In a committed relationship, couples unwittingly adopt joint perspectives or ways of seeing their world together that have great impact on the quality of their relationship. Some couples view their lives together through a joint perspective that they are sharing an exciting adventure. There are couples that view their relationship as hard work requiring much effort, while other couples see their relationship as easy and carefree. Still, other couples view their relationship as being a problem that needs to be fixed. These perspectives are not necessarily permanent; in fact, couples can find themselves shifting perspectives about their relationship at different points in their journey together. The point is that whatever perspective the couple has adopted for their lives and relationship will impact their experience of living and shape the very reality they share at that time.

Synonyms of “unwitting” include unknowing, unintentional, inadvertent, unthinking, unmeant, unpremeditated, unplanned for, unexpected, involuntary, and without consent. An unwitting perspective is an undistinguished perspective that is shaping the worldview of the couple. It is a point of view that is limiting what they see as possible and, as a result, is constraining their action. Such an unwitting viewpoint, since it is unintentional, unknown and inadvertent, holds great sway in the relationship without the couple being aware of it. All that the couple may know is that things in their relationship are not working as well as they would like them to.

An unwitting perspective is like wearing a pair of rose-colored glasses without recognizing that the circumstances have a rose-colored tint to them. It is like a filter that only allows information through that conforms to its framework. “We have to work hard in life to get ahead.” “We never have any time to do what we really want to do.” “We can never do anything spontaneous.” “Money is scarce.” Such frameworks, when they operate outside awareness have powerful impact on the lives of two people in a committed relationship.

Couples that are committed to bringing partnership fully into their lives work together to become aware of unwitting perspectives that keep a lid on what is possible for them in life. To be jointly aware that there are unwitting perspectives at play in the dynamics of their relationship can give a couple great power in not being stopped or hindered in having the life they envision together. By becoming cognizant of and being responsible for unwitting perspectives, a couple can then co-invent new empowering perspectives that give them access to a new level of possibility, partnership and passion.

Another way you and your partner co-create your lives is through inventing a future for your partnership. To create the future, first anchor yourselves in what you value and in the vision you have for your relationship. Then, visualize and share with each other your dreams of your future, irrespective of time. As you share your vision of your future, step into those future images and experience what it is like having that future be real and manifested in the world. Where are you living? How does it feel for you both? What do you experience? What does it look like? What is it that lights you up about what you visualize? Examine all the areas of your life, such as your home, family, friends, community, work, career, retirement, play, recreation, and health.

As you stand in the future you are co-creating, you are using the same abilities that Merlin the Magician used as mentor to the great King Arthur of the Round Table. Merlin had an uncanny ability to see the future before it occurred. The process of standing together and visualizing images of the future gives you, as a couple, a magic wand like that of Merlin the Magician. The “Merlin Principle” applied to couples is the phenomenon of looking from the future to the present time which allows a couple to see, feel and sense their future in a clear and tangible way.

Once you share and experience your possible desired future together, you can choose and align on a time frame for the manifestation of the future you have both co-created. You can choose a time frame of 25, 15, 10, 5, or 2 years. Standing together in your co-invented future, you can view the path from the future to the present moment and see clearly what actions you took and what you accomplished along the way. You can also see when those actions and accomplishments occurred. Working from the future (say, 10 to 15 years out) to the present time, you can articulate, in a timeline, the milestones, accomplishments and the actions that naturally occurred on the path to your future.

Committing together to the future you have co-created is essential for expressing your partnership in action. Almost immediately after making this commitment to your future, you will see a host of “partnership projects” needed to fulfill on the future you have envisioned. You will experience an alignment of focus and action when you undertake these partnership projects as an expression of your commitment to make manifest your future.

References

Smith, C.E. The Merlin Factor: Leadership and strategic intent. Business Strategy Review, Oxford University Press, 5(1), Spring, 1994.

Many couples early in their relationship set up a model of responsibility that could be called 50% – 50%. If each person in the partnership does their 50%, then all 100% of what needs to be done gets accomplished and presumably both partners will be happy and satisfied. The 50% – 50% model is an additive model. While this model appears to have its merits, it is insufficient to creating a true partnership. As soon as one of the partners does not do “their” 50% in the relationship, the other partner may experience a sense of being taken advantage of by the other person. It is a model that is based on what each person is doing in a relationship, rather than based on who each person is being for the relationship.

A committed relationship requires a model of 100% – 100% responsibility. Responsibility in this framework is the act of owning one’s own happiness and creating one’s responsibility for it by saying: “I am completely responsible for my happiness. And while I am not responsible for my partner’s happiness, I am committed to it.” The corollary to this is also very powerful: Each person is responsible for his or her unhappiness and not responsible for the other’s unhappiness. This clear understanding of responsibility, together with a commitment to each other’s happiness is an important aspect of workability in a partnership.

If both partners are responsible for their own happiness and committed to the happiness of each other, who then is ultimately responsible for the workability of the relationship as a whole? Both partners are. Both partners naturally commit themselves to being 100% responsible for the workability in their committed relationship. Each person views himself or herself as being the relationship.

In giving advice on marriage, the Prophet (by Kahlil Gibran) says, “And stand together, yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, and the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.” Like two strong pillars, partners are compassionately committed not only to the well being, success and fulfilment of each other but also to that of their relationship.

References

Gibran, K. (1923) The Prophet. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Publishers.

Another area where couples can co-create their lives together is when they are articulating a vision for the quality of their lives and their relationship. A vision conveys what a couple wants to express in life as the fulfillment of their partnership. It is not just the achievement of life goals or objectives. A vision for one’s relationship represents what a couple stands for together in the world. A vision could be thought of as a co-created stand for one’s quality of living that touches others around them. This quality of living is an expression of the couple’s values and what they deem as important for their life together.

Vision is often associated with organizational change as it is well recognized that a powerful vision is crucial to inspiring and motivating people as well as providing a direction and a mindset for success (Miser, 2006). Similarly, couples expressing partnership in their lives co-envision the desired quality of life together and, then, standing in that vision, take action to bring what they imagine together into reality. When thinking about  married couples on a long journey over the course of their life span, it is easy to see the importance for them to be able to co-create a vision for their partnership on a renewable and periodic basis.

Martha Miser (2006), in her article “Vision: The Engine of Change“, articulates the six “Golden Rules” of vision that hold as true for a committed couple or a “partnership of two,” as they do for employees of a multinational corporation. These “Golden Rules” as applied to couples are:

• A vision is purposely and consciously co-created by the couple

• A vision is a flexible and dynamic process

• A vision is always about greatness

• A vision is both future focused and grounded in reality

• A vision does not tell the couple how to get there

• A successful vision is shared by the couple

Zander and Zander (2000) distinguish “vision” in their book on personal and professional transformation, The Art of Possibility, as articulating possibility, fulfilling a fundamental desire of humankind, making no reference to morality or ethics, and being a freestanding and timeless picture. A vision co-created by a committed couple is their stand for the kind of world they a committed to co-creating as an expression of their partnership. It might be expressed as a set of descriptive phrases that capture the essence of life itself. Below is an example of such a vision as expressed by one couple. They entitled the vision of their partnership, “Our World.”

Visionary, inspired leadership

Big sky, nature calling forth the human spirit

Powerful, natural beauty

Wonderment and mystery

Appreciating history

Respect and tolerance

Healing, wholeness, and forgiveness

Joy, music and dancing

Grace

Self-expression, magnificence and adventure

No one left out

Co-creating a vision for which the couple stands is a powerful way to have one’s partnership expressed in the world. Standing in that vision, the couple is able to powerfully co-create their future together.

References

Miser, M. (2006) Vision: The engine of change. Unpublished paper.

Zander, B., & Zander, R. S. (2000) The art of possibility: Transforming professional and personal life. Harvard Business School Press: Boston, Massachusetts.

The “Tao” is Chinese for “the way.” For committed couples, there is a natural flow in which effective action tends to move. Two partners come together and plan an activity, create an idea, invent a vision or design a project. After co-creating some aspect of their lives, they move into action. They participate together, they collaborate, they cooperate in their venture and they fulfill their plans. Then, after taking action, they jointly look at what they have accomplished and what results they now have in their lives.

The Tao of partnership is the processes of co-creation, cooperation, and co-ownership. The prefix, “co,” in front of the words “creation,” “operation” and “ownership” means “together, with, joint, or equally.” The prefix refers to two people jointly engaged in the activities of creating, operating and owning, with each other and as equals.

The act of co-creation could be seen as a pre-requisite for true partnership. From the first day that two people who form a relationship meet, they are co-creating their relationship. At different points in their relationship, when they date exclusively, when they become engaged and when they get married, two people are co-creating their lives by making promises and commitments to each other.

Over time, couples honor what they co-create by continually recommitting themselves to their relationship and by taking action that not only expresses the values and vision of their relationship, but also fulfills the future they see for themselves. They see what they have in their lives as an expression of the quality of their partnership. Couples in true partnership co-create their lives, cooperate in their daily lives with one another and co-own life together. Over their life span, couples in a partnership marriage express themselves repeatedly through the processes of co-creation, cooperation, and co-ownership.

The foundation of a partnership rests on a set of shared values that guide your choices and actions in life together. The values you share with your partner can be seen as intrinsic to your “couple-ness.” Your values reflect the very heart and soul of your relationship or your “us-ness.” Some couples value mutual understanding, validation, openness, compromise, and friendship. Other couples value individuality, expressiveness, and passion. Still other couples value harmony, common ground, and autonomy. Couples who share and co-create shared values can have a very successful partnership in their marriage over the long-term (Gottmann, 1994).

When a couple co-creates and embodies shared values in their daily lives together, they express what is fulfilling to their relationship (Whitworth, Kimsey-House, & Sandahl, 1998). The couple expresses what is important to them through their words, their actions and their accomplishments. People around them, their friends and families, experience their “couple-ness” in palpable and real ways. The qualities that make their relationship unique and special communicate and radiate to everyone around them.

Whitworth, Kimsey-House, & Sandahl (1998) wrote that a valued life is a fulfilling life and a life lived as a “radical act.” When one thinks of the word “radical,” one thinks of going to an extreme; however, this is not what is meant in this context. The dictionary definition of “radical,” as an adjective, is “of or from the root or roots, going to the center, foundation, or source of something; fundamental; basic: as a radical principle” (Webster’s New World Dictionary, 1957).

Couples who articulate and generate their core values are able to co-create a foundation for their relationship that is strong and durable. They share their “couple-ness” powerfully with others. As a couple, your alignment around what is important to you contributes quietly, gently yet powerfully to everyone you touch. As partners in life, your gift is giving the possibility and value of your “couple-ness” to others.

References

Gottman, J. (1994). Why marriages succeed or fail: And how you can make yours last. New York: Simon and Schuster.

Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language, College Edition. (1957) New York: The World Publishing Company.

Whitworth, L., Kimsey-House, H, & Sandahl, P. (1998) Co-active coaching: New skills for coaching people towards success in work and in life. Palo Alto, California: Davies-Black Publishing.

To create partnership in your marriage or your committed relationship, adopt the perspective that for your relationship to work, it must work for both of you. A relationship can only be a partnership when it is collaborative and a “win” for both of you and for your relationship.

A partnership by its very nature requires a context of “you and me.” The context of “you and me” provides a powerful perspective that includes both persons and creates a perspective that for the relationship to be successful, it must be a “win-win” proposition for both persons. Each individual’s needs, desires, and goals must be satisfactorily met as well as those of the relationship. Each person in the committed relationship must be committed to having the partnership work for both of them, individually as well as collectively.

Two people cannot have a sustainable relationship if one of them feels that what is going on in the relationship is not working for him or her. If the relationship is not working for one person, it cannot work for the other person or for their partnership. To sustain a partnership over time, two people must become aware that the perspective “win-lose” does not and cannot work; it is, in fact, an illusion. If one person in the relationship feels that they are “losing” or not getting their needs, desires, or dreams fulfilled, then the other person will be losing as well. In the “game of relationship,” two people are either winning (win-win) or two people are losing (lose-lose). To be committed to having things work in a partnership is to be committed to “the relationship will work for both of us.”

Welcome to my new blog, Partnership Marriage.

I have been married to my wife, Martha, for 37 years. We have three grown children and now are enjoying a mature partnership seasoned by many challenges over the last three and a half decades.

I am a professional coach and consultant with a real interest in supporting couples in having the tools to assist them in building a lasting partnership in their life together. I am troubled by the high divorce rate in the United States and am interested in contributing to improving family life by working with couples who are committed to an enduring, fulfilling life together.

My purpose is creating a world in which having an enduring, fulfilling partnership over a lifetime is possible for all couples who are married or in a committed relationship. I work with a whole host of couples, including expatriate couples who are living and working internationally, empty nesters who are recreating their lives after their children have left home, couples who have children with developmental and medical disabilities, newlyweds, gay and lesbian couples, and couples who are juggling a full life with managing dual careers and raising children.

I have developed an innovative coaching curriculum for couples, called Partners in Living.  Check out the services I offer to couples on my Partnership Marriage page.

Again, welcome to my blog, Partnership Marriage!

Andy Miser