Vision, Trust, and Teamwork: Rethinking What a Marriage Is For
Peter opened with a pattern he sees in his office. A couple walks in, and one partner (he admitted he was reaching for a stereotype, and said it tends to come from the woman) puts it plainly: I just want to be adored. I want to be cherished. Full stop. Sitting underneath that wish is an assumption about what marriage is for, namely that its job is to make me happy. He disagrees with the premise. Happiness, in his view, isn't the thing you extract from a partner. It's what comes out the other end of shared struggles, shared visions, and the ordinary work of two people pulling in the same direction. Do that, and you tend to feel more contented and more satisfied as a byproduct.
Ellyn picked up the question of what an effective partnership actually looks like, and what the relationship of the future might be built on. Their answer is teamwork. They talk about three things a thriving relationship rests on: vision, trust, and teamwork. Those are the supports.
Peter has a working definition of a couple team, and he repeated it because it matters to him. Two highly interdependent people who share goals and objectives they've agreed on together, and who each hold themselves personally accountable for getting there. Not one person dragging the other. Each individual owning their part of the common aim. That, he said, is what makes two people a team rather than two people who happen to live together.
Erik asked whether the couples arriving for counseling need to be re-taught how to think about their relationships, whether they're missing skills, and what someone watching might do that same day to sharpen their own relationship. Ellyn liked the way he split it into education and skills. Peter cut in with one word: Bingo. Ellyn confirmed it's both.
Then she pointed at how uncommon planning actually is between partners. Think about how seldom couples sit down to build a vision. Early on, during the rush of falling in love, there's plenty of brainstorming. People talk about where they'd live, whether they want kids, all the sketches of a future. But after the commitment is made and the ceremony is behind them, it becomes rare for two people to meet with any regularity, really map out what they're building, and get clear on what they're reaching for together.