- “The only trick in life is to be grateful for your highs and graceful with your lows.”— George Pransky
No two persons are in the same reality nor will ever be in the same reality all the time.
The energy put in trying to change one another is therefore futile in a marriage relationship.
A failure to recognise this simple fact has resulted in much heartbreak and marital stress.
Much of my understanding of marriage in the context of how life is experienced from the inside out rather than from the outside in is drawn from the book, “The Relationship Handbook” by George Pransky, PhD.
On page 9 of the book, George had this to say, “If you read this book with an open mind you will see there is an easy way to be together in a relationship.
Maybe someday a child would ask “why were there so many unhappy marriages back in the 1990s and before?” Her parents might respond: “I don’t really know. I guess people just didn’t understand relationships in those days.
I am so glad we have this understanding now.
Pransky, a marriage counsellor for over forty years states further that the cause of marital problems is bad software — a misunderstanding of the deeper dynamics of a relationship.
He explores some common themes around which much misunderstanding lies.
The first challenge is that of incompatibility. We are just incompatible – many couples will argue.
Viewed from our learning that we experience life based on our programmed way of looking at things and not the very things themselves, we can examine this issue a little further.
Let’s take the case of a couple where one likes to go to church and the other does not. Is this couple incompatible? One person will say yes, and a second person will say they complement one another.
So, which one are they? Incompatible or complimentary? Our state of mental health will adjust based on the internal judgement we make in the moment.
Incompatibility will evoke stress and discomfort while complementarity will evoke comradeship. Do we as free agents have a choice in the moment?
Before I continue the discourse on incompatibility, I will like to digress and talk a little bit about MOODS.
Nothing affects the way we look at things in life like the mood that we are in.
In an earlier article, I described our troubled thoughts like mud water in a glass. If you do nothing, the mood will settle, if you continually trouble the glass of mud water by interference, the mud water will remain for as long as you continue to interfere.
One of the key masteries of life that many are not willing to subject themselves to is a self-awareness of their mood.
You see, our moods are constantly changing from moment to moment and day to day.
Many children often get worried when their parents show different reactions to the same behaviour.
Parents who are not self-aware and who do not know how moods colour our outlook are blind to the fact that they are likely to respond differently to the same behaviour of their kids under different moods.
The reality is that we see things from the mood we are in.
Series by Tunde Ekpekurede