Walk in the Glow of Each Other's Majestic Presence

What qualities do you most value in your partner?

I think the single most important quality for me is happiness. Many people seem wired to find the negative in every situation, to worry about what might happen around the corner and down the road, and to rehearse every grievance until it's wrung of every drop of anger and indignation. I can't live with that--when I try, I spend way too much energy trying to cheer the person up, find the bright side, make their life easy in hopes of their finding happiness with me, which many people just aren't going to do. Realizing this was a major breakthrough in my relationship history and made me value Jason's essential good humor enormously.



A deep sense of commitment is also key for me. I was raised by parents who were married for life and being able to make and live that kind of partnership was something that I was always looking for. Jason sometimes says that for him the best thing about being married was letting go of the decision--it was made and he no longer has to wonder whether or not to marry, because he did. This plays out not only in just not separating, but in showing up every day to make our lives together good, in being willing to work on our communication and find ways to enhance our connection and our mutual ease and happiness.



Being openly loving is also very important. We sometimes call it "The Love Game," taking joy in finding ways to say and show that we love each other every day, finding new games to play together, new inside jokes that reinforce our connection. I see other couples who seem to revel in something different, in teasing each other with dislike, and while I get that joking about it might release steam, or disarm the negative potential of the relationship, that's not a comfortable way of interacting for me. Physical affection is an important part of this--we touch each other often, we hug many times throughout the day, and the best part of every day is holding each other as we fall asleep.



I don't think I could be partnered with someone who didn't share a basic curiosity about the world, an eagerness to try new things, travel to other parts of the world, try new foods, or share cool articles about science and interesting insights about the human condition. We can spend hours together talking about everything and nothing, because each of us is interested in how the other sees the world and in sharing what we see with each other.



A willingness to be a full partner is another essential quality. Jason and I have different strengths, but we are working together toward the same goals. We communicate freely about our priorities. We share values. We are here for each other, whether that's maintaining a balance in chores, or figuring out how to parent equitably. We're not using each other to get what we each want, we're cooperating to get what both of us want, and each other's happiness is vitally important. We love working together and are able to spend the bulk of our time in the same space. I've heard it said that in all relationships there is one who loves more, but our love is intense on both sides and very well balanced. I feel incredibly privileged to have found a partner like this.

Lastly, but perhaps most importantly, it matters enormously to me that we enable each other to be our best selves and give each other the freedom to do that. Given what interdependent lives we lead, I think it would be impossible without the counterweight of respect and independence that suffuses our relationship.



In swimming lessons, we always had to have a buddy. It was your responsibility to know where your buddy was, to stick together, and when the whistle blew, to find each other and keep each other safe. That's one of the things that marriage is--a hand to grab in the deep water when the whistle blows. It's good to have a buddy.

As most of you know, I record textbooks for Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic. This week I was assigned to a textbook I've read parts of in earlier sessions that deals with language deficits and impairments. I was reading the chapter about school-age children and was impressed with how it outlined the specific and complex language tasks that are part of everyday school experience (e.g. quickly switching modalities between listening/speaking/reading/writing, following a story (holding information in memory and retrieving it to make connections with new material) and answering questions about it, participating in class discussions, etc.) and the ways in which even minor language impairment can make these tasks extremely challenging.

One of the issues that it raised was a completely new thought for me, although one that was immediately obvious once raised: people with language impairment have difficulty establishing close peer relationships. I thought about it, about how hard it is to be friends with someone who doesn't understand the conversational turn-taking exchange, who may not respond or respond with entirely irrelevant statements, who may respond to direct questions without adding anything or asking follow-up questions, who may have significant trouble retrieving words in realtime. Of course that would make things difficult.

Then I started thinking about my closest friends and the ways in which our very similar levels of language proficiency play a huge part in our relationship. Being able to depend on them to understand what I say and to explain what they mean and to be willing to do both is key. That led to thinking about the many brilliant and interesting people of my acquaintance who do seem to have the kinds of language deficits under discussion in the book, but whose high intelligence has permitted them to establish coping strategies and excel in other ways, such that their deficit is not perceived, or attributed to personality quirk.

I think this line of thought may be spooling through my general pondering for quite a while. Don't be surprised if I try to talk to you about it.

Last week there was an article in the Globe about the book Unhooked: How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love and Lose at Both, which examines "hookup culture" among college-aged women.

A friend asked me what I thought of it and I said that it sounded like the latest "our teenagers are making bad choices!" hullaballoo and that my guess is that there's much more variety among people's experiences than books like this make out.

Today there's an article in Slate that gets at some of the issues I had with the Globe article (and what I can tell from these pieces about the book).

I'd be interested to hear from folks currently in that demographic, or working with same, about how prevalent this "culture" really is and what opinions you have of the phenomenon.

I had a conversation this evening that was, in part, about how much enthusiasm it's good to show in the very early days of a relationship and how one can scare off potential partners by "coming on too strong". ( ... )

A couple of friends have been going through breakups and I've had some conversations about breakups with other people recently, so this stuff has been floating around in my head. I've generally been pretty good at them, though I've made my own mistakes. I have hurt people and I have been deeply hurt. I've learned what works for me...it may be the case that nothing I've learned would work for anyone else. But it seems from observation that most other people go through much more prolonged pain and anger than I do. So I thought I'd offer these tips to the universe and if you happen to find something useful, feel free to make it your own. If you think I'm talking about you, you're probably wrong.

( Breaking Up Is Hard to Do )