We are at the forefront of the dawning of a new age, where people in committed relationships are realizing that they must be intentional, and conscious in learning the behaviors that will give them the safety and passion they dream of. For thousands of years marriage had nothing to do with love. Marriage and happiness were not connected. In the 18th century love relationships were of very little interest because all marriages were arranged by someone’s parents and if it was not arranged, it was illegitimate.
Even today, most of the world still has arranged marriages (80%), since most of the world population lives in Asia. A friend in Japan confirmed this statistic. He told me that in Japan parents hire a marriage broker to match their child up with someone who is compatible. The child may meet 5 -10 possible mates, and they can narrow down which ones the child and parents feel is a good match. It is similar to internet dating.
In the Western culture, we have moved more and more into a time when marriages are free choice and determined by the pull of nature. We have in a sense hired Mother Nature to be our marriage broker. We assume that people know how to manage the love relationship. That they simply have to find the right person. We are all familiar with the myth that “ you will find the right person, and when they appear you will experience a slight sizzle in your neural pathways and possibly in the genital areas. And, you will then know that that person is the right person. And then you will be happy, and you will stay happy, and you will die happy, and you will go to heaven happy, and you will meet that person over there, and all eternity will be taken care of.”
In Western culture we are encouraged to view marriage as a box. First you choose a mate, then you climb into a box. After settling in, you take a close look at your box mate and if you like what you see, you stay put. If you don’t you climb out of the box and scout around for another mate. Marriage is viewed as an unchanging state, and whether or not it works depends on your ability to attract a good partner. The common solution to an unhappy marriage, the one chosen by over fifty percent of all couples is to divorce and start all over again with a new and it is hoped better mate.
The problem with this solution is that there is a lot of pain involved in switching boxes. There is the agony of dividing up children and possessions, the 10,000 slides, pets, and putting aside treasured dreams. Other family members are affected. There is the reluctance to risk intimacy again, fearing that the next relationship too might fail.
Unfortunately, the only alternative many people see to divorce is to stay in the box, tighten the lid, and put up with a disappointing relationship for the rest of their lives. They learn to cope with an empty marriage by filling themselves up with food, alcohol, drugs, activities, work, television, time on the computer, and romantic fantasies, resigning to the belief that their longing for an intimate love will never be realized.
The Imago Theory of Relationships presents a more hopeful and more accurate view of love relationships. Marriage is not a static state between two unchanging people. Marriage is a psychological and spiritual journey that begins in the ecstasy of attraction, meanders through a rocky stretch of self discovery, culminating in the creation of an intimate, joyful, lifelong, union.
Whether or not you realize the full potential of this vision depends not on your ability to attract the perfect mate, but on your willingness to acquire knowledge about hidden parts of yourself.
So, there is something that you can do to prevent being part of the 95 % of all people in relationships who are miserable, in pain, with over half of marriages ending in divorce. That figure is actually %70 if they marry young. Judging from the statistics, marriage is not a happy place with in which most people live.
Imago Theory:
We do know that marriage can be the relationship of your dreams, but not without preparation, and not without committing to becoming intentional and conscious in your relationship. We also know that there is a person who is out there for you, and that you do carry a picture of that person in your mind, and that when you meet them, you will know it, or rather your unconscious mind will know when you have found the right person. Your unconscious mind chooses your partner, not your conscious thoughts of “I love tall dark haired men” or “ I want a woman who are fun and adventurous”.
The Imago theory continues that when you meet the person of your dreams you will in actually fall into “hell” instead of into “heaven”. You will always pick someone who will get you into a mess. And this is the way it should be. Hidden in all of this is all you ever need to know to reach wholeness as an individual and as a couple.
Imago Theory presents couples with theories about relationships, it teaches you specific communication tools, and gives you a road map to help you get the relationship of your dreams. You learn to honor why you do what you do. Knowing that as a child you were brilliant to develop coping mechanisms in relationships with your early care givers. You learned how to behave in relationships, as a child, for a reason, but as an adult this behavior may not work very well. It is as if two children are driving the bus or your relationship. Imago teaches you new ways to talk and to listen with your partner and to your children.
Imago Theory recognizes that some of us had great childhoods and others did not. Some of us bury wounds from childhood that can be healed…but they can only be healed in a primary committed partnership. You carry childhood wounds with you to your committed relationship to be healed there. And the person you are attracted to will bring with him or her, their wounds for you to heal . The part of you that has to be healed will reveal itself in your marriage, that is the power struggle. In Romantic Love we thought we had found the perfect person to heal us in the ways our parents could not. We think that it will only get better. But when Romantic Love ends we begin to realize that we have a huge challenge ahead of us and do not know how to deal with it.
You cannot get ready for or prevent the conflict in a relationship. There is no immunity to the power struggle that comes. It is something that you have to go through. The passage of the power struggle, known as the deep dark valley of growth, is actually a good sign that this is the person you can grow with. You just have to learn the tools to work your way out of the conflict.
Another part of the Imago Relationship Theory states that the character of the person we are attracted to is similar to the caretaker we had the most problem with as a child. The bad news is that the person who wounds you is also the person who has to heal you. The good news is that humans will accept a reasonable facsimile of that parent who heals them in the form of a committed partner. In other words, you do not have to go back to childhood to heal with our caregivers, because your partner will accept you as a healer for their wounds.
Your partner will bring to the alter childhood wounds which will show up shortly after the wedding- 85% of all Americans report that their honey moon was miserable.
You both will carry to that relationship unhealed childhood wounds and unmet needs often resulting in conflict or a power struggle which must be addressed in that relationship. It is in this dissolving of conflict that healing occurs.
Whether you have a good relationship that you want to make greater, or one that is filled with stress, distress, or boredom, or one that you are not sure that you even want too continue being in, there are tools and information that can benefit you. I believe that the Imago Theory of Relationships is information that will change your life.. You can get new knowledge about yourself, your partner, and your relationship and you learn new ways to talk and to listen with your partner and to your children.
These tools can transform your relationship and your life if you commit to learning, and then practice it, make it a part of your life. It is not a magic pill. It requires you to continue the journey step by step, even though there are sure to be bumps in the road.
-There is a saying: If you keep doing what you have been doing, you’re always going to get what you’ve already got – so do something different! Here are some suggestions on how to get the most out of your relationship:
- Be open to the possibility that your partner can change. There is an Indian saying that “If I think I know you, I have killed you in my presence.” We often tend to put people and things into boxes in our brain and decide that this is how they are, this is what it means, this is how they will always be, they will never change…and we don’t allow anything new. Approach them with an open mind, an open heart, and an open spirit to discover something new about yourself, your partner, your relationship. Be curious about this person you are in a relationship with as if you were going to Mexico and expect the people there to speak another language, eat different food and to be truly different from you.
- Focus on your own behavior and attitudes and the impact they seem to have on your partner. Be curious about yourself and about how you might come across to your partner in ways you don’t even realize. Both of you create the climate of your relationship. What are you contributing to the nightmare, what do you contribute to the dream of your relationship. Focus on the steps You need to take.
- Write a relationship vision or goal sheet with your partner. Take a look at your old relationship and decide what parts you want to keep, what things do you do well, and what new things do you want to make a part of your new relationship vision. Start being a listener and a healer for your partner.
Adapted from “Getting the Love You Want” by Harville Hendrix, Ph.D.