, precautions and strategies to offset risk.  Variables can be created in some cases to give us more definitive measures of how risky a specific endeavor is.  In gambling we call these odds.  In love, we are usually to foolish to accept any odds on our relationship going south.  However, some people do set up prenuptial contracts which are a method to hedge your bet on your relationship.  Most people in love though are blind to the possibility that their relationship will end.  Odds are though that it will end unhappily.

Many people accept it as a fact that forty to fifty percent of all first marriages end in divorce, but those who wed multiple times face a far higher divorce rate.  The average length of a first marriage in the United States is around eight years.  The average length of a second marriage is about seven years.  Sixty to seventy percent of second marriages end in divorce. 

Being aware of risk does not mean giving up on life.  It simply means we must be realistic about the possibilities that risk entails for relationships and all other endeavors (This includes friendships).  There are many ways to minimize risk in a relationship.  Here are just a few examples:

• Marriage Encounter Groups
• Family meetings weekly
• Marriage counseling
• Here are some ten ideas from “Women’s Health”:

10 Ways to Save Your Marriage From Divorce, Straight From Relationship Experts

2. Relationships require change

Perhaps one of the most overlooked facts impacting a relationship is the need for change.  Right, “your other needs to change but you do not.”  You are perfectly okay.  Change is an interesting concept.  One of the things most feared in life is change.  Ironically, we could not survive without change.  Unfortunately, not all changes turn out well.  Herein lies another risk factor.  Will your change be for the better or worse?  Hard to put odds on change, but most relationships will not survive unless the partners are willing to change.

I don’t mean change in just a physical sense but change in an emotional and cognitive sense.  Are you willing to accept major changes in your ideas about life and relationships?  Are you willing to accept major changes in how you feel about certain activities and people?  Without change, we know that life grows stale and boring.  Relationships are no different.  A relationship without change will become boring.  Doing the same old things day after day.  Even worse is when you refuse to think about some of the ideas you have that relate to your significant other.  For instance, If he or she likes to travel and you do not, are you willing to go along or have your partner go with a friend?  What accommodation are you willing to make if you are not willing to change your own behavior?  Love requires change.

“We cannot change anything until we accept it.  Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses.” — Carl Jung

3. Relationships require more than commitments

We hear a great deal about commitment when it comes to relationships.  Making a commitment involves dedicating yourself to something, like a person or a cause.  A commitment obligates you to do something.  In a relationship, it might involve a commitment to fidelity or to some fiduciary obligations.  We promise to “Love, honor and obey” in some marriage vows.  We think that making a commitment is enough to keep our relationship in safe waters.  Some people think that a commitment can be embodied in a “Marriage Contract.”  Such a document spells out mutual responsibilities and agreements.

At our last Marriage Encounter meeting, I was introduced to the distinction between a “Marriage Contract” and a “Marriage Covenant.”

Covenant                                    Contract

Unconditional                             50/50 agreement

A Covenant is forever                A Contract can be terminated

A Covenant is limitless               A Contract has limits

We tend to think of Covenants when it comes to Bible history.  Covenants were made between God and his chosen people.  The idea of a contract is a modern legal term.  I think it erodes the very essence of spirituality that a marriage or committed relationship should embody.  We need to adhere to the idea of a Covenant when it comes to a relationship.  Anything less leads inevitably to less than a committed relationship.  We can simply terminate it when the going gets rough.

4. Relationships require sacrifice

Another interesting concept, Sacrifice.  What does sacrifice mean?  Are there any variables that can measure our sacrifices?  Jesus said that the greatest sacrifice anyone can make is to give up their lives for another.  I think the greatest sacrifice is to love someone who is unlovable.  To love someone who is despicable like a pedophile or a serial killer or someone who bullies and threatens others.  I do not know about such sacrifices, and I am not sure if I could make them.  I admire the partner or mother or father who can stick by their spouses or siblings when all hell breaks loose.  Can you imagine being called up by the police and told that your son just shot 20 people at school.  Could you stand by them?  What sacrifice it must entail not to stop loving someone who has done such cruel acts!  Fortunately, most relationships will never demand such sacrifices.

The sacrifices we make in relationships can range from trivial (like which way to put toilet paper on the roll) to the significant.  More significant sacrifices might entail deciding who will stay home with the children or who will give up where they want to live for the other person’s choice.   You may not face many significant sacrifices in your relationships, but you will most assuredly face many trivial sacrifices.  These should not be discounted or minimized though.  As the quote goes, “For want of a nail the shoe was lost, For want of a shoe the horse was lost, For want of a horse the rider was lost, For want of a rider the battle was lost.”  Trivial things add up like the straw that broke the camels back.  The trivial can go from a mole hill to a mountain in less time than many of us realize.  When the trivial become the mountain, your relationship will be in jeopardy.  The trivial sacrifices in a relationship are anything but trivial but they are certainly inevitable.

5. Relationships require knowledge of self and other

This is the toughest requirement of all.  Socrates said that “The unexamined life is not worth living.”  What if you have never examined your life?  How many people do you know who have done a rigorous examination of their life?  Jesus said, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  But what if you do not love yourself.  In truth, I doubt many people do.  Many people have been so beaten up by parents, teachers, bullies and even loved ones that they actually hate themselves.  Few of these people want to know themselves because it means facing hidden demons that they would just like to leave buried.   Gandhi said, “Be the change that you want to see in others.”  This axiom encourages a certain amount of self-understanding as well as understanding of others.  All too often we have no time to understand either.  The perp that is trying to rob you at gun point will not have time for you to understand him.  Furthermore, you may care very little about his troubled up bringing.

My uber pessimism on a premise that I insist is necessary for a good relationship seems to doom any relationship to the graveyard.  If we can never know ourselves or others, how then can we have a positive happy relationship.  The secret is that we do not have to be perfect, nor do we need perfect knowledge of ourselves or others.  We can never and will never be perfectly transparent to ourselves or others anyway.  The JOHARI Window has a quadrant of “Unknown to Others and Unknown to Self.”  I have found the JOHARI window to be quite a useful concept on the path to discovering more about myself and thinking about my relationship with others.

“The Johari window model is used to enhance the individual’s perception on others.  This model is based on two ideas- trust can be acquired by revealing information about you to others and learning yourselves from their feedback.  Each person is represented by the Johari model through four quadrants or windowpane.  Each four windowpanes signifies personal information, feelings, motivation and whether that information is known or unknown to oneself or others in four viewpoints.” — The Johari Window Model

The risk will always be there, but we can work on being more self-aware and more honest to others.  That is the best we can do in life.  That is why relationships are risky.  You will never be able to see all the shoals and reefs that your life might flounder on.   Life is a process of never-ending discovery.  Death will eventually bring closure to your adventures and explorations.  Until then, just getting in bed is risky so why not try to live life to the fullest.  Get out of bed and go MAKE a good relationship.