The “Secret” To Long Term Relationships

Did you see the recent HBO documentary about former Beatle George Harrison called “Living In The Material World?” The documentary was directed by Martin Scorcese and produced by Olivia Harrison, George’s widow to whom he had been married for 23 years.

In the documentary, Olivia is asked, “What is the secret to a long marriage?” After a short pause, she smiled slightly and said, “Don’t get divorced.”

I’ve been married for 38 years and I can tell you that is the best advice anyone can give to those who are wondering how to maintain a long term relationship.

As you know, any relationship of any duration will have ups, downs and in betweens. Like a roller coaster ride, the difference between those who stay together and those who don’t is that those who stay together have decided to not get off the ride while the ride is in progress.

I also ask you to consider that we choose our lives and then forget that we were the ones doing the choosing. Instead, we blame the person we’re in relationship with for the condition of our lives. Then we end the relationship and enter a new relationship in which we recreate the conditions of the old relationship.

The only way we could create a new relationship is if we were new. After all, we’re the only common denominator in all of our relationships. Just as we continue to believe that money will buy happiness, we are sure that some other grass is always greener.

As my friend Sherri Bresn noted in a recent email, “We build our lives around patterns of feelings, beliefs and behaviors. We then repeat those behaviors over and over because then we do not have to think so much about what we are doing... habits die hard.”

A friend of mine is considering divorce because his wife doesn’t like to do the things he likes to do. Of course, the things he likes to do (rock climbing, hiking and biking), he likes to do alone. His main complaint is that his wife won’t do the things with him that he likes to do alone.

It was easy for me to see the paradox in my friend’s behavior, but it’s not so easy to see my own blind spots. That’s why it’s important to listen to the feedback we receive and especially to the feedback about ourselves that we disagree with.

None of this is to suggest that one should stay in a relationship no matter what. I simply intend to point out that our perception of a relationship depends on our point of view about that relationship. Sometimes, we think our point of view is the truth.

Points of view can change. Relationships end when points of view are mistaken for the truth.

The “secret” to a long term relationship is to give up being right and making the other person wrong for being exactly as you want him/her to be.