The Rules of Healthy, Loving Relationships That Endure
Sometimes, we grow to distrust our partner to care about us. It's either because they're doing it on purpose, or because they don't understand. We should strive to know the difference.
Author review of my book This is How Your Marriage Ends:
"How can a good man end up being a lousy spouse? And why do all of us, across genders, do things that can subtly undermine our most treasured relationships? Matthew Fray’s book—at turns sobering and inspiring, heartbreaking and hilarious—gets to the root of questions that can make or break a life partnership. Read it, heed it, act on it—for yourself and for the one you love." — Warren Berger, best-selling author of A MORE BEAUTIFUL QUESTION
This is How Your Marriage Ends is 40% off on Amazon, available in local bookstores, or you can order an author-signed copy here from my friends at Islandport Media.
The default assumption must be that everyone is acting in one another’s best interests. Right? Because what are we doing, and why are we having these conversations, if the most basic conditions for love and care are anything less than that?
It’s absurd to imagine a Healthy, Loving Relationship, where one partner is secretly plotting selfish strategies and making moves designed to better their individual lives at the expense of their spouse or relationship partner.
That’s not a thing. I’m not saying those people don’t exist. I’m saying you can’t have a Healthy, Loving Relationship with them, so why are we even talking about entertaining overt forms of mistreatment?
If the person who you married or promised to love you forever is routinely doing things you experience as harmful, then it’s imperative that you think about whether subjecting yourself moving forward is in your best interest. I strongly recommend NOT being in relationships of any kind with someone you can’t trust to look out for you on matters large and small.
I know it’s not simple to just end a relationship and untangle a life built with someone else. Especially when kids and money and certain health conditions are involved. But I think most of us should be able to agree that it’s not in anyone’s best interest to share a life with someone who refuses to treat you in the manner that you experience as love and care.
Earlier this week, after writing about what I think are pretty standard themes of what love and respect should look like in marriage, I was asked in the comments: “And when this 'work' creates a situation that fosters manipulation?”
And I don’t really know how to deal with that type of question. It implies that the person asking it is in a relationship and at times feels manipulated by their spouse, OR that they’re not in a relationship for fear of being manipulated by some manipulative partner, or has felt so in the past.
Manipulation cannot be part of a Healthy, Loving Relationship. Full stop. No exceptions.
The work is stating honestly, transparently, and vulnerably what you need and want in your life and your relationship. Women are often adept at this. Men are often shitty at it.
The people we love and live with cannot fulfill our needs and wants if they don’t understand what they are. The first step is effectively communicating it.
The second step is on the other person. To seek to understand. And then to practice mindful consideration moving forward.
I had a shitty marriage chock full of conflict.
But she NEVER tried to fuck with me on purpose, and 12 years post divorce? She’s never treated me as anything other than a valued co-parenting partner to our teenage son.
I was a shitty husband, but I hitched my wagon to a quality person. Good people can have bad relationships. It would seem they usually do.
If you’re not in a relationship with someone you consider to be a good person, were they always bad, and you knew it? Or were they secretly bad, and you found out later? Or were they good, and then became bad during your time together?
Be with good people. It’s the only way.
If you are not legitimately acting in your partner’s best interest every day, and you can’t trust that they’re doing the same for you, then, if I may: what are you even doing this for?
As I see it, here are the rules. There aren’t many.
Rule #1 - Consider Your Partner in All That You Do
No more. No less. Every day, all of the time, can your partner trust you to remember that they are affected by choices you make (even really small ones like whether to leave the toilet seat up, or where you put a dish when you’re finished with it)?
If they can’t trust you to do that, or you can’t trust them, then you’re going to have severe trust problems and your relationship will not last. (And if it does, it will be pretty miserable for both of you.)
Everything we do tells a story to our spouse/partner.
It communicates I thought about this, and did this on purpose.
Or, it communicates I just did this without really thinking about it, because you weren’t important enough for me to remember and factor into my decision making.
Rule #2 - Validate Their Experiences Even When They’re Different From Yours
I bake you a tray of peanut butter cookies.
You are deathly allergic to peanuts.
My experience is I baked you some delicious cookies.
Your experience is I tried to feed you something poisonous that might kill you.
If I choose to argue with you about this on the basis that I’ve eaten several of these cookies before, and they’re delicious and I haven’t died even once, therefore you’re overreacting, that would be me invalidating your very real, totally different experience from mine.
We do this ALL OF THE TIME to other people. We tend to not do it with foods that might kill our partners, of course. That becomes obvious over time, and most of us agree that death is a serous outcome, so we don’t typically overlook something like a deadly allergy after one or two misunderstandings.
You have to be able to trust me to think and say I just made a tray of poisonous cookies and tried to give them to you. Regardless of my intentions, I just did something which could have poisoned you. That obviously can’t happen ever again if you’re to be able to feel safe with me.
We tend to not invalidate people over foods that might kill them, of course. That scenario becomes obvious over time, and most of us agree that death is a serous outcome, so we tend to not overlook something like a scary allergy after one or two misunderstandings.
But we do it with other things that seem to one of us as less important and less severe.
This is where the real relationship work comes in, and brings us to the final rule.
Rule #3 - Be Someone They Can Trust to Make Adjustments on Their Behalf
Really it’s just another way to say “Consider your partner when you make decisions,” but I’m open to the idea that you sometimes do things you believe will NOT have a negative outcome for your spouse or significant other, and then you’re disappointed and surprised to find out afterward that your best intentions still resulted in them being sad, or angry, or let down, or whatever.
This is where the real work in real human relationships begins. Always.
Some people get mad and tell the sad, angry partner that if what they did isn’t good enough for them, then that’s their problem, and then feel sorry for themselves because of how unfair, and critical, and misunderstanding that other person is being.
If I make you delicious, orgasmic peanut butter cookies, and you treat me like I’m trying to ruin your good time, I might feel a little put off by that…
Until.
I learn about the allergy! Because that explains it. That’s the context necessary to understand how my best efforts to please you resulted in something that had the opposite effect.
And that’s the work.
That’s validation. Understanding that those cookies—REGARDLESS OF MY INTENTIONS—presented a threat and a real negative outcome for this person I’ve promised to love. Shouldn’t they be able to trust me to not poison them?
And the real difficult work is being able to do that when the other person’s experience doesn’t make sense to me.
When my partner communicates that something is wrong, and every thought in my head and feeling in my body tells me that they’re making a mistake, or misunderstanding me somehow. Even then, can I respond in a way that communicates I want to understand the bad thing that happened to you, and even more importantly, I want to demonstrate that you can trust me to not do things in the future that will result in a shitty situation for you?
And maybe this is where the commentator from before worries about manipulation. Maybe this is where he fears a never-ending list of demands, requiring that he change, and requiring nothing from her.
But why are we in a relationship with someone who would do that? Why would we subject ourselves to someone who would ask us for things not in our best interest?
…
There will be conflict and disagreement in every relationship. One of my favorite couples I know, for health-related reasons, feel much differently about the relative dangers or merits of alcohol consumption.
It’s a problem for her. It jeopardizes his health, she believes.
It’s not a problem for him. He wants to have a few drinks socially sometimes, and does not believe it poses a meaningful threat to his health.
And that’s a bit of a stalemate. I hate stalemates. One person wins, and one person loses. One person gets their way, and the other person compromises or sacrifices.
I’m not always sure what you’re supposed to do with that. They don’t write how-to manuals for two people having a conflict of values like that.
But here’s what I believe.
If every single day, she experiences her husband considering her, able and willing to validate her when her thoughts and feelings differ from his, and she trusts him to always be willing to make adjustments on her behalf…
And every single day, he experiences the same in return…
Then disagreement over consuming a few adult beverages will NEVER rise to a level of threatening a relationship.
We have to be one each other’s team.
I’m rooting so hard for all of you.
Matthew Fray is the author of “This is How Your Marriage Ends: A Hopeful Approach to Saving Relationships”, a relationship coach, and formerly the blogger at Must Be This Tall To Ride.
P.S. - I know these things can present really small to some of you in your busy lives and marriages/partnerships. But that’s exactly why developing mindfulness and communication habits around these domestic scenarios is so critical to maintaining peaceful, loving relationships. If you have trust erosion, and/or pain points and frustrations around things like this at home, consider working with me as your relationship coach to develop these skills and habits. This stuff matters. Book your next appointment here. - MF
Saving this link! Encapsulates your advice perfectly ☺️