Kirshenbaum, Mira - Too Good to Leave, Too Bad to Stay

For example, the fact that you both think screwball comedies from the thirties are wonderfully funny may be a way that you’re the same, but there’s got to be something deep down this similarity is about. If it’s about sharing a deeply nostalgic view of life or sharing a madcap, devil-may-care attitude, then your similarity is about something. But if your having some preference in common doesn’t go any deeper, you’re really just two strangers who by the luck of the draw happen to like the same movies.

I knew a couple who answered question #21 by saying they both loved to go for walks in the woods. This is certainly a real if small lifestyle similarity. And they’re certainly similar with respect to liking the same thing. But here’s why they ended up being happy they broke up. They realized that their both liking to walk in the woods wasn’t about anything that made them similar to each other in any deep-down way. It wasn’t about a deep and special kind of love of nature that made them feel they specially fit together. Instead they both liked walking in the woods the way two people chosen at random might both like pepperoni pizza or might both think that yellow is the perfect color for a taxicab. It’s a land of superficial similarity that doesn’t go anywhere or add up to anything.

I keep thinking about Gertrude Stein’s comment about Oak-land, California: “There’s no there there.” What she meant was that there was no downtown where everyone comes together. And for this couple, just because they liked walking in the woods didn’t mean there was any deep-down similarity where they could both come together. This is a ticklish, subjective issue but the guideline is real and true.

GUIDELINE #21

If you truly feel that your partner is like you in some way that’s meaningful and that you feel good about, there’s a real chance your relationship is too good to leave. But if there’s no similarity at all in any way that’s important to you—so that you feel as if your partner is alien—most people in similiar situations ended up being happy if they left. Quick take: Somehow, somewhere, when you look deep in your partner’s eyes you’ve got to be able to see yourself.

I sometimes call this the I-married-a-Martian factor. It’s what leads people after decades of marriage to say “We just have nothing in common.” It’s not about the width or number of your differences. It’s about finding an utter gap, however narrow, in that one place where you were counting on there being no differences.

The Mystery of Difference

Now, I hope, you see more clearly through the mystery of difference in relationships, of how some differences mean everything and other differences mean nothing. There’s always the possibility that you can ignore or resolve your differences, most of them anyway, even seemingly huge and annoying ones.

But not when the very way you live that you care most about is at stake. And not when there’s no deep and meaningful bridge of similarity to connect you. You need to feel you can give yourself permission to not be with someone who in every way feels like a Martian to you.

What I’ve seen in relationships is that just the way a picture’s worth a thousand words, a deep and basic similarity that’s meaningful to both people can overcome a thousand differences in creating a satisfying relationship. But without that similarity, even one difference can be unbearable agony.

13

If Ever I Should Leave You

Issue: Post-relationship Options

TUNNEL VISION

While I was leading one couples group a while back, a woman started complaining that her husband was “no Mel Gibson.”

Another woman leaned forward and said, “Honey, you couldn’t get Mel Gibson. So let go of it.”

The second woman not only made an important point, she opened the door to a whole set of considerations that are often neglected by people trying to figure out what to do with an iffy relationship:

If you’re trying to decide if you’ll be happiest if you stay or leave, you can’t look only at what’s going on in your relationship. You have to look at what your options are outside of it and at how clearly and realistically you’ve been thinking about them.

And that’s what I’ll help you do here. You might be thinking your relationship is too bad to stay in because you’re looking forward to something after you leave that just isn’t going to happen. You might be thinking your relationship is too good to leave because you’re afraid of something out there that just isn’t out there. The questions here will help you peek over the rim of your relationship and see what’s on the other side. If you don’t look at the big picture, you’re headed for big trouble.

That probably sounds like the last thing you want to hear. If you’ve been wrestling with whether it’s best for you to stay or leave, it probably feels as though you’ve been thinking too much about what’s waiting for you on the other side. How will you be able to afford a new apartment? How big a burden will childcare or child support be? What new relationships will you find?

I’m sure you’ve been thinking about all kinds of practical details. But my job is to share with you the experiences of people who’ve gone through what you’re going through now. And they tell me that while you probably have thought about all kinds of things, you’ve also quite possibly not thought about something really important.

Ask the Experts

If you could boil down what people who’ve been there learned, it would be this: “I had plenty of worries, but looking back I can see that I spent too little time checking into what my alternatives were outside the relationship. I was way too passive about discovering what it really would be like to leave and whether it would be better or worse than what I had. I kept looking at the little picture of this or that about my partner or this or that hope or fear about what it would be like if I left, when I should’ve been looking at the big picture.”

Inside the tunnel of relationship ambivalence, what you see is how stuck you feel and the endless realities of your current life and a few scary or enticing slivers of what awaits you on the other side. You’ve got to get outside that tunnel if you want to clearly see what your options are.

Let me illustrate how examining your options more fully makes all the difference.

Outside the Tunnel

Suppose you were deciding whether to spend a few thousand dollars going away for your summer vacation or just staying home. If you’ve fallen victim to tunnel vision, all you’ll be able to think about is whether to go and spend the money or not go and not spend the money.

But that’s a big mistake. Outside the tunnel, looking at the big picture, what you really have is a choice between what you get spending the money on a vacation and what you get spending the money on whatever else it is you’d spend it on if you didn’t go on vacation. The vacation that sounded so great might not sound so great if you thought you could get a remodeled bathroom or a down payment on a nice new car instead.

But the vacation might sound better than you first thought if you knew yourself well enough to know that if you didn’t go you’d just spend the money on side trips and eating out that wouldn’t add up to the pleasure a real vacation would give you.

I know it sounds awfully crass to compare the most heartfelt decision imaginable with spending money. But the point is that figuring out the choice that’s best for you requires that you look at the whole picture. Here’s what happens if you don’t.