During our first few years together, Charlie and I knew what kind of relationship we desired, but it took more than vision to bring it to fruition. We were up against conditioned patterns and lifelong habits. Neutralizing them would take practice, devotion, and time. Determined that we could do it, I held fast to my vision and commitment.

Many factors contributed to the difficulties we experienced, particularly during the early years of our marriage. We were both only twenty-one when we began our relationship, and quite immature. Each of us was looking for someone to provide us with emotional security, since neither of us had developed any real sense of wholeness within ourselves. We had very distorted pictures of what love is.

We weren't equipped to participate in a healthy relationship; neither of us had seen examples of them in our families or been very successful in any of our previous relationships. We were each looking for someone to help us get free from the pain of our pasts. Our first child was born less than two years after we got married, when we were both full-time graduate students, saddled with debt and both out of work. The stress level was almost unbearable at times.

Vast Differences Between Us

And then there were all the vast differences between us. Although most couples tend to complement each other with their differences, ours have always seemed inordinately extreme. In most personality traits, we represent opposite ends of the spectrum: I am detailed-oriented, Charlie is a generalist; I favor strict parenting, Charlie doesn't; I am an outgoing, social person, Charlie is more of an introvert; I go to bed early, he stays up late; I like to get to the airport with hours to spare, a fifteen-minute wait is too much for him; I believe in planning and preparation, Charlie favors spontaneity; I seek connection when I am stressed, Charlie solitude; my strength is commitment, Charlie's is letting go; when we teach, I use notes, while he prefers to wing it; I'm a talker, he's a thinker; I manage money, he spends it. The list goes on, but you get the idea. Over the years, people have asked us countless times, "How did you guys ever get together? And how did you stay together?"

In the early years of our marriage, because neither of us knew how to deal with our differences, we frequently found ourselves in conflict. It wasn't the differences themselves that kept getting us in trouble, but our reactions to them. Like many couples, we attempted to do away with our differences by trying to change each other or ourselves. Homogenizing our personalities, and thus eliminating the sources of conflict, seemed at the time to be a good idea. This strategy, we were to eventually discover, doesn't work. Instead, it produced further conflict, both within ourselves and between us.

There was, of course, more to our relationship than suffering and struggle. Had there not been, we could not and would not have stayed together. From our earliest days, a deeply loving connection has sustained us through the ordeals, the power struggles, the disappointments, and even the betrayals. We shared experiences as a couple and as a family that were joyous beyond measure.

Ongoing Relationship Struggles

Even the strongest bonds, however, are not immune to the toll that ongoing struggles can impose on the relationship. For us, the turning point came in 1987, after fifteen years of marriage. Conflict and frustration had worn us down to the point where we both were questioning whether it was worth it to go on together. As much as each of us wanted to preserve our marriage and our family, the strain of dealing with irreconcilable differences was getting to be too much.

We reached a point where we could see why couples who love each other choose divorce. For both of us there was sadness and relief in that recognition; we were grief-stricken that we seemed to be about to lose our marriage but simultaneously relieved that the struggle might be coming to an end. Fortunately, facing the reality of divorce led us to realize what we stood to lose and how much we both really wanted to preserve it. We knew there had to be another way, and that helped us make the leap from tolerating our differences to appreciating them.

Attempting to dissolve our differences hadn't worked, so we began trying instead to meet them with acceptance, gratitude, and appreciation and to see if we could find the hidden gifts in them. We knew, at least intellectually, that it was these differences that had drawn us and made us attractive to each other. At the same time, they were the primary source of what triggered our reactive patterns. Thus we discovered that what drove us crazy about each other and what we were crazy about in each other were one and the same thing. The challenge was neither to try to change the other nor be willing to change for them, but rather to honor our own uniqueness while strengthening the bonds of loving respect between us.

Becoming More Loving and Fulfilled

Learning to see our differences as tools for becoming more loving and fulfilled, rather than as obstacles to be overcome, denied, or eliminated, has profoundly altered how we relate to each other and everyone else in our lives. In our work with couples, we have found that while it does require effort and intention to adopt this orientation, it need not take as long as it took us to do so.

The experiences that brought us to our knees made us the people we are, and the learning and recovery that went along with each one have shaped our relationship into the treasure it is now. Through the many unskillful ways we treated each other, we learned the meaning of true respect. Because we were hanging by threads so many times, at risk of separation and divorce, we learned to truly care for each other, the relationship, and ourselves. From having come so close to the edge, we have learned to love with an enormous sense of gratitude. Although the lessons we have learned in this process have not come easily, the rewards of our efforts are sweet: an abundance of harmony, ease, and joy.

We are two ordinary people who, through a combination of good luck, good help, hard work, commitment, and a steadfast faith in a shared vision, made it through the ordeals of marriage and learned from our experiences. We are no different from anyone else, and if we can do it, so can you. We offer you our confidence in the power of your own intention and our trust in the human capacity to heal from a wounded past and, in so doing, to become even stronger. As we have both discovered, it is the wounds themselves that enable us to develop the qualities that bring joy and love more fully into our lives.

Challenges of a Committed Partnership

From our experience, the deepest satisfaction that life has to offer comes from our most intimate relationships. By taking on the challenges of a committed partnership we are prompted to realize the fullness of our being. More than any other relationship, marriage has the potential to awaken our deepest longings and needs, as well as our deepest pains and fears. In learning to meet all of these powerful forces with an open heart and with authenticity, we can grow ourselves into wholeness, maturity, and compassion.

In one of his workshops, Stephen Levine, the author of Embracing the Beloved, called marriage the "ultimate danger sport." People can, he said, learn more about themselves in a week in a relationship than by sitting in meditation in a cave for a year. Having tried both marriage and meditation, we'd have to agree. The development of self-awareness and self-knowledge is both the means to and the end of a good marriage. The process is simple but not easy. Our hope is that this book will more fully open your heart and mind to the inexpressible treasures available on the path of relationship.

This article was excerpted from:

 101 Things I Wish I Knew When I Got Married
by Linda & Charlie Bloom.

Reprinted with permission of the publisher, New World Library. ©2004. www.newworldlibrary.com

Info/Order this book.

About the Authors

 LINDA AND CHARLIE BLOOM are both psychotherapists with over fifty-five years of combined experience in relationship counseling. In 1987 they founded Bloomwork, which offers seminars to individuals and couples on improving relationships. Linda and Charlie agree that their greatest achievement has been a fulfilling marriage of more than thirty years.

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