Anita Jacob

I just watched a cartoon (Masha and the Bear) where a bear and a little girl create a portal to the Stone Age. They find the version of themselves then and the little girl swaps places with the Stone Age little girl and teaches the bear how to make fire and cook meat before eating it, after washing his hands. Her counterpart, on the other hand, is catching and eating whole raw fish and terrorizing a bunny by trying to kill and eat it in the current age. Both times have something to teach us if we are open to learn.

My point? Sometimes a little perspective can help in relationships. I know it can be easy to get caught in the routine and patterns of the same old arguments and frustrations, not even stopping to think that things could be different. I’ve heard couples tell me how they handle certain situations (chores, finances, kids, family) that cause the same arguments and tension over and over again. I don’t have incredibly complicated or inspired suggestions, but we come up with a simple plan of trying something differently, and they come back and wonder why they had never thought of it before because now it’s so much better.

Sometimes we are blind to new ways of thinking or just don’t have the energy to spend coming up with a different way. We think there’s one way of doing something because that’s how we were taught, or that’s just what seems to have worked for so long. We may even assume that everyone does it the same way. There’s often a cultural understanding that we don’t talk about issues in the relationship with others, but then how can we learn that relationships don’t all look the same?

I know there’s a tendency when we see our friends to complain about our partner, compare notes and hope to feel validated for the way we feel. This tends to fuel our discontent and heighten our feelings of dissatisfaction in our relationships. Instead of doing this, might I suggest we ask, instead, what works well in the relationships of others. This way, we can gain a new perspective of the negative patterns that keep repeating and find an alternative, something new to try.

Nobody wants to repeat arguments over and over again, or nag our partner to do something the way we want while they consistently insist that their way is better. When we are able to let go of the ‘should’s’, and discover what compromise might look like, we can end some of the tedious, annoying arguments that seem to go nowhere in our relationships.