Painful and confusing as they may be, intimate relationships today
actually follow particular dynamic patterns; they evolve through
recurring cycles of promise and betrayal. Herewith, a map of the
territory
For both men and women relationships have come to assume an
importance that is perhaps unprecedented. And while the sexes are having
a devilishly hard time getting together in these days of rapid role
change, they are clearly struggling to make things work in a way that
satisfies both partners. What is so surprising is that the struggles have
been taking place almost entirely in the absence of a general cultural
understanding about the nature of relationships.
Not so long ago, a simple story stated that a couple began when a
man and a woman fell in love. They would then marry and form a family.
The woman would take care of the home and children; the man would support
them by toiling in the heartless world. They would both sacrifice their
individual goals to the greater good of the family. Their romance would
gradually melt into affection and partnership. The man would be the
acknowledged leader, following law and custom, but the woman would rule
in domestic matters.
Not every couple followed this prescription-far from it. Forms of
coupling varied from couple to couple and from community to community.
But each couple, whatever they did, had to contend with this story, this
cultural narrative. Some adopted it with relative ease; some twisted and
changed themselves in order to accommodate; others were defiant, but
their very defiance proved the story's continued vitality. Anyone could
invoke it as an authority against a partner who failed to play the
assigned role. The same is true today, albeit in response to a different
cultural narrative.
The contemporary couple is changing rapidly, responding to shifts
in where and how people live, in the economics of employment, in the
different kinds of power women and men wield, in beliefs about how things
are supposed to be between the sexes, and in the nature of the family. As
couples change, so does the cultural narrative about them. One result of
the rapid changes is that both men and women tend to overestimate the
power the other sex wields in intimate relations today. Both feel like
victims in the war between the sexes.
Fascination with couples fills today's media and shapes our popular
imagination. The romantically engaged couple is the icon of our time, a
major focus of movies, television, books, and music. Most people devote
tremendous energy to trying to find the perfect partner. And yet the
couple is an isolated and fragile form, caught between great expectations
and declining resources. It is supposed to be the cure for all that ails
you. In fact, our commitment to the inner life of relationships has grown
as our commitment to the larger society recedes. But the couple falls
apart almost as easily as it comes together: half of all marriages end in
divorce; early love often fades into domestic boredom. Contemporary
couples must develop in the shadow of their potential demise.
There have always been many different kinds of couples: "just
living together" couples, gay and lesbian couples, childless couples,
interracial couples, post-divorce couples, couples of vastly different
age, and so on. The life course of real couples varies widely; few march
in a straight line past every predictable milepost, from the first
romantic attachment to the birth of children to the empty-nest syndrome,
and finally into retirement together. But certain stories regularly
prevail. Against them, social diversity continues to build, often in
unexpected ways (as by the impact of new immigrant families.
People-psychotherapists included-often participate in, theorize
about, and try to fix ailing couples without a dear sense of what a
couple is or an understanding of how it has gotten that way. This is like
trying to treat the heart without knowing something about its normal
functioning. Intimate couple relationships, painful and confusing as they
may be, follow particular patterns; yet couples today have only the most
rudimentary map of the territory through which life takes them. They are
in a psychological and moral wilderness. Self-help books and
psychotherapists try to help but often fail. What is needed is the
creation of a living narrative, new language, new concepts, and new
metaphors-a map of couples in our time.
As family therapists, we begin our thinking with a simple
observation: so many people seem disappointed in their relationships.
What is the disappointment all about? Psychotherapists look for the roots
of disappointment in unresolved childhood conflicts; philosophers and
psychologists note its origins in our attachments to specific goals and
material comfort. But the more we thought about it, the more a simpler
answer emerged: relationships are disappointing because they do not seem
to metaphors their early promise.
Tags:
absence,
acknowledged leader,
commitment,
cultural understanding,
culture,
defiance,
domestic matters,
dynamic patterns,
gender,
hard time,
heartless world,
intimate relationships,
man and a woman,
marriage,
men and women,
partnership,
recurring cycles,
relationship,
sexes,
vitality
