Welcome!
If you’ve seen all my earlier articles, please skip this…
Intro.
If you’re new here, feel free to look this article over, but know that each session l write builds on all the ones before, in important ways. It’s as if you went to a counselor several times… you’d expect the later sessions to build upon the achievements of the earlier sessions. So today's session will be more helpful if you begin with my Introduceyourself article, then move through each week's session, until you reach today’s.
They are numbered!
But here’s the idea that I hope describes all our ‘Try This!’ sessions:
‘What if each day, you reflected on your relationship, then intentionally did something simple with your partner to keep your relationship fresh, and positive?
If you read your relationship well and chose to do this, then you'd stay the most exciting person your partner could ever find!
And eventually, your partner probably would learn to ‘do likewise!’
Today’s Session: More on The Rubber Band Principle, and How To Make It Work for You!
Remember What We’ve Covered?
First, I asked you to:
Get an unbroken rubber band and hook it over one finger in each hand. Straighten your arms out in front of you, pull the rubber band tight, really stretch and hold it! See how much energy it takes to keep your hands apart?
Now slowly relax both your hands & arms to let the tight rubber band pull both your hands closer together. See how much less energy it takes when the distance between your hands equals the relaxed length of your relaxed rubber band?
OK, just one more step. Now pull your hands apart and stretch your rubber band again. Hold it! But this time, keep one arm and hand rigid and gradually relax your other arm and hand.
What happens? The relaxing side should move in towards the 'frozen' side without any effort, until the tension on your rubber band is gone!
Then, I Suggested You Imagine an Invisible Rubber Band Between You & Your Partner!
As a Counselor watching Relationships over the years, it’s become clear that,
You and your partner might as well be connected by an invisible Rubber Band.
So is everyone else, connected by their own ‘Rubber Band’ with their partner.
It has always been this way between Partners.
Every ‘connection’ between people is elastic, like a ‘Rubber Band.’
When Your Relationship began, the Rubber Band just ‘happened.’
Once created, it’s always there.
And married or not, it usually survives until ‘to death do we part!’
Like the Rubber Band between your hands, your invisible Rubber Band works to pull you and your partner back together,
whenever the actions or inactions of one of you stretch the Rubber Band out too tightly.
Another way to say it is, when things are perfect ‘between you,’
there is a comfortable distance between you and your partner,
created by your history together, you trust, and familiar routines.
But when one of you does something that brings you uncomfortably close for too long, your partner will pull back to re-establish that comfortable distance.
And vice versa.
On the other hand, when one of you does something that separates you further than usual for too long,
either you or your partner will do something in an attempt to re-establish that comfortable distance between you.
Usually the ‘left behind’ partner will pursue.
But sometimes if they don’t, the ‘distancing partner’ will return, usually because the ‘left behind’ partner doesn’t pursue and the tension in the Rubber Band pulls them back.
And so, because of the way this dynamic happens in every Relationship,
so consistently and unconsciously,
You definitely need to see it happening, understand it, trust it, and make it work for you and your partner…
Because like every other couple that ever existed,
The Truth is,
the two of you might as well be connected by an invisible Rubber Band!
Then We Discussed The Seeds You Planted… the Note, and the Suitcase
We used your own ‘Seed-planting’ experience in the last two sessions to illustrate the Rubber Band Principle at work in your Relationship.
The Note I asked you to write, and the Suitcase I asked you to leave where your Partner could find it were both ‘Seeds,’
things you intentionally did that brought your Partner’s attention back to you, even if just for a moment.
As a ‘Seed,’ each was something unusual, positive, unrequired, unexpected and unexplained, at least at first.
In Rubber Band terms, each ‘Seed’ invited your Partner to respond, either in a way that would ‘relax’ your Relationship’s Rubber Band for a while, or in the case of the Suitcase, stretch it, if your Partner reacted negatively.
And also in Rubber Band terms, as you planted your Seed,
I asked you to stay still,
to not chase your partner,
but to simply wait to see their responding ‘movement,’
whether it was either closer to you or further away on your Relationship’s Rubber Band.
Think a moment;
By not explaining or justifying your Note, or Suitcase to your partner, you acted exactly like your rigid hand and arm in your first ‘Homework,’
sure that because that real Rubber Band stretched between your hands was unbroken,
eventually it either would pull your hands back together,
or add to the tension on your Rubber Band when the distance continued!
When you sent your Note in Session #1, I directed you to ‘wait your partner out’ because I believed you could afford to wait rather than ‘force things.’
When you put out your Suitcase in Session #2, I urged you to let your partner respond before you gave them a positive interpretation to relax your relationship’s Rubber Band, just in case!
I didn’t need to know you and your partner at all.
But I did understand and trust in the power of your Relationship’s Rubber Band!
Learning to see how your Rubber Band works in your relationship isn’t hard.
Both partners unconsciously stretch or relax their Rubber Band each time they make any ‘movement’ closer or further away from their partner with their words or actions.
The tension on the Rubber Band is always increasing or decreasing as the perception of distance between Partners increases or decreases.
That’s normal, it has to be…
Because there’s no such thing as a ‘Frozen’ Rubber Band.
Today's ‘See This’: The ‘Rubber Band’ Between Parent and Child
It’s easy to see it at work, here.
A Baby is hungry, cold, or fear’s abandonment, so it cries and the tension pulls it’s Mother closer.
She satisfies Baby, right away, then parts from baby for a while.
But what happens once Mother is summoned too often, and realizes both Baby and Mother will be happier with more distance?
Then when Baby has been fed at night, but still cries, Mother denies her own urge to leap to the rescue.
Perhaps she buys a Baby Monitor to maintain distance, by allowing Mother to stay in touch, yet have her own ‘space’ a few moments longer.
Over time, Child and Mother learn they can trust that some separation (distance) is no threat to their relationship.
The child goes to school, or a sleep-over, to camp, or on a date.
The times apart become more frequent and longer lasting, but always, parent and child reunite.
Even apart, they know they are still connected.
Now an adult, the child lives at a distance, ‘independent’ of parents.
Perhaps holidays bring them together, a new grandchild or funeral.
Phone, Skype, Cards and Gifts maintain their connection, though apart.
But if enough years pass, Mother’s age draws them back together and the child now acts as the parent, helping manage Mother’s finances, shelter and health care.
Few adult children or aged parents feel comfortable during this ‘too close’ period in their relationship.
Yet the circumstances demand they tolerate the dependency, until the end.
Others may call their typical story ‘love, relationship, family ties’ or use other ‘static’ labels.
I prefer a ‘dynamic’ label and metaphor, which helps me and others understand the continual ‘movement’ closer and/or further away between Mother and Child over the hours, days and years of their relationship.
I’ll call their lifetime connection, and the shifting equilibrium between Mother and Child their relationship’s ‘Rubber Band!’
Session #3’s ‘Do This’
This time, the ‘Seed’ I’d like you to plant in your Relationship with your Partner is that you give them something you know they’ll like, because you know them well enough to have seen them appreciate it in the past.
I can’t tell you what to do, it's time for you to choose.
Will you rub their shoulders, give them their favorite flower, make their favorite drink, surprise them with tickets to their favorite kind of movie, take them to their favorite place to eat?
The possibilities are endless, and don’t have to be expensive.
But what you choose depends completely on their preferences, not yours or anyone else’s.
All I ask for is that whatever ‘Seed’ you plant, it satisfies my definition.
It needs to be positive, unexpected, so a surprise to your Partner, and unexplained by you, at least initially.
Ideally, it will be enough to seize their attention for a few moments, and ‘say to them’ unmistakably, without any words, that you care for them.
In ‘Rubber Band’ terms, you’ll have done something to ‘juice’ your connection to your Partner, to alter your relationship’s balance.
Your ‘Seed’ is a new invitation for closeness, rather than a new ‘distancing’ move, or just doing nothing and settling for status quo.
Remember that you need to wait for your Partner’s reaction without altering their response. You need to trust your ‘Rubber Band!’
Think about it afterwards. Did your Partner respond with appreciative words or actions? If so, then your ‘Seed,’ completely thought up and intentionally planted by you, bore ‘good fruit’ and for a while, became the positive reality and center of focus in your relationship.
Remember, every Relationship Garden has Weeds, even yours!
So the trick to helping your relationship with your Partner grow in positive directions is for you to be wise enough understand how the Rubber Band between you works, and choose to plant ‘Seeds’ to relax or increase the tension on your relationship’s Rubber Band.
Next Session: How to Know When You Need More Distance, and How to Get It!
This week, remember to reflect on the events in your own, and other people’s relationships.
Try to picture their interactions in terms of their ‘Rubber Band.’
Until next time, I wish you Good Luck, and Happy Loving!
-Bluebird-
Acknowledgements
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