How to Keep Mr. or Mrs. Right

People come into our lives for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. A companion article, How to Find Mr. or Mrs. Right, zeroed in on the key strategy for finding the right life-partner. But, once you’ve found the right one, how do you make sure you keep him or her for a lifetime? MSN.Com has an article entitled: The Happily-Ever-After Hall of Fame that highlights such celebrities as Wil and Jana Smith, 12 years of marriage, and George and Barbara Bush, 65 years, at two ends of the spectrum. What is the bottom line secret to making the relationship work? In my forty-year professional and forty-four year personal experience, here it is.

Stay green and growing. Fran, my wife, and I have been married for 44 years, near divorce twice somewhere midway through, and separated for a year each of those times. Each time it was squarely my fault, because it took me a long time to grow up, which means that it took me a long time to see clearly what was really driving me and what was really important. Fran was definitely Mrs. Right, and I knew that the first time I met her with the toilet paper rollers in her hair. The real question was, was I Mr. Right for her. The answer is that I grew up to be Mr. Right. So many couples think that they and their relationships are fixed in stone when they say, “I do,” not realizing that they have areas of immaturity and will continue to grow up, or not, all of their lives. Evolving, growing up, maturing, becoming our complete selves as human beings continues to happen, if we’re really alive, every day.

Growing Up Is Never Done

The MSN article says that for the Smith’s, good sex is the key component. Good sex is certainly a component in a relationship, but every aware person knows that it is not the main one at all. Good sex depends on many factors, the most important of which is continuing to grow and evolve throughout all of ones life, or growing apart happens, both emotionally and physically. So, what’s the secret? What’s the formula? There definitely is one, and it’s P=A+G², where P is permanence, A is awareness, and G² is constant personal growth, which must be the formula for both partners. It’s really a mistaken notion that we must work at the relationship. What we must work at is ourselves, and the relationship will fall into place naturally.

Does all this sound boring? In practice, it certainly isn’t, because constantly growing as a person brings with it constant excitement, because life is always new. Nothing kills a relationship faster than boredom, and boredom is the result of sameness, predictability. When you’re changing everyday, nothing is the same. Do couples always change at the same rate? Fran and I didn’t; so you also have to know when to hold’um and know when to fold’um. How do you know? By being in touch with your inner wisdom, your innate intelligence. That part of your marvelous mind knows your partner much better than you ever will and knows if he or she is sincerely interested in growing as a person and is sincerely working at it.

The Genius Within You

What is your inner wisdom and how does it work? It is the most important part of your mind you will ever use, and it is just waiting for you to find and use it. I strongly suggest that you read The Whisper In Your Heart, objectively one of the most important books ever written and that may just be your ultimate self-help book. It tells the story of Nancy, a woman that I, as her psychotherapist, helped to heal herself of terminal cancer by finding within her mind a special intelligence that guided us on a five-year healing adventure that not only cured her illness but healed my life as well. That inner wisdom, special intelligence has become my constant companion and guides me in learning how to continually become the complete human being I am meant to be. Fran’s inner wisdom guided her in how to live with me in such a way that she encouraged my growth until I became her Mr. Right.

How to have a long and happy relationship is not a secret, but it is not commonly known either, because it’s not generally understood that “growing up” is not completed at eighteen or twenty-one. In fact, it is never completed, no matter how long we may live. Always striving for wholeness, completeness as a human being will definitely give us the edge in living a long, exciting and healthy life with Mr. or Mrs. Right. If that’s what you want, of course. It would also give you a long, exciting, and healthy life of whatever kind you choose. You see, P=A+G² is a formula for success in life, no matter what kind of a life you want.

© 2010, sgscalese