People Tools for Love and Relationships: The Journey from Me to Us

INTRODUCTION

In December of 2008 my family and I traveled to Antarctica. During our two-week journey I read the book Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing.

On November 21, 1915, one of Shackleton’s two ships, the Endurance, was crushed and sank beneath the Antarctic ice. When Shackleton gave the order to abandon the ship, he and his crew of twenty-eight men and seventy dogs camped on the sea ice for two months until the ice melted and they could launch their lifeboats. They spent more than a year struggling to survive while making their way back to civilization.

Near the end of this ordeal, Shackleton chose a small party to undertake a harrowing thirty-two-mile land crossing of an island in the Falkland Islands to reach a populated whaling station that would be their salvation.

When traversing the mountainous terrain, he and his two companions found themselves stranded in snow during the dimming light of late afternoon at an estimated altitude of almost a mile. The nighttime temperature could easily drop below zero and a blizzard was possible. They had little food. Their clothing was tattered and threadbare, and their useful supplies were down to an adze and fifty feet of rope.

They would not survive the hours-long trek in darkness down the mountain to the whaling station.

Shackleton devised a plan.

Let’s coil the rope underneath us, hold onto each other, and slide right down the mountain.

One of his men objected, saying, That’s crazy. We’re certain to hit a rock, or fall off a cliff and die.

Shackleton replied, We are certain to die if we remain here, and we’re certain to freeze if we continue to hike down. Our only salvation is to slide.

A few hours later the three starving shipmates staggered into Stromness Whaling Station. They arrived at the house of Thøralf Sørlle, the factory manager who had previously met Shackleton. Upon opening the front door of his home Sørlle failed to recognize the emaciated men.

Shackleton immediately set to work to organize the rescue of his other crewmembers.

*    *    *

Each of us, at some point in our lives, has felt forsaken, as if we were stranded and freezing in the snow, facing severe danger or death. At that moment we can choose to stay stuck, allow fear to harden our hearts, and hope that a miracle will save us. Or we can emulate Shackleton, take charge of our lives and find our way to safety. We can seize the opportunity to slide down an uncertain slope to save ourselves and our partners.

We each must recognize that the partnership of us is accompanied by risk. Each of our journeys of deep friendship and love has the potential to end in loss. But I have found no better alternative than to fully explore the world, and my life, with a partner. I prefer to live not only as me but also to enthusiastically embark upon the exhilarating and exhausting adventure of a lifetime, the journey from me to us.

THE KEY IS YOU

… love is, after all, the gift of oneself!

—JEAN ANOUILH

Ardele

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars

But in ourselves, that we are underlings

—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Julius Caesar

Every human being on Earth, including you, is like a house with windows that look out upon the world. Each person, each metaphorical house, is surrounded by a fence, and that fence has a sign on it which says No Trespassing. And each individual, each house, has a front door, and that door has a lock. To pass through the door, to enter the house, to have a relationship, you must possess the key.

When I was ten years old I told my mother that I wanted to invite only girls to my birthday party. My mother said, No. You can’t just invite girls. You have to invite at least one boy.

But Mom, boys are so silly.

Alan, you have to invite at least one boy.

So I did. I invited ten girls and one boy to my party, and that celebration may have been the best birthday party of my life. I’ve always enjoyed the company of women.

A few years later I realized that I wanted a girl to love me. I didn’t really know what love was, but I knew it would be wonderful, and I wanted it. How could I get a girl to love me?

Who could I ask about it? No one. I certainly couldn’t talk to my parents. They would be embarrassed and probably say something easy and unhelpful like, You’re too young. You’ll find out when you’re older.

I wasn’t about to ask my younger brother. What does a younger brother know? Nothing. And he might tattle to Mom. Other boys were useless to me, not capable of, or interested in, any serious conversation.

And I absolutely, positively, wasn’t going to ask a girl. That would be far too embarrassing. I couldn’t. For many years I just couldn’t. So, I had to figure out what to do all by myself.

I decided to do some research.

I haunted the local library. I read every magazine that I thought might help, but still didn’t find my answer.

Then I learned from a friendly librarian how to use the card catalogue, and I found books that I thought might contain the solution. I carried home ten books at a time because that was the maximum the library would allow me to check out.

What are you reading, Alan? my mother would ask.

Oh, nothing, Mom.

She must have wondered, because week after week I checked out ten books and ploughed through every one of them—psychology books, romance novels, philosophical works—everything I could find that I thought might be helpful. I was a pretty fast reader, and I spent months searching for my answer. But I discovered nothing.

Then, one day, I found it. I finally came across one sentence buried deep in a single book that simply said, To have someone love you, love them first. At last I had discovered the answer I was looking for.

And though I certainly didn’t know it at the time, that sentence is probably the best single bit of relationship advice I have ever read. I’ll say it again so that you will remember it, and will be encouraged to release the love, which might otherwise remain imprisoned inside of you.

To have someone love you, love them first.

We always begin a relationship as strangers. You are locked in your house, I in mine. We might live next to each other, or across the street or halfway around the world from each other. But we always begin as strangers, even if we meet for the first time when we are five years old.

The key to my persuading you to open that gate in the fence in front of your house is me. The key to my getting you to unbolt your front door is me. No one else can be my stand-in to meet you and become your friend.

Let’s jump ahead a little. You have found the way to open someone else’s gate, have walked through their yard, and found the front door unlocked. In short, you now have a relationship. Good work. Remember that the key to this beginning was you. And once you’ve established a relationship, how do you maintain and improve it?

Again, the answer remains—it is you.

My first wife and I had dated for five years before we married, and then we were married for seven years before the happily ever after began to fade. In my second marriage I woke up from the dream of a wonderful marriage after seven days. Each time I was certain that the problem was … can you guess? Of course. The problem each time was my wife. If one or the other would have changed I could have lived happily with her until today. But each of them failed me. They were inadequate.

Or did I fail them? Could I, possibly, have been inadequate myself?

Or did we fail each other? Did we lack something? Were we deficient in the knowledge, experience, or the will to work out our differences?

I still remember two sessions with a therapist in which my first wife, Jo Anne, said to him, This is what I want Alan to change about himself.

The therapist turned to me. Alan, what do you have to say about that?

I was shocked. It was Jo Anne who had to change. I won’t change that, I said.

Jo Anne?

Make him change.

Alan?

I won’t change that. And so it went. Neither of us budged.

So after ten years of marriage and with three young children, we separated, and then we divorced. Neither of us was willing to change. Nor were we willing to live with each other as we were.

Conventional wisdom today tells us that both people in a relationship are responsible for its success, and that we must work together to get through the rough patches. That may be true, but all too often each party ends up saying out loud or thinking, I have done my part. I have changed. The remaining problem is him (or her).

That way of thinking can easily turn into an endless loop of finger-pointing and self- righteousness, and that is exactly where the partners in the relationship often remain trapped. If you need his or her cooperation you are absolutely stuck if the light bulb doesn’t want to change.

I have good news. I have finally discovered that there is only one solution that will work, and that is to take full responsibility myself for creating and maintaining my ideal relationship. I’m not going to blame my parents, my wife, or the stars. I’m not going to blame anyone. I’m going to do my level best to make every relationship I have work, and work well. By taking that approach, my relationships have a chance—a good chance. To put it another way, the key to a great relationship is simply