Hidden Dimensions of Relationships

What can we learn about relationships from physics?
The super string theory has proposed that inside of the tiny quarks that are inside protons and neutrons are vibrating strings, minuscule filaments vibrating at different frequencies. This theory supports the idea that there are more dimensions of space than the three of which we are aware. A fascinating theory that may help explain why the universe operates the way it does.

I started wondering if this idea of unseen dimensions might also be applied to relationships. In any relationship there is the outward behavior of each partner and the words they speak. This dimension is visible to both partners. Then there is the dimension of each person’s thoughts, which though not visible, but both partner know exists. The next dimension is the beliefs held by each partner. These beliefs may not always be within the awareness of either partner, but they can be uncovered with a little effort. And inside is the vibrating energy of the subconscious.

Subconscious, just like the vibrating filaments in super string theory, is not something that we can see, but non-the-less it helps explain why people operate the way that they do.

Your beliefs whether you are aware of them or not, to a great extent determine your thoughts, words and behavior. Everything that you see, hear and know about your relationship is filtered through your belief dimension.

When your partner’s behavior does not make any sense to you, it is because you are trying to understand their behavior while looking through your belief dimension. In order to begin to understand their behavior you need to step out of your self, in a sense, and attempt to see through their belief dimension. What some have termed, walk a mile in their shoes, or see things from their perspective.

This is not something that we can ever totally do, but we can get much better at making an effort to see things from our partner’s perspective.

You could try reversing roles in your head. Become your partner in your head, not to prove that you could handle things better than they do or that you would make different or better choices, but to pause and think what would it be like to be on the receiving end of your behavior. How would it feel to be treated the way you treat your partner, if you were your partner? If your answer is an automatic “great” then it may be possible that you are still seeing things from your own perspective rather than theirs.

Susan Derry, B.Ed., M.S.Psy., R.P.C.
Professional Counselor & Life Coach

Co-author of Marriage Prep: Beginnings a downloadable marriage preparation course

Co-author of Intimate Sex: Manual for Lovemaking, a sex manual for couples

Offers a free Nurturing Marriage Ezine

Marriage: Now Is the Time

In today’s fast paced world we quite often forget to take care of ourselves, not only physically but emotionally and spiritually as well. All three of these areas have a huge impact on our relationships with our spouse. The tried and true answer to resolving these issues is time.

Time can be our friend or our enemy. If we ignore the passage of time thinking that we’ll get to those issues later we will find that later, like tomorrow, never comes. Our health, physical, emotional, and spiritual health needs to be a priority. If we think about the time we spend preparing for a career and in performing in that career we can be astounded by how much effort we put into it.

Now just think about your physical health. How much time and effort do you put into that? For some of us health issues have made us more conscious of what is needed to stay fit but just look at the national averages for overweight and obese people. The figures are shocking. And even more shocking are the rates of divorce in our society today. These are proof of the fact that we let our spiritual and emotional health issues run unchecked and unattended.

Time is the answer. This is a fact, it takes time to become emotionally ill in your relationship and it will take time and effort to heal those relationships. Again it is a matter of setting priorities. Ask yourself why it is you work so hard at your job, for a great many it is to support their family. Yet if they are not working just as hard at making their families strong and healthy then all the monetary wealth will have no impact at all except to create bigger problems in the divorce.

The time needed does not have to come in big bunches, in fact in the big picture the little bits of time spent on a consistent basis are more effective than the big chunks all at once. Little things like saying good-bye before you go and giving an approximate time when you will be back. And if you can’t make that then the little time spent in making a call to say you’ll be late. A brief moment spent daily in hugging and saying I love you reaps rewards for a long time after.

Time scheduled for each other as “our time” is wonderful relationship medicine. This is a time when each of your know that you have the others undivided attention to discuss daily problems, situations and schedules. To talk about plans for future dates and holidays. To tell each other about your day, week, month, year and life. Discuss the things that are bothering you, things that make you happy, things that are going wonderfully and things that are not. Let each other know about your hopes and fears, about your dreams for the future and each other.

Time means caring when shopping for a gift or making a surprise date for each other. Time spend in taking care of your share and more of the household chores can say so much more about how much you love and care for each other than your words. All of these require little amounts of your time but large amounts of your heart and thoughts and this tells the other that you do care.

The time for doing these things is all the time, right now, in fact, you should have started during courtship. If there have been lapses in these types of behaviors and some emotional spam has intruded into your relationship then the time to rectify it is now, immediately. But know this that it will take almost as much, if not even more, time to fix the issue as it did to create it.

A hero is not one who does the major thing once in a long time; a hero goes about daily doing the little things that make everything run smoothly.

It’s your time so use it wisely.

Dallas Munkholm, B.A., B.Com., R.P.C.
Professional Counselor & Life Coach

Co-author of Marriage Prep: Beginnings a downloadable marriage preparation course

Co-author of Intimate Sex: Manual for Lovemaking, a sex manual for couples

Offers a free Nurturing Marriage Ezine

Marriage: Wake Up from the Trance

Have you ever felt that you were just going through the motions in your relationship? The days pass, you get up, you do the same things, you have the same conversations, you have the same arguments. Maybe you have begun to feel that you are two ships passing in the night. There is so much to get done and so much going on that you have lost track of the “us.” You may be in kind of a “marriage trance” where you are going through the motions of being married, but you have lost the concern and closeness that you once felt for each other.

A Princeton Theological Seminary did a study on compassion. A group of Divinity Students, were given an assignment to prepare a sermon. Half of the students were assigned to prepare a sermon on the topic of the Good Samaritan, the man who stopped to help another man in need at the side of the road, and half were assigned other sermon topics. Then the students were told they had to go to another building to present their sermon. Some of the students were told that they had to rush to be on time to present their sermon and others were told that they had plenty of time. As they went to the building to present their sermon they each passed a man who was bent over and moaning.

Interestingly they found that whether the student stopped to help the man had little to do with their sermon topic. Their decision to stop and help was more related to how much of a hurry they were in—how much they were focused on what they were doing rather than on what was going on around them.

Each of us is hard wired to be able to empathize with other people. We are able to feel their pain. So why is it that partners fail to empathize with each other? Perhaps it is because they are so absorbed in their own thoughts, their own feelings and their own busyness that they do not actually “see” their partner.

They may make assumptions about what their partner is or should be feeling. When their partner tries to talk to them, they are so busy defending their position that they do not really hear what their partner is saying. They are so focused on their own hurt or their own “rightness” that they are unable to “get” what their partner is saying.

It is important to wake up and allow yourselves space and time to notice each other and to notice what life is like from the other’s perspective. Take time to really focus on your partner and be open to hearing and accepting their thoughts and feelings.

We have found in our counseling practice that once partners can really listen to and understand each other, they begin to empathize and problems become much more solvable. There is an “aha” moment when you suddenly see your own behavior as if through the eyes of your partner. In other words you can begin to understand how what you are doing feels to them. Waking from your marriage trance can transform your relationship.

Susan Derry, B.Ed., M.S.Psy., R.P.C.
Professional Counselor & Life Coach

Co-author of Marriage Prep: Beginnings a downloadable marriage preparation course

Co-author of Intimate Sex: Manual for Lovemaking, a sex manual for couples

Offers a free Nurturing Marriage Ezine