EXPECTING THE EXTRAORDINARY

Several people in my life that are stuck in relationships that have become complacent.  These are not relationships that are physically or emotionally abusive.  But they are relationships that have been there for 15 years or longer and they've stop growing and lost their passion.  They've settled in to a groove that doesn't really work, but they have too much invested and too heavily entwined with children, property and emotion to call it quits. Fear of the unknown usually douses any vision of a better life on their own.

It takes a very unique person to break out of a life like that.  Most people find a way to make it bearable and just continue to slog through life feeling trapped and unsatisfied.  When we talk about their relationships, it's usually their partner who isn't responsive, lacks passion, won't communicate or seems irritated.  Each of my friends seems really clear about what their partner needs to do to help improve the relationship.  But if you've ever been into marriage counseling, it's always an awkward moment when the counselor looks at you and asks, "So, what part of the current condition of your relationship are you responsible for?"

Contrary to the old adage "people never change", we are actually always in a state of change that we can't always see ourselves.  But if we ask our partners how much we've changed over the last 20 years, they could probably write a book about it.  The issue is really experiencing our natural evolution and still maintaining our emotional, intellectual and sexual connection.  The partner that we started with decades ago is not the same person that faces us today.

I've done a lot of relationship counseling over the years and the counselors seem to pose the same basic questions.  1.  What are you willing to change about yourself to keep the relationship going?  2. When you make those changes, will you still be happy with the person you will become? 3. How long do you think you can sustain these changes?


Making changes in your life doesn't start with just doing things differently.  It actually starts with our "thinking" because everything that happens in our life follows the same process.  First we think, then we feel, then we do.  So if we want to change the things we do, then we have to change the things we think about.  Change really doesn't last unless it becomes part of the way we "think" everyday.


The reality of being in a coupleship is that we can do very little to change our partners.  Any real change has to come from within themselves.  But we can change what we expect.  As the years go by, we tend to expect less and less from our partners, so it's no coincidence that we end up getting less and less.  Most of us know that we tend to get whatever we expect, but it's hard to see that in a relationship that's so close to our heart.  It often takes too much work to make big changes so we settle for "ordinary."


But you can change the entire face of a relationship by simply changing what you expect.  You can start by not accepting ordinary and start expecting extraordinary.  Expecting extraordinary means you start to look at yourself as "extra ordinary"because the treatment we receive from others is usually a reflection of how we see ourselves.  Improving the quality of your life is not really about better self-discipline, its about having a greater sense of value about yourself.  It's about seeing yourself as someone valuable enough that you should be cared for in a special way.

Think about this for a second:

If you were a bird or an animal, you would be in the Smithsonian because there is NO other person exactly like you on the entire planet.  That means that out of the six billion people on earth, you're the only one that is uniquely YOU.


People are generally surprised at how differently their partners respond as soon as they start to see themselves as worthy of energy, attention and focus.   And if they don't?   Then maybe it's time to find someone who will.