While walking around Green Lake today I kept thinking about how the subject of relationships keeps coming up in my life.  On Facebook, on my blog, on Twitter….in my personal life.  Communication seems to be the number one culprit to spoiling a would be healthy relationship.  It is either lacking, missing, or there’s simply too much talking and not enough listening.  In my work I hear all sorts of stories, not just about domestic violence, but about relationships.  “How can I make him love me” is one question that I’ve been asked.  My answer, you can’t.  You have to love you and if he loves you for you, then that matters.  “But I love him so much”…..you love the idea of being in love with him.  I know this all too well, that is how I ended up marrying the first guy who asked me out. 

I never dated in high school.  Not because there weren’t any prospects, but I was told not to.  Yes, it goes back to how my parents raised me, steeped in a religion that only allows marriage and dating within its boxed walls.  So I pretty much had 0 experience with boys.  I ran into marriage with the rose colored glasses and the guy was full of charm, romance, and manners and even liked my mother.  Looking back, of course hindsight is 20/20, I can see the red flags right off.  He was very controlling, but I felt “protected”.  He was very manipulative, but I felt I was “being taken care of”.  My biggest mistake with all of this was I never learned to stand on my own two feet.  I didn’t take the time to “test drive the car” before I purchased.  I married him 6 months after we met.  It was fast, rushed, and I didn’t have time to really think about what I was getting into.

You can read more about my story in my book “Escaping The Glass Cage: A Story of Survival & Empowerment from Domestic Violence” (you can order it here).  But I’m getting off track.  Relationships and communication.  They go hand in hand, yet seem to be the biggest topic of relationship breakdown out there.  I will not say I’m an expert on this subject as I’m still learning the art of communication myself.  But I will share with you what I do know. 

Today I read a wonderful quote:

"Without good communication, a relationship is merely a hollow vessel carrying you along on a frustrating journey fraught with the perils of confusion, projection & misunderstanding." Cherie Carter-Scott

This hit home.  How many times do we feel we are expressing ourselves, baring our soul to our partner, and they simply don’t “get it”?  Let me ask you this, how many times have you listened, really listened to the words between the words, the real message your partner is attempting to convey?  Trust me on this, it isn’t easy.  I have found over the years, those words can be laced with fear, frustration, confusion or simply ignorance.  What to do about it?   This is the conundrum I’ve found myself in and have heard many others in.  There is no magic formula.  It takes work to create a relationship that will last from both parties. 

I’ve had my heart broken plenty of times to know the romance doesn’t last all the time.  You have to take the good with all the ugly too.  We long for love and romance, we watch movies about people who cross the continent to find each other at the top of the Empire State Building and everyone lives happily ever after.  I want to see the life after 10 years.  How did they get along, how did they build their life?   I want to learn what they did to help their life together last so long.  Are they truly happy, or was that simply a journey and did they move on? 

Lots of questions, I know, but I have to ask them.  We each should ask them.  A friend of mine shared a piece from his work and I thought it fit very nicely with this blog:

“Letting go of the ego and living in the flow, you will feel the need to impress, convince or “be right” diminish”.  (pg 131 Practical Spirituality by James Arthur Ray)

So my advise today on relationships and communication is take the time to listen, really listen to what your partner is saying.  Let go of the ego, keep your mouth shut (unless they ask for feed-back) and let them share what it is they are feeling……. without judgment.  The next step of the journey?  We shall see.........

~Kathleen M. Schmidt
www.kathleenmschmidt.com