Yes, But Do You Really Love Me?
Couples come to my office for many, many reasons. There are a bewildering array of issues and complaints that have become the focus of their difficulties and inevitably, at least when I meet them, they have run out of options and workable solutions for those difficulties.
When it comes to my understanding of the fundamental nature of problems encountered by couples, there is one primary and repeating theme I tend to see more than others. Most generally, this theme is expressed in the complaint of one of the partners (occasionally both) , that the other just does not understand them.
In the sense that I am using it, for me to be understood by the other refers to the clear sense that the other is making the effort and taking the time to discover and be curious about out who I am; what I think, believe, enjoy, hate, aspire to, recoil from, dream about, wish for, regret, and so on. Or expressed another way, to be truly interested in who I am as I am.
The extent to which different people actually want to be known by another seems to vary to a considerable degree. While this desire seems to be present to some degree for all of us, some seem relatively uninterested while others are hungry for it.
On the other side, there is also a wide range in the degree to which others seem interested in getting to know the other; in finding out and enquiring as who the other is. Beyond the basic facts of who the other is, many people seem to have very limited interest in understanding even those they say they love, and sometimes, seem to be actually interfering with the other’s wish to be seen and understood.
When there is a marked imbalance in this regards such that one eagerly wishes to be known by another who minimally wishes (or is unable) to find out, then invariably the relationship suffers. The hunger for such intimacy in those who want it should not be underestimated. Neither should the degree of dissatisfaction that will begin to mount when such wishes are not met, nor the confusion as to what is going on.
It is going to be very hard for a couple struggling with this issue to identify the difficulty and to straighten this out. That is the down-side. The up-side however, is that when a couple does addresses this issue in a constructive and respectful manner, then the results are uplifting and powerful. This struggle for intimacy seems to me, to be the most important work of all.