The Couples Tool Kit
Working together as a team of three — by Jill Edelman, M.S.W., L.C.S.W., Specialist in Couples TherapyArchive for Divorce
A Divorcing Option: A Gracious Ending
The Possibility of Closure and Release: Once again Sunday’s The New York Times has offered an article that warrants attention. Briefly, as I am still on the road with my Coupledom, I want to draw your attention to Abby Ellin’s review of a new trend in divorced, divorcing or breaking-up Coupledoms. (I would say, former Coupledoms.) Entitled Untying the Knots, and Bonds, Of Marriage the author describes a trend among former couples who are finding solace, comfort, closure and release through the enactment of some agreed upon ceremony, moment, or exchange that marks, with grace, the end of their relationship, even if that ceremony occurs months or years after the legal demise or break up was factually finalized.
Still Sticky Stuff After All These Years: In a sense, what folks are striving to do is to remove the sticky goo that adheres to the person’s emotional skin like suntan lotion after a day at the beach, sticky with a film of gritty sand that doesn’t brush off.
In one of my earlier posts, The Divorcing Coupledom: the Art of Uncoupling, I focus on the importance of honoring what was once a chosen bond, a family, a shared life, though that life may have lost its way. As with all the significant passages in our lives, those of joy and those of sadness, those fraught with anger and conflict, something remains unfinished and knotted up if not provided with a ritual, a moment, a sharing. How wise it is to understand this: imperfect mortals as we all are, how can our vows be always perfect too? Can we, former lovers, become something new with a shared understanding of loss and free ourselves to move on without trashing, bashing or attempting to deny that once there was a love, and now there is something else? And to do so for the dignity of that former Coupledom, and for the children that may have emerged from its joining?
Crazy? Impossible? I don’t think so. Life is long. And options remain. Nothing feels better than letting go of goo and finding personal renewal, even when it may involve holding hands for just a moment with the past. What isn’t always clear in the wake of pain and profound disappointment is that when you try to sever a part of your life completely, you cut off a piece of your self.
©Jill Edelman, M.S.W., L.C.S.W. 2012
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An Article Worth Sharing: Pre-Marital Cohabitation
This Merits a Perusal: I am about to take a journey with my spouse which will include an abundant amount of “quality time” together, some of it on the road. Hence I am sure that upon my return home, I will have ample material to ponder and share. I had no plans to post anything Coupledom related this week except the “Oldies But Goodies” of previous posts but The New York Times Sunday Review published an article by Meg Jay, a clinical psychologist at the University of Virginia which warrants sharing.
In her article entitled “The Downside of Cohabiting Before Marriage” Dr. Jay raised some very interesting questions for folks to consider on the subject.
No Conclusions Just Process: Cohabitation is here to stay but some research has correlated cohabitation prior to marriage with the likelihood of divorce. However the data does seem to be shifting, and suggests that how you cohabit – that is, how you make the decision to do so or to continue that lifestyle choice – seems to be the key to its being a satisfying path for The Coupledom or an indicator of divorce.
A Slide Or A Commitment: Dr. Jay provides useful language for couples to discuss and define the type of “living together” that each envisions or desires. For example, is your cohabiting the “slide” into convenience or the committed road to happily ever after? Dr. Jay recommends that couples clarify their motivation for setting up even the most casual of homes, in order to allow both partners the opportunity to understand their intentions and those of their partner. Once clarification is established regarding these variables, then cohabiting prior to wedding bells can ring true.
Don’t miss this quick read. Clicking on the link above may help you to prevent future disappointments in love and life choices.
©Jill Edelman, M.S.W., L.C.S.W. 2012
Do You Need an Education to Stay Married?
The National Marriage Project: The State of Our Unions is a joint publication of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia and The Center for Marriage and Families at The Institute of American Values. I have provided a link to download a PDF of the study above and urge everyone to scroll through the document. This publication is an astonishing depiction of the trends in our country that highlight both the ever-increasing disparity between the affluent and the less affluent and the “highly educated” from the “moderately educated” to the “least educated” social classes and the impact on the institution of marriage.
The Terms: Though I cannot offer an easy summation of their findings, I can focus on the role of education and marital health. The term “highly educated” refers to those who receive a college education. For the “moderately educated” high school graduation completes their formal education. The least educated drop out of high school.
The title of this year’s “State of the Union” publication, “When Marriage Disappears: The Retreat From Marriage In Middle America”, does not then refer to “middle America” as a political or geographic section of our country, rather to the educational level and lifestyle choices of the largest segment of the American population, those with a high school only education. Historically this group was deeply tied to the institution of marriage but increasingly has chosen other options. They also have a rising divorce rate and non-marital childbearing rate both significantly higher than their more educated peers, as well as being less likely to use birth control and more likely to abuse drugs and alcohol than their highly educated peer group.
The statistics for this group are rapidly mirroring those of the least educated, the high school dropouts in our culture, which leads us to the question, “Do You Need an Education To Stay Married?” Apparently the greater the educational achievement, the more likely you and your partner ascribe to values that help to sustain marriages.
The Success Sequence or The Soul Mate: The study identifies two different concepts of the role marriage plays in our lives. “The Success Sequence” incorporates the bourgeois values and virtues of delayed gratification, self-control, focus on education, and temperance which follows a sequence whose first step is the acquisition of an education, then work opportunities, followed by marriage, and finally childbearing. In general this is the pathway chosen by the highly educated. The moderately educated are trending toward the “The Soul Mate” model of marital partnership which is couple-centered, where the relationship is viewed as the vehicle for personal growth, rather than personal growth leading to partner selection, and whose survival is based on the happiness of both partners without the requisite sequencing steps of the highly educated model. Both models are couple-centered and value happiness but the “Soul Mate” model does not have the economic foundation nor the opportunities of the “success sequence” model and is therefore more vulnerable to the vicissitudes of financial instability such as unemployment, unplanned pregnancy, substance abuse, infidelity and divorce.
Process and Communication: I am neither a sociologist nor a political scientist. The relevance of this study for my work as a psychotherapist rests on an examination of the attributes outlined in the study that act to strengthen marital stability and satisfaction. Four emerge that match my observations clinically:
- The ability to delay immediate gratification (a cornerstone of “the success sequence model) in the journey to reach a longer-term goal;
- The role of education which in my view, enhances both conceptual thinking and communication–that is, the exercise of expanding understanding and the requirement of communicating knowledge and understanding to others;
- The involvement in process leading to outcome over time (again the success sequence model) which relies on the ability to await results and the belief that working at something over time bears fruit;
- Later marriage and childbearing, and in that order, all leading to more secure employment and financial stability which reduces stresses that challenge marital stability.
Couples Therapy: Couples therapy relies on the values of and belief in communication and process, as well as the ability to delay immediate gratification, i.e. not finding solutions quickly. When I see a couple able to handle the anxiety of strife and the pain of hurtful words and realities in the session, while allowing me as a therapist to act as a translator who explains to one the emotions and notions of the other, I know that these folks have the necessary “muscle” to use therapy to better their marriage, over time. All marriages or relationships get into trouble at some point or points. Those Coupledoms that have developed expressive language skills can more easily learn to identify and clarify feelings with each other, in their homes or in a therapist’s office, and can ride out very difficult times without seeking immediate relief either in a substance or another person. Those who have few experiences with the virtues of process or have no faith in the benefits of delaying gratification are more likely to take flight from problems before reparative tools can be tried.
Encourage Your Children To Stay In School: I have written about the importance of education in a prior post. The disturbing findings of this report reveal that those who are members of the lesser educated middle America”grouping suffer greater disruption in their family lives with significant negative impact on their children’s future. All this is carefully documented with statistics in the report. Not surprisingly, the attributes that enable couples to profit from couples therapy match those that enable families to stay together, sustain marriages and have a great chance of avoiding the destructive consequences of substance abuse, unemployment and severe financial distress. That middle America has lost faith in marriage as a protective and useful institution, and the highly educated are leaning the other way, toward preserving their marriages more now than even ten years ago, speaks to many factors. But whatever the beliefs that underlie these trends, the results are clear: higher education is a hedge against some of the most harmful forces impacting family life.
Unequal Opportunities: Our country does not offer equal access to higher education. That vicious cycle of affluence leading to more affluence, and less to less, is often at play here as in many other aspects of our culture. However, valuing the attributes noted above can raise the likelihood that a family can provide a stabilizing environment needed to allow even the less affluent to reach educational goals in spite of the obstacles. Delaying gratification, utilizing the “success sequence model” and eschewing immediate gratification are attributes anyone can acquire, with the right guidance and values in place in the home.
©Jill Edelman, M.S.W., L.C.S.W. 2012
Holiday Toolkit 2011: Divorced: Now What To Do With The Ex-Laws?
While this post isn’t specifically about the holidays, it is all about family relationships and dealing with the “ex-laws” after a divorce – which always shows up as a major factor during holiday season. So we are adding it to the Holiday Toolkit in the hopes that it may just help you survive the most wonderful time of the year.
Today’s post from the Holiday Toolkit:
Excerpt:
Former Mother/Father in Law: Step Children and Step Grand Children: Ex Brothers and Sisters In Law, Ex Nieces and Nephews: Divorce is the highest stress factor in our culture. Breaking up The Coupledom, the family and the household, is excruciating. And then there is the mess it leaves behind in the hearts, minds and pocket books of all involved. One of the groups of people for whom no protocol exists, as they stand outside of legal documentation, is the relational world of The Coupledom; the relatives.
You can read the full post here: Divorced: Now What To Do With The Ex-Laws?
And you can check out the other posts in the Holiday Toolkit here.
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Holiday Toolkit 2011: The Divorce Survival ToolKit for Children of All Ages
Holidays are stressful times for The Coupledom. Here is another post about divorce and the holidays from the Holiday Toolkit.
Today’s post from the Holiday Toolkit:
Excerpt:
Adult children of divorce as well as their younger counterparts struggle with the new regime, the confusing order of things and benefit from a language and vocabulary that empowers them. Locating their boundaries and clarifying often double-edged messages from parents are necessary coping strategies. Weddings, baptisms, bat and bar mitzvahs, graduations, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas and other holidays often summon up painful emotions and worries for the divorced child. A toolkit of rules can reduce the stress and pain and provide a resource for a lifetime.
You can read the full post here: The Divorce Survival ToolKit for Children of All Ages
And you can check out the other posts in the Holiday Toolkit here.
Coupledoms, Focus On Education!
Clarifying Priorities: I do not consider myself an expert on economics, not even adequate, but I am an expert on couples and families. Today’s New York Times’ Op Ed column by David Brooks is a must read for couples with children. Scroll down to paragraph 7 and read his description of something he terms “Red Inequality” which is the term he uses for that segment of the population without a college diploma.
Distracted Coupledoms: Mr. Brooks provides a assemblage of statistics that should jolt all who take comfort in the rational “college isn’t meant for everyone.” No indeed but there better be a good reason why your child is not headed in that direction, one way or another. What the numbers reveal is that kids without college degrees are more likely to smoke, divorce, have out-of-wedlock children, and fewer friends. Holy Tamole. Is it that serious? Yes. What worries me is when I see couples so distracted by their relational difficulties, whether married, separating or divorced, that they lose sight of the needed focus on educating their children. In fact, often the child’s education becomes another victim in the Coupledom mess, when former spouses fight over funding a post-secondary education to the point where the child gives up, acts out, and ends up dropping out. Or the father may message, “Hey, its cool not to go to college. I didn’t and see how well I am doing.” Yes but times they are a changing. And most of the human race is not Steve Jobs either.
Choosing Peer Groups and Communities: Where your children grow up and with whom also sets a standard that may message college is not cool. Guess what, apparently it is cool after all.
Take A Moment and A Look: And pass this along. I think this is a more than worthy read and wake up call for all of us.
©Jill Edelman, M.S.W., L.C.S.W. 2011
Oldies but Goodies: The Divorce Survival ToolKit for Children of All Ages
Jill is taking a break from the blog this weekend and keeping her fingers crossed that the October nor’easter doesn’t leave southern Connecticut without power…again. Here is one of her most popular posts from the past year or so.
Excerpt:
Weddings, baptisms, bat and bar mitzvahs, graduations, Thanksgiving, Hanukah, Xmas, often summon up painful emotions and worries for the divorced child. A toolkit of rules can reduce the stress and pain and provide a resource for a lifetime.
You can read the full post here:
The Divorce Survival ToolKit for Children of All Ages
© Jill Edelman, M.S.W., L.C.S.W. 2011
The Affair: A Symptom of Marriage Rot or A Rotten Spouse?
Affairs Come In Colors: Not all infidelities look alike. The red-hot mega-media adulteries are not the prototype for most unfaithful Coupledoms. The shades of color for the common household variety of betrayal are in grays, not black, white or red-hot. Yet folks on either side of the betrayal highway feel more comfortable thinking in black, white and red: black is the one who does the deed; white is the one who doesn’t; and red is the flame that fires everyone up. All fired up but perhaps still “clueless.”
Rot or Rotten? Decades ago, a couple whom I knew socially asked to meet with me privately. The woman had discovered that her husband was having a romantic and sexual relationship with another woman. This was not one of those nebulous discoveries, where terms such as “friendship” or “emotional affair” are batted about to obfuscate and distract from the “betrayal” facts of the action. No, this was infidelity, clear as day. That information put me in a tough spot, not permitted to do treatment as these were friends, yet wanting at least to send them away with something until they entered treatment with a couples therapist (and knowing that there were children waiting at home). So I asked the wife, “Do you think that your husband is basically a decent guy?” Now some would say that is an oxymoron: an adulterer who is a decent guy. But I didn’t think so. What was rotten here? Was it something rotting in the marriage or was this a rotten spouse? Big difference.
Time To Out The Marital Secrets: Many couples who end up in divorce court — because one member hooked up and got caught — shouldn’t be there. Not if the marital rot had been outed early enough to prevent someone from crossing over that deepest of all betrayal lines: a sexual relationship with someone other than their spouse. The essential question to be raised, once that line has been crossed: is there any other recourse but divorce? Yes, if the couple, despite the damage, can begin to view the affair as a symptom of marriage rot. We all have heard of this and many a betrayed spouse is accused of a pivotal role in their partner’s alliance with another. And many a betrayed spouse has a hell of a time owning that piece in a useful fashion, so distracted by the broken trust and narcissistic injury to their self-esteem, self-image and self-worth that real digging and reflection is constantly waylaid by rage, fear and sense of failure.
The Critical Piece: Now we come to the fork in the road. If the spouse who had the affair really doesn’t want to leave, perhaps for multiple reasons that are normal and of value — “We are a family”, “I still love you”, “I am sorry” — then it is up to the betrayed spouse to figure out if this person is rotten or if it were the relationship that was rotting. History can help here. What do you know about your partner? Over the years, have their actions, up to this point, matched the general expectations of moral conscience and honesty in their transactions in your life together? A deep exploration into the spouse’s qualities and history of their behaviors, the important ones with you, your children, the extended family, should tell you something really crucial: who they are as human beings, so that one is not surrendering solely to the most primitive gut reaction of “Cut, Run And Blame.” There are other options here. Remember, when you throw away the riches of a shared life, you never get them back…and though they may be beaten up right now, if you give them up, they are not just bruised but gone, without benefit of a healing restoration.
Narcissistic Injury and Broken Trust: Two of the deepest gashes to our psychological safety are those that slice at our self-regard/self-image and basic trust. Healthy narcissism (healthy self-regard, not inflated or exploitative) can be tested mightily when a betrayal, i.e. rejected for another, occurs. The wound is deep. For someone already scarred early in life by such injuries, a partner’s affair can present an almost insurmountable hurdle but one that can be challenged if the spouse is willing to look at their past to conquer its potentially crippling influence on their future. Trust, if broken earlier in life, when hit again, can present an image of human relations as intolerably painful and best avoided or manipulated. Here again, what may seem insurmountable can be opportunity knocking for tremendous psychological growth for the betrayed party. But this undertaking requires an ample supply of courage and willingness to take an emotional risk, because what may be saved still has value, and perhaps even promise.
Growing Up Is Hard To Do: Really, which is easier, growing up or breaking up? Take your pick. And get help to do the former before you hire someone to do the latter.
©Jill Edelman, M.S.W. L.C.S.W. 2011
50% Of Us Is Done: Marriage Over?
The Unfairness Factor: One of the more profoundly emotional experiences in couples work is watching the demise of a Coupledom when only one of the partners is “done.” The spouse who wants to keep the marriage alive is outnumbered. Yes outnumbered because it only takes 50% of the vote to emotionally dissolve the marriage. How is this possible, asks the other half? How can you say we are done? I am calling this element of the uncoupling process the unfairness factor: the reality that one member alone can terminate a marriage of two. For their partner this is an impossibility — “How can you alone make a decision of such gravity for me? How can something that unfair be possible, condoned, permitted, done to me?” murmurs the incredulous other. Incredible. Yet true.
When Did I Become So Powerless? I have been a party to that moment when one member delivers the news and the other member acquires a stunned and devastated expression, emotionally thrashing about while drowning in the waters of an unbearable reality, often with the soon to be ex-partner looking on with disbelief: “I have been telling you this for years, that I was unhappy, something was wrong, something needed to change and you never heard me. I’m done.” Frequently the term “final straw” is thrown into the mix to explain what catapulted one of the pair to cross that divide to the ultimate conclusion, “We must divorce.” The impact of this news can stir up a variety of defenses: denial (this will pass, just a phase, a stage, I will win them back); aggression (I won’t let you. I can fight this. You will regret this); seduction (sexual seduction or promises of gifts, vacations, work schedule changes); manipulations of all kinds including guilt provocation (how can you do this to the children); blame (it’s your friend’s influence, your mother never liked me, who is she/he?) – all desperate attempts to reduce the terrible powerless emotion seeping into every pore of the person’s skin, every organ of their body, every atom making up the molecules of their existence. This is a hit like no other in our culture. “When did I become so powerless?” Now!
Can This Train Be Stopped? In my thirty-seven years as a psychotherapist it is the rare case where the decision to terminate a marriage was made casually, without a process over years that was both painful and wishful, and may have included couples therapy and/or attempts to communicate feelings of unhappiness, and even fear that divorce was possible if change did not occur. So how can one account for spousal reactions of disbelief and shock when that 50% tally comes in: “I’m done.” Clearly many of the defenses that get us into trouble as adults are at work, including a kind of defensive deafness (what we call “selective hearing”) where what is heard is marginalized by what one can tolerate hearing. The underpinning of all psychological defenses is fear, primitive, base fear. And fear is triggered by something “threatening”: words and feelings spoken by another that sound negative about ourselves or herald negative possibilities to our sense of security or self-worth. Words and feelings that describe negative reactions to our behaviors are asking us to make choices that create conflict: relinquish something that we want to preserve something that we have.
Common and Potentially Toxic: The prototypical conflict that I see countless times in my office is the choice between meeting career goals and ambitions and spending time and focus on the family and the spousal relationship. No other conflict of goals and desires presents themselves as frequently as this one does. The ambitious partner or simply the one who carries the major burden of funding family life, sees their responsibility as primarily financial in nature. Their spouse, who may also work, views their job as maintaining the family fortress. What is wrong with this picture? The process. Neither partner is wrong but the interpersonal transactions chosen to facilitate achieving the designated goals are seriously flawed. Can the train to divorce be stopped? Not if the process has proven so destructive to one of its members that nothing is left inside them to prevent the splintering of their marriage vows. Time and process are the keys to preventing the crash. Early intervention. And continuous intervention until a new and healthier process is put in place. With lots of check-ins and touch-ups even after folks think they are safe.
Addictions and Disorders: Another prototypical conflict that interferes with a genuine and effective process to prevent divorce is that occurring between a substance, pornography or gambling addicted partner or a partner with an emotional disorder (both groups refusing to acknowledge or get help for their disorder) and their spouse who recognizes the continuing negative effect on themselves and family members of these addictive behaviors. Denial of the destructive impact of the addiction or mental disturbance on one’s spouse provides the death knell, eventually, for the marriage. Even when confronted with that reality, the addicted partner is often shocked, discrediting or diminishing their partner’s sufferings and overwhelmed by a sense of unfairness and powerlessness while their spouse sits there in disbelief asking “What do you think I have been saying for years?”
Denial Is An Empathy Killer: What can the powerless partner do when rendered the “We’re done” verdict? Empower themselves by owning their part, perhaps for the first time minus the denial which blocks the ability to be in the other’s shoes. Denial destroys the possibility of empathy, the absence of which is at the root of a failed marriage; the failure to imagine what it is like to be one’s spouse, what it feels like to be your partner. Denial is an empathy killer and without an empathic connection to one’s partner enough of the time, your marriage is skating on emotionally thin ice. One more straw, and yes, even ice can break.
Prevention or Acceptance: Two choices here: for the marriage that is still alive, read what is written above and start the process. For the marriage that has 50% of the partners done, don’t make it ugly, messier or more damaging to you or your spouse. Sort out what went awry and learn from it; be brave, bold and honest first and foremost with yourself. That does not mean taking sole responsibility, though often that may sound like what your partner is saying. No it just means owning your piece, fairly, not drumming into the other what they did wrong. What good does that serve? It is a normal instinct to offset a sense of failure or guilt by pointing the finger of blame. But no one is listening but you. The other is too busy fending off the attack.
Shame Or Liberation: Yes, it takes two to make a marriage, but it truly only takes one to end it, though the process along the way involved both parties making choices. Ending a marriage with personal dignity is the healthy path. To do that takes courage and must include the acceptance of an existential reality that there are times when we are powerless to reverse another’s actions or decisions, no matter the impact on ourselves. There is no shame in acknowledging that universal human imperfection. We cannot control others, only ourselves. Embracing that concept can become quite liberating.
©Jill Edelman, M.S.W., L.C.S.W. 2011
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Finding Love Over Fifty Online?
Can Dreams Come True After Fifty-Two? I am hearing a lot lately about older folks meeting up and partnering or even marrying, happily and in many cases, unexpectedly. Unexpected in that either they had been searching for years with no results, or surprisingly lucky when they began their search to find the perfect mate. Perfect in mutuality. Both partners recognized a match, not the see saw ups and downs of younger couples where one is ready, the other not yet. Or one is pursuing, the other pursued. Older matches often eliminate the “tag you’re it” gamesmanship of youth.
Lying On The Internet And Other Ploys To Find Love: The New York Times had a piece on dating sites for “mature” adults in their fifties and up who have thrust themselves into the online search for companionship that their children had been visiting for years. The article written by Stephanie Rosenbloom, is aptly named “Second Love At First Click” and includes the latest statistics on internet dating amongst the older set with anecdotal evidence that it is working, love can be found and equally important, companionship. What makes this article worthy of mentioning is first, there is hope, and second, promoting yourself on a dating site when you are past your “prime” can be a more honest journey, frankly, from my vantage point. I have been privy, as most of us have, to folks confessing to shaving off years from their age on their profiles. Some of it, as one friend explained, is a tactic to pull in a specific age range. But the other motive seems to be in the service of keeping denial of age alive because older is seen as so unsexy. And isn’t sexy what people are looking for? Really?
Boob Jobs and Hair Dye: For the ladies, advertising that you are 49 when you are 59 probably requires some Botox, a face-lift and perhaps a boob job. For the men, at least some hair dye if not a daily work out at the local gym and regular tooth whitening services. Marketing yourself as attractive is no doubt essential at any age. But when the strain is to appear “hot”, then “hot” is what will be looking for you. Someone in heat, who sees the promise of sexual delight in the offing. Yet for many women and men, sexual delight though always nice, has become less critical over the years with the ebbing of hormones and the deepening awareness of the importance of kindness, companionship, shared interests and trust, either because they learned to value these components in a prior relationship, or realized they were lacking in their previous Coupledom, sadly or tragically lacking.
Market With Your Heart, Not Your Fears Or Fantasies: Viagra certainly has shifted dating for the post-fifty set. Perhaps not all for the good. Men who are recently freed from Coupledom ties, either by death, divorce or a break-up, can embark on a second adolescence, this time with money in their pockets, wheels, no curfews and Viagra in their pill case. Women who have enlarged or reduced their breast area, capped their teeth, or lost twenty pounds may also want to strut their stuff or prove that though someone else traded them in for a younger version, they still “have it.” When women market themselves as “hot”, the fellows who are emboldened, some for the first time, with male performance confidence, hear the lure of the sirens calling from the rocky shores. What a set up. The drive to rework old injuries or redress wrongs or reinvent a self image still bruised from an adolescence long past can produce some pretty humiliating and hurtful dating moments. Instead it would seem more useful and truthful to aim for the folks out there who are looking for what you are truly longing for. If it is sex, then advertise hot. If it is companionship, respect, trust and fun, then provide honesty, affirm interests, describe values but don’t manipulate the outcome based on presumptions of what others out there are looking for. If you want illusion, go to the cinema. If you want reality, own yours and ask for someone else’s. No rabbit in a hat here.
That “Perfect”-ly Human Person: What makes these later-in-life Coupledoms work is that truth about oneself is the cornerstone of trust. Respect for ones needs, attributes and interests means no longer needing to hide or disguise to another what is truly you. The psychological significance of becoming truly yourself, rather than a contrivance of what you imagine, or the culture sells and tells you will be attractive to others, is the greatest asset of all in finding that perfect person with whom to spend the next chapter of your life. That “Perfect”-ly human person that is.
Warning: Before you begin your search, get right with yourself. No need for shame, nor veils nor smoke screens anymore. That is the upside of maturity, so enjoy it.
©Jill Edelman, M.S.W., L.C.S.W. 2011
