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This post is really a first-person account. Regret­tably,  I have spent a good part of my life work­ing around prob­lems, often not solv­ing them — let alone dis­cov­er­ing the gen­e­sis of fric­tion and strife. Unfor­tu­nately, the rather toxic byprod­uct of this behav­ior can be resent­ment and frus­tra­tion. I think going through a divorce caused (read: forced) me to take a long look at my behav­ior. It’s so easy to say it was the other person’s fault; but the real work comes when you take a look in the mir­ror, fig­u­ra­tively.  What did I do, or what have I done to cre­ate prob­lems in my rela­tion­ship? Inter­est­ingly enough, a lot of us are will­ing to have that inter­nal query. We usu­ally go off in one of two direc­tions — denial (most com­mon) or admission.

I think the haz­ards of denial are pretty obvi­ous, so I won’t dwell on that. I would offer that an admission, without a com­mit­ment to intro­spec­tion, humil­ity and hard work, can be just as threat­en­ing to a rela­tion­ship as denial.

Again, speak­ing first hand, I had to look at my pat­tern of admit­ting prob­lems and think­ing, “Viola! Prob­lem solved.” I wasn’t even aware that my logic was, if I admit­ted that I had a prob­lem my sig­nif­i­cant other should take the vic­tory of the admis­sion. For a lot of peo­ple, acknowl­edg­ing a prob­lem exists is a huge hur­dle. Thus, I think when peo­ple finally ‘fess up, they feel the weight has been lifted. No longer do they have the bur­den of hid­ing that issue. When the prob­lem arises, post-admission, the excuse given to the sig­nif­i­cant other often is some­thing akin to, “Well, I already admit­ted that’s a prob­lem for me.”  There is a rea­son why admis­sion of a prob­lem is the first step on just about every recov­ery pro­gram in exis­tence. With­out acknowl­edge­ment that a prob­lem exists, you can­not really move on to exam­in­ing the root cause(s) of the prob­lem, as well as fig­ur­ing out a path for mov­ing for­ward. I’m care­ful not to say move past a prob­lem because so many of us want to merely  move around or cir­cum­nav­i­gate a prob­lem instead of doing the hard work of mov­ing through emo­tional obstacles.

What we all need to real­ize is that say­ing, “I have a prob­lem.” is not the end…it’s just the begin­ning. It’s a bit like energy trans­fer­ence to throw out a prob­lem and act like it’s now the other person’s bur­den.  To be fair, a lot of us aren’t really equipped to know how to move past admis­sion. That’s why I am a big proponent/fan of coun­sel­ing. One of the most impor­tant things I’ve learned in coun­sel­ing, both indi­vid­ual and cou­ples, is to truly exam­ine the prob­lems, anx­i­ety, or fears come from. I try to stop and think, Where is this fear/anger/anxiety com­ing from? Where in my body do I feel that emo­tion? I try to  back away from what could be an argu­ment and sit qui­etly. This is par­tic­u­larly use­ful when your blood is boil­ing, because it’s really impor­tant to under­stand why some­thing or some­one could make you that angry. So often, we think the prob­lem is the sig­nif­i­cant other, when she or he may merely be reflect­ing a part of our­selves that is the real menace.

I don’t have all the answers, nor do I yet con­sis­tently fol­low my own advice. I do know, though, that once I made an effort to get past merely mak­ing admis­sions,  stopped blam­ing oth­ers for my “stuff,” and put in the work, a num­ber of prob­lems and fears that have plagued me for most of my life became incon­se­quen­tial or non-existent. Now, I hope that it goes with­out say­ing that there has to be a com­mit­ment by both par­ties in a rela­tion­ship to move through prob­lems. The health of a rela­tion­ship hinges on there being a safe place where either indi­vid­ual can bare their soul. With­out that secu­rity and trust, the per­son with a prob­lem is likely to become defen­sive and recalcitrant.

I wish all of you noth­ing but peace and har­mony in your lives and rela­tion­ships. How­ever, life being what it is, there will be fric­tion with oth­ers. Just remem­ber admis­sion is a big step, but it’s truly just the first one on a jour­ney toward emo­tional repair and recover.  Good luck!