– Does Our Partner Become Boring, or Do We Make Them Boring?

LEARNING THROUGH MARRIAGE COUNSELING IN NASHVILLE, TN THAT WE DON’T KNOW OUR PARTNERS AS WELL AS WE THINK WE DO.

One of the predominant themes about marriage these days is that long-term relationships inevitably become boring and bland. This theme is typically talked about in terms of the institution of marriage itself. It’s as if marriage, not the actual people involved, make relationships stale and lifeless. On some intuitive level, I think most people (including myself) would agree, without giving it too much thought, that it makes sense that being with the same person for decades would eventually lose its luster or connection or excitement. And by no means am I advocating for a version of love that feels as exciting or heart-fluttering on the first date as it does on the 20^th anniversary. That does not exist.

But what I am asserting is that the ways that our marriages become boring and stale may have more to do with how individual partners deal with intimacy rather than an outdated and archaic idea of marital institutionalism. In a brilliant book on long-term romance called, “Can Love Last? The fate of romance over time,” by Dr. Stephen Mitchell, we writes, “But in exploring in detail the textures of such established relationships, I have invariably discovered that the sense of safety is not a given but a construction, the familiarity not based on deep mutual knowledge but on collusive contrivance, the predictability not actuality but an elaborate fantasy. So often, in long-standing relationships that break apart, one or both partners discover with a shock that the assumptions they made about the other’s experience, the very convictions that made the other both safe and dull, were inventions, often collusively agreed upon.”(p. 43)

This is quite a dense passage, but what Dr. Mitchell is basically saying is that all the things we believe are “true” about our partner, especially those things that make our partner boring and dull, are not based in reality at all! Dr. Mitchell is saying that each of us, on our own, find ways to “make” our partner seem known, and therefore safe, and although we cherish the safety, we also stop seeing them for who they really are! It’s a brilliant thesis. It’s also annoying. Because if Dr. Mitchell is correct, then it means we can’t blame our boredom, and lack of satisfying relationship, on the institution of marriage. It means that I have a part to play in the breakdown of our relationship, and more importantly, it means that I can do something differently to revive it.

CAN MARRIAGE COUNSELING IN NASHVILLE, TN ACTUALLY HELP?

Marriage counseling in Nashville, TN can help, because it can shed light on the reality that the institution of marriage isn’t the problem at all. Once one or both partners are willing to accept the premise that the marriage contract isn’t the problem, then each can get to the actual work of exploring ways they both have contributed to the current emotional state of the relationship. If both people are willing to own the ways they have made the other partner “safe” and be open to the reality they might be wrong, then we can get on a fast track to having something better!

Marriage counseling is never easy, but Chris Roberts has a long history of working with married couples in helping them reconnect in more meaningful ways. Chris Roberts is a marriage counselor in Nashville, TN and can be reached at (615) 800-9260 or at: chris@nashvillecounselor.net