The Inside Relationship
Interestingly, when you have a relationship with someone, at the same time as you are relating to them you are forming a relationship with what they represent inside you.
That fact makes it more understandable why opposites marry. For example, a detail oriented, exact thinking kind of person getting involved with a sort of dreamy, creative person. It's also interesting that if people accept the challenge, they will develop this other side of themselves instead of just complaining about their ridiculously different spouse.
Jung said that it is the so called "inferior side" of our selves, the side that is least developed, which is the side that can be the most meaningful and fun.
I remember my kid's English teacher, who was an extremely verbal, gifted teacher, once said that my son, on purpose, took what was hardest for him — art classes in painting — and that he created "blobs" which the teacher remembered as being incredibly fun for my son to create. He didn't perfect his painting skills but this completed him as a person. It meant he was playing around with a side of him that was mostly in the unconscious but making it somewhat conscious.
That's one of the things about relationships. To relate to someone is also to relate to something in your self.
There are many types of relationships. An example of an unequal relationship might be when a young kid looks up to an uncle as a mentor and in a potential state, the kid may have some manly qualities, which at age eight, can't yet come out. But those qualities can develop inside in a sort of potential way.
A relationship with a peer can be very satisfying because it fulfills what I think is a person's greatest need in relationships, that one person try to comprehend the other.
That people be able to "try to comprehend" is one of the requirements of a satisfying relationship. I think that when people really boil it down, and there are many competing ideas about what relationships are for and what people need, the other person's ability to be able to "try to comprehend" seems to rise to the top of what people really need.
Even if one is not necessarily understood by the other person, but the other person is trying to understand them, one feels that he or she exists more. And, I think that we all need that feeling, probably every day.
Sometimes a very rational spouse can complain about their mate as being annoyingly different, irrational, dreamy, inexact, and fuzzy in their thinking. Or, the opposite can happen, too, the dreamy, creative spouse can say, it's so boring how intellectual and rational their mate is.
The point is, it's hard to appreciate what is different from you.
Often a person's initial reaction to another person who is different from them is negative. It's hard for people to accept this terrible fact and work with it. And, it's likely the basis of a lot of prejudice in that people have a negative reaction to someone who is different but don't want to consciously admit it. So, it builds up in the unconscious to a kind of a negative opinion of different people.
More - Relationship Issues (Page 2)
If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves. — Carl G. Jung
Background Photo: "Spring Morning, Grosse Ile, MI" Go here for full version of photo >>>
