Melinda and Andy haven't solved their problem, but they've learned
to live with it and approach it with good humor.
Despite what many therapists will tell you,Despite what many therapists will tell you,Despite what many therapists will tell you, Despite what many therapists will tell you,
you don't have to resolve your major maritalyou don't have to resolve your major maritalyou don't have to resolve your major maritalyou don't have to resolve your major marital
conflicts for your conflicts for your conflicts for your conflicts for your marriage to thrive.marriage to thrive.marriage to thrive.marriage to thrive.Another happy couple, Carmen and Bill, have a perpetual
problem over their disparate degrees of orderliness. Carmen has the
discipline of a drill sergeant, while he is a classic absentminded
professor. For Carmen's sake, Bill tries to think about where he's
putting things. For his sake, she tries not to nag him when things get
lost. When she finds, say, last month's phone bill under a two-foot
pile of newspapers in their recycling bin, she'll make her point by
gently teasing him--unless she's feeling excess stress that day, in
which case she'll probably throw a fit, after which he'll make her a
mug of hot chocolate as contrition, and they'll go on happily with
their day in other words, they are constantly working it out, for the
most part good-naturedly. At times it gets better, other times it gets
worse. But because they keep acknowledging the problem and
talking about it, their love for each other isn't overwhelmed by their
difference.
These couples intuitively understand that problems are
inevitably part of a relationship, much the way chronic physical
ailments are inevitable as you get older. They are like a trick knee, a
bad back, an irritable bowel, or tennis elbow. We may not love these
problems, but we are able to cope with them, to avoid situations that
worsen them, and to develop strategies and routines that help us deal
with them. Psychologist Clan Wile said it best in his book After the
Honeymoon: "When choosing a long-term partner...you will
inevitably be choosing a particular set of unsolvable problems that
you'll be grappling with for the next ten, twenty or fifty years."
Marriages are successful to the degree that the problems you
choose are ones you can cope with. Wile writes: "Paul married Alice
and Alice gets loud at parties and Paul, who is shy, hates that. But if
Paul had married Susan, he and Susan would have gotten into a fight
before they even got to the party. That's because Paul is always late