Healing Relationships Using MEM: Part 2 of 3

It probably does not require stating, but notwithstanding the above, the relationships, that are of paramount concern in life, are with other people. Examples include a mother relating to her daughter, a business manager relating to his staff, or a husband relating to his wife and children. In the case of a business manager with a staff of 20, it can be said he is relating to the staff as a whole, but ‘the whole’ is made up of 20 individuals and the real relationship is between the manager and each individual. The most fundamental or simplistic relationship is between two people: there is an interchange of energy between two individuals so the basic building block in each and every human relationship is the individual. The success, happiness, or love achieved from any relationship is dependent on the individuals concerned, and this in turn depends on the emotional stability and attitudes of each participant as an individual.

It may very well take two to tango, but left unsaid is the assumption that they are both doing the tango and one is not trying to do the waltz! In that situation, the outcome requires no explanation. The first requirement for a fulfilling relationship is a common purpose, a common interest mutually shared. Although a common purpose is necessary in any fruitful relationship, the blossoming or failure of any relationship depends on the attitudes of each individual.

There is more heartache over broken and failed relationships than from probably any other single cause, but just because the common goals and purposes vanish, does not mean that the relationship should descend into acrimony, name calling, and finger-pointing. The optimum outcome when separation takes place is a mutually agreeable parting of the ways and, as Utopian as that may sound, it is definitely achievable once the negative attitudes are out of the way. It is well worth remembering that when someone points their finger at anyone else, there are always three fingers pointing back at themselves, and it is this circumstance that affords the resolution of any relationship that has hit a rocky road. Provided the common goals and purposes are still there and there is a desire to repair the relationship, it is easily achieved. On the other hand, even with the death of common goals and purposes, an amicable parting is certainly achievable.

The divorce courts are full of couples whose attitude towards each other has changed; they married with stars in their eyes, but the twinkle of the stars faded, to be replaced all too often with the flames of anger and animosity. Love, the high aesthetic emotion, has been replaced with mood levels from the other end of the spectrum. There are many apparent reasons for this change, but the inescapable fact is that, rightly or wrongly, they now see each other in a different light.

In any relationship, how one party sees the other is unique. No two people see one another in exactly the same way. How a person sees his father is not how his mother sees him as a husband, and it is not how his father’s own mother sees him, his workmates, or his brother or sister. You can expand this concept as wide as you like, but no two people will have exactly the same opinion of one another, for, figuratively, they are each wearing tinted glasses that colour their view of the other.

No one is all bad; it is the perceived negative characteristics that cause the problem. But it must be understood that the perceived negative characteristics may not be perceived as such by someone else for what matters is how the viewer sees them and the construction he or she puts on them. This means that, in the language of Causism, each person will have created an image of the other person and it is the image that the person has created to which they re-act.

As mentioned above, it is the individual who forms the basis of any relationship, and therefore it is the individual’s attitudes, demeanour, and emotional stability that are central to any relationship succeeding. If the relationship is not succeeding, these factors need addressing.