Being Married -- Staying Together
by Linda & Charlie Bloom
 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.
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.
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.
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.
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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