Once you have identified the choice you are making, discuss all the “pros” and the “cons” of each scenario. It is important that you allow yourselves to say anything and everything you need to say in this process. Under each scenario, list all the positive aspects (pros) and all the negative aspects (cons) of choosing each scenario. Giving yourselves permission to express your deepest fears, persistent worries and greatest hopes allows you to be honest, truthful and fully self-expressed. When all the pros and cons have been communicated for each scenario, sit back and consider your choice together: “Which possible future are we going to choose?”

Choosing after complete consideration of all the pros and cons of each future scenario is a very powerful act. When you have taken the time to make the choice deliberately and consciously in partnership, it will be easier for you both to accept and deal with any difficulties that arise after you have committed to that future. It can be a very powerful, exciting and intimate experience for you both when you commit to your future together. Take some time and share with each other both your enthusiasm and your fears about the new path you have chosen for your lives together.

If it is hard for you to make the choice together, it is advisable that you continue to discuss your hopes, desires and concerns for various scenarios. You can put off making any commitment until some later time after additional thought, consideration and discussion. By giving yourselves more time and by not forcing the choice when you find yourselves not aligned, you may discover other possible life paths you can consider. Important choices and commitments require your time, energy, and a dedication to arrive at a choice you can both be responsible for and be happy with.

The degree to which an expatriate couple experiences a sense of well-being on assignment in a foreign country impacts not only each person in the family, but also their friends and colleagues. International organizations have a lot at stake in making sure that their expatriate employees are effective and satisfied and that the company’s return on investment is substantial (Corporate Leadership Council, 2002). The importance of a successful adjustment for an expatriate’s accompanying spouse and their children cannot be ignored: Spousal and family dissatisfaction is a significant factor in a couple’s early return from an international assignment (Brookfield, 2011).

Accepting an international assignment together with one’s spouse is not for the faint of heart. To choose an international assignment takes courage and a willingness to risk. Expatriate couples, though, usually consider such a bold choice to be a wonderful adventure that holds the promise of new and exotic experiences. For many couples, it comes as a great surprise when they find out that their adjustment to international living is a lot more difficult than they ever expected. Couples discover very quickly that, to be successful in moving one’s family to a new country, one key ingredient must be present: Partnership.

Living in a country where the customs and norms are at first unfamiliar provides an expatriate couple with great learning opportunities not only to achieve a cross-cultural understanding of their host country, but also to develop a deeper appreciation for their humanity, no matter what the cultural differences are. Not only can living abroad foster the couple’s increased understanding and acceptance of the people in their new culture, but it also offers them an unparalleled opportunity for personal growth and for building the inner resources necessary to confront the challenges that are unique to being expatriates.

Miser & Miser (2009) have made the argument that couples could greatly benefit by having access to couples coaching, if requested, before, during and after an international assignment. By offering couples coaching to expatriate couples, multinational companies make a sound investment in the success of international assignments. When couples have the tools they need to have the important conversations that are required to be successful on an international assignment, they will be able to meet each new challenge with resilience and build the life they envision for themselves and their family.

References

Brookfield Global Relocation Services (2011). Global relocation trends: 2011 survey report. Toronto, Canada: Brookfield GRS.

Corporate Leadership Council (2002). Expatriate programs: Staff selection process. Arlington, VA: Corporate Executive Board.

Miser, A. & Miser, M. (2009). Couples coaching for expatriate couples: A sound investment for international businesses. In M.C. Moral & G. Abbott (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to International Business Coaching (pp. 203-217). New York, N.Y.: Routledge.

Miser, A. & Sjodin-Bunse, O. (2012) Adventures in International Living: The Imperative of Partnership. Unpublished paper, presented at the 2012 annual conference of Families in Global Transition, Washington, D.C.

Fowers (2000) writes that the best marriages are partnerships in which couples are committed to a life of shared meaning by being in alignment around a set of virtues and values and by having a vision for how those principles are expressed in their lives. Fowler (2000) writes that marriage can be thought of as a partnership that allows couples to be powerfully connected through a shared purpose. He recommends that couples articulate their shared values, design a common vision for their lives and shift their focus from emotional gratification to the quality of their marriage and their partnership. He suggests this as a radical view of marriage.

Partnership marriage also requires the sharing of all the day-to-day, logistical, how-are-we-going-to-handle-everything-we’ve-got-to-do kinds of demands. Partners must sort out who is going to do what and when and, like a great pair of jugglers, throwing bowling pins back and forth to each other or, like two trapeze artists, flying through the air and catching each other 50 feet above the circus ring, their daily activity requires daily coordination and commitment. Successful partnership requires coordinated action that leads to a shared sense of satisfaction, competence and teamwork.

The experience of partnership may be challenged when communication breaks down and coordinated action falters. When this occurs, a couple that is committed to partnership will re-connect around what is important to them, their vision for their lives and the quality of their relationship.  They will avoid focusing on who is wrong or who is to blame and instead focus on what on what kind of life they are committed to creating together.  This commitment to creating a life of shared meaning is key to co-creating a partnership marriage.

 References

Fowers, B. (2000) The Myth of Marital Happiness. San Francisco, California: Jossey-Bass, Inc. Publishers.

Harrar, S. & DeMaria, R. (2007) The seven stages of marriage: Laughter, intimacy, and passion, today, tomorrow, and forever. Pleasantville, New York: Reader’s Digest:

The Random House Thesaurus, College Edition. (1984) New York: Random House.

1. First, to create a collage, all you need is a piece of large poster board, scissors, a glue stick and a number of magazines. You can also use any other materials you wish, such as personal pictures, crayons, markers, etc., to construct your collage.

2. Sit together around a table where you can work in partnership. Start by each of you tearing out from 20 to 25 pictures from magazines. Do this activity individually and, at this point in the exercise, avoid sharing the pictures with your partner. These pictures depict images of the vision of you have of your partnership. The vision of your partnership expresses:

• Who you are as a couple

• What you are committed to

• What’s important to you both

• What you care about and value

• What you as a couple contribute to those around us

• What you enjoy co-creating

• What you love doing together

3. After you each have your pictures, spend time, sharing back and forth what each picture represents for you individually. Have a conversation about what is important to you in your relationship. You can write down key words (or values) that you share with each other.

4. Next, work together to create your collage. Together, choose the pictures you both want to include in your collage. Trim the pictures the way you want them. You can first lay all your pictures out on the poster board or you can create the collage as you go. Paste the pictures onto the poster board.

5. Lastly, using the words that you generated, you can create a Vision Statement for your Partnership. Or, you can co-create a poem using the words you have. Or you can simply write the words on the back of the poster board.

6. Have fun creating this with your partner!

7. Place your collage in a prominent location in your home. Share your collage and the Vision of your Partnership with others.

Reference

Miser, A. (2007). Visualize your future together: Use the Merlin Principle! http://www.elysianenterprises.net/partnership-marriage/partnership-marriage-resources. Unpublished paper.

• Couples are too busy to put a priority on their marriage or committed relationship

• Couples get too focused on their children or their work life

• Couples take their partner for granted

• Couples watch too much television or spend too much time on the internet

• Couples stop dating or creating time for their relationship

• Couples are not connected to other couples where they can share their relationship

• Couples disagree about how much work to put into their marriage

Sound familiar?  Here is another perspective:

Adopt the idea that the quality of your marriage is your #1 priority.  Imagine what your life would look like if you made the quality of your relationship and the quality of your marriage your #1 priority.  Ask yourselves the question: “What is possible if we make the quality of our relationship with our spouse or partner a top priority  for the rest of our lives together?”

• What do you see about the quality of your lives over the long run?

• What do you see in your ability to solve problems together?

• What to you see in your ability to work toward and realize not only your individual dreams but also your joint dreams?

• What do you see in how you would parent their children?

• What do you see in the quality of the friendships you have in your lives?

Just for a little contrast, imagine that you both do not make the quality of your relationship your #1 priority. Imagine that there is something always more important that displaces your commitment to the quality of your relationship.  It could be the children, your parents, your finances, your house, or your careers.  Ask yourselves the question: “How is it going to turn out long term if something else is always more important than the quality of our marriage or committed relationship?”

Consider that the quality of your relationship is the context, or the container, for everything else in your life to work. Everything else can occupy an important place inside the context of your marriage and and your commitment to each other.

Appreciation can be thought of the antidote to taking each other for granted.  You can express appreciation through recognizing and sharing with each other the gifts you see in your partner and the gifts of your relationship. Appreciation strengthens the foundation of your partnership.

Find a time and a space to be together. Sit next to each other or across from each other.  Get comfortable. Let go of everything that has been going on in your life during the day. Allow yourselves to just be with each other. Begin to recognize who is there. Be aware of the person across from you.

Take turns sharing with each other what you appreciate about each other using the questions below.

• What I love about you is…

• What I appreciate about you is…

• What I enjoy about being with you is…

• What you contribute to me is…

• What I thank you for is…

Now share with each other what you appreciate about your relationship.

• What I appreciate about our relationship is…

• What I am thankful for in our relationship is…

• What I value about our relationship is…

• What I enjoy about our relationship is…

• What I love about our relationship is…

Appreciation is like a floodlight shining brightly, illuminating the magnificence of your relationship and revealing the quality, the durability, the brilliance and the essence of what you share together.

Reference

Twist, L. (2003). The soul of money: Reclaiming the wealth of our inner resources. W.W. Norton: New York, New York.

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.

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.

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.

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.