It takes Two to Tango, and Two to tangle~ and ONE of you cannot "save" a marriage.

It takes only ONE person to alter a relationship dynamic, and two to keep it precisely the same. This is along the lines of, ya can’t fix a problem with the same mentality that created it.

Two people working toward a common goal can heal, deepen and grow a relationship bond~ but it takes only one to change it, by not codifying or enabling the other’s faulty or bad behavior.

The book, “Passionate Marriage” by Dr. David Schnarch (who seems like a flaming narcissist when you’re reading about his dynamic with his wife), is a great place to start, if you feel a need to stop the game playing in your relationship bond, and turn things around with your partner.

Schnarch speaks to sexual withholding games that partners play (having worked with many couples in his practice), and offers practical strategies one must be willing to employ to dismantle them. He also speaks to how to keep love and passion alive in a lengthy, ongoing relationship (and haven’t we all wondered at one time or another, how the hell to do that?).

I have given this softcover book to several friends as a wedding present, knowing full well, they’ll probably never read it. I guess it’s a tragic flaw of human nature that we never discover what we don’t actually know yet, until we’ve painted ourselves into a corner, and can’t figure a way out of it.

Relationships die because of dozens, often hundreds of little secrets we keep from each other. Our emotional suppression and dishonesty about what we feel and need, creates countless little emotional divorces from our partner, and the chasm between them and us grows broader every day.

The quintessential question we must consider here is this: How can I ever truly know my partner, if they’re unwilling to take the risk of telling me what’s in their heart and on their mind? This is how couples turn into roommates, and then complain that they’re bored, dissatisfied and/or restless in their marriage. It’s also why our divorce quotient is so high, and couples have less than a 40% chance of remaining together.

Nobody can be expected to fix what they don’t know is broken! If you need your partner or spouse to be a mind-reader and intuit what you think they “should” be able to discern or guess about your needs or feelings, you’re playing a dirty, infantile game of hide and seek, and your relationship has already suffered irreparable wounds.

It takes great courage to love deeply and fully, whether you’ve given your heart to a four-legged being or a two-legged one. Loss of a beloved one feels excruciating, whether it’s imminent and we’re prepared for it, or not. Our grief is so devastating, we seriously doubt we’ll ever get to the other side of it, and be able to rebalance.

This is the primary reason, many ‘settle’ for significantly less than what they really want when they couple with someone. It’s easier in short, than facing inevitable agony one day, if it doesn’t work out or that partner reaches their expiration date before we do. But when that person dies, aren’t we left not only with grief~ but with guilt as well?? Whew! That’s a feeling I’d personally never wanna be stuck with!

People don’t always grow alongside one another, and this tends to be problematic in relationships that may span decades~ but it doesn’t always mean the partner who’s fallen behind can’t get the kind of (growth) help they need, to catch up~ and the two can’t be assisted to develop a language they can both inter-relate with and share.

Fear of intimacy and genuine attachment (which is sadly common among Narcissists and Borderlines) has people constructing separate lives, in order to ‘endure’ a marital bond that lacks passion, intensity and real friendship at its baseline. There’s often so much water that’s already passed under the bridge of their union, it seems impossible for one or both partners to even consider any reunification endeavors that can assist them in growing more intimately in touch first with themselves, and ultimately in touch with each other.

Again, it takes two to Tango, and two to tangle. One person cannot destroy an attachment bond. Participation by both is required for destruction to occur. Even if one partner has merely played a passive role in their dynamic and acts-out their discontent by becoming a workaholic, having affairs (emotional and/or sexual) or engaging in substance abuse, they have contributed to the demise of their relationship.

The root of addiction of any type involves one’s need to form a dependable, reliable relationship with a substance or behavior to help them feel lighter or better, rather than with another human being. In essence, it’s an escape from having to experience real closeness and intimacy.

In wrapping up, people who are truly emotionally available (meaning, not too afraid or avoidant of real loving) do not hook up nor remain with those who aren’t. It’s simply not a congruent, vibrational match.

So, if you’re yearning and longing for someone who’s frequently a bit out of reach, or seems to be here one minute and gone the next, try and discern if they might be echoing something in you that’s in need of repair. And remember: Real love is never painful, because the one who loves you back, is always present and emotionally available.

If you think Love equals Pain and vice-versa, that’s just a faulty ideation you bought into as a young child, when you couldn’t get your adoration for Mother, returned to you (which happened to far too many of us), and you’ve based all your relationships on a distorted definition of what “Love” is supposed to feel like, ever since.