Love is Compromise

Many years ago I had a friend who had 8 sons, all but the two-year-old were involved in soccer, some of them on more than one team.  Her husband also coached several soccer teams.  During soccer season she spent at least four hours a day in the car, taking her sons to and from their various practices and games.  She was available to see parts of only two games the whole season.  She fed the youngest son his supper in the car and he fell asleep for the night before they got home.  The rest of the family ate their supper together sometime between 8 and 9pm.  I said to her one day, “I bet you’ll be glad when the season is over.”  She answered, “Actually, they don’t stop for the winter; there are indoor arenas.  I begged my husband and sons to cut back; coach just one team, be on just one team… but they refused.”    She was paying a very heavy price, making a very significant sacrifice, to help them pursue their dreams.  Yet none of them was willing to sacrifice anything in return, or even to compromise,  to help her have her desire for a less stressful life.  Too often relationships evolve into a one-sided kind of support system, one partner crying, “You never support me!” when they don’t get everything they want, oblivious to the fact that their partner needs support, too.  I know of a wife who was struggling to cope with the day-in day-out stress of caring for her four young children.  She asked her husband for a break, perhaps he could stay with the children for an hour or two while she went out with friends.  He refused.  Not only did he have something going on every night, bowling one night, basketball with the guys another, night school… but he reminded her, “I’m not your babysitter!  If you need a break, take the kids to the zoo.”  He understood his need for breaks with bowling and basketball, but didn’t see that she also had a need.  What a difference it would have made had he been willing to compromise, give up the bowling league and let that night every week be hers to do whatever she wanted for herself.  More about support tomorrow.

Love is Compassion

One would think that understanding and compassion go hand in hand, that understanding someone else would naturally result in an outpouring of compassion for that person and what they are experiencing, what they are feeling, what they need.  In a loving relationship it does work that way.  But in some relationships, understanding breeds contempt, and contempt breeds resentment.  Consider a wife who is experiencing some anxiety over pending childbirth and turns to her husband for some comfort and reassurance.  Although he understands, he responds with, “It can’t be that bad; women have been doing it for centuries, I don’t want to hear about it.”  Consider the husband, coming home devastated because he lost his job, and his wife’s response is, “Well it wasn’t a very good job anyway, at least now you’ll be home to help with the kids more.”  When a person is met with contempt instead of compassion, have they really been understood?  They will become reluctant to seek understanding from their partner again, less likely to give compassion in return.  Their marriage suffers because its safety is compromised and acceptance diminished.  Compassion is a good barometer of a relationship, for if compassion wanes,  it is likely love has waned, too.

Love is Understanding

Part of the difference in vision we experienced over the retaining wall had to do with our failure to understand each other.  Although I tried very hard to explain my vision of the project, he seemed reluctant to try to understand my vision, or to share with me his vision, resulting in the impasse.  Stephen R. Covey teaches this principle:  seek first to understand, then to be understood. He suggests when seeking to understand another’s position, you probe until you can explain his position better than he can. Having been understood, the other person is much more open to understanding your position, and that openness leads to common ground and an atmosphere of cooperation which will lead to a shared vision.  I was very quick to try to help him understand my vision of the retaining wall, but I suspect that had I been as anxious to understand his vision, things could have been very different.  Had I probed with comments such as, “Help me understand why you want it positioned there”  or “I’m trying to envision what will happen when it rains…”  he may have realized his vision had some problems.  Once he felt understood he may have been more willing to try to understand my vision.  My vision could have become our vision, saving him 3 days lost work, and strengthening our relationship in the process.  Understanding is the key to solving many problems and resolving many conflicts.

Love is Shared Vision

Shared vision, simply put, is being on the same pathway to the same destination.  Several years ago my then husband took out the broken-down back fence separating our yard from the alley.  The level of the earth in the alley was two feet higher than the level of the yard, so we decided to replace the fence with a brick retaining wall.  We picked out the bricks and I helped him measure the length and the height to determine just how many bricks we needed.  When we had the bricks, he started right in on the retaining wall, but to my disappointment, he wasn’t building the wall from the yard level, abutting the earth wall left from the previous fence, he was building the wall on top of the edge of earth, in the alley.  In my kindest way I explained that we wanted the bricks to hold back that wall of earth, that’s what a retaining wall is.  I pointed out that we had measured from the yard level up to the alley level. I explained that a free-standing wall on top of the dirt was not stable and when a good storm came along the bricks would shift and tumble as the ground underneath washed away.  All to no avail.  We did not share the same vision of the project.  I washed my hands of it all, figuring I would have to re-do it myself the next time he was out of town.  He worked three days on it, getting 20-30 feet done, and then one day, without saying a word to me, he started over, building it in the place where I had envisioned it.  He did a beautiful job.  I have puzzled over how our visions of a simple little retaining wall could have been so drastically different, and how we could have done better at having a shared vision.  More on this tomorrow…

Love is Partnership

Two people will often have different perspectives and opinions, sometimes those differences may be at odds, leading to conflict.  If it is a loving relationship, it is also a partnership where conflicts are resolved together in an atmosphere of understanding and respect.  Instead of “your way” or “my way,” the answers become “our way.”  Instead of “I’m right so you’re wrong,” it becomes, “Let’s work together to figure this out."  Rather than, “If you’d just listen to me,”  we say, “Help me to understand your point of view.”  When decisions are made or problems solved unilaterally, that partner sends the message, “I do not value you or your contribution to this relationship.”  He negates his greatest asset.  But when the relationship is a true partnership, the two become greater than the sum of the parts, and almost anything is possible. More on this tomorrow.