It's all in the details that helps a relationship thrive
Here’s how it came down the other morning. I was calling a local business with a request I was hoping would be approved. So I gave the details behind my reason for the request. My husband was in the room listening to my side of the conversation. I wasn’t even off the phone yet when I heard him muttering about me giving irrelevant information. One of those third party echo chambers.
When I’d hung up I said in a conversational tone — completely unoffended because I wasn’t, “Have you ever thought about loving me for being a person who cares to give the details?”
He replied, “Well, I do. But I’ve been in the business world and in my experience you make your call, give the information you need to, and hang up. You get in and get out so you — and the other person — can get on with your work.”
I could see his reasoning. But I am about the last thing there is from a business person. For me, including those added details more often than not equates to being friendly. I confessed that this time I was also trying to pad my chances of a “yes” answer by explaining why I was asking.
This incident recalled a dramatic stage exchange in a play Terry and I attended when we lived in the Minneapolis metro area. We’d gone to the well-known Chanhassen dinner theater to see the award winning musical “I Do! I Do!” The story of a couple navigating the perils and delights of fifty years of marriage.
In one scene some time into their married life the couple is arguing over an affair the husband has confessed to. The wife shouts something like, “I love you in spite of who you are!” To which her husband retorts, “Well, she loves me because of who I am!”
I remember being stunned by this line. Because this is a frank truth of relationship. How easy it is to fall in the trap of loving “in spite of” instead of “because of.” What a difference it would make in relationships to convert those things that irritate us about the other person — and instead accept them as an endearing part of him or her.
In any fitting of lives together there is a place for making needed changes, for compromise and flexibility. A different thing entirely from a minimizing “I’ll carry on in spite of” attitude.
Some facets of ourselves are non-negotiable. For love to thrive this needs to be understood.
It’s all in the details.