Friendship is the music of a satisfying relationship

Published on March 14, 2008

THIS is the final column of the Take Two series. So today I would like to trumpet what may be the most crucial ingredient for a successful, long-term intimate relationship - friendship.

Domestic friendship is the underlying music of a satisfying daily life. Friendship sustains a couple through the ebbs and flows of romance and the endless vagaries of life and aging. Friendship is a sofa of relaxation, a haven for laughter, an arena for honest feedback and creative stimulation. It soothes the wrought beast and helps heal anger.

"All very well," you may say, "but there just isn't much time for friendship in my relationship. We're busy taking care of life's demands all the time, chins just above water. If we're lucky, we can collapse together in front of the TV for a while in the evenings."

Such absence of essential friendship-building activities in a relationship is sadly endemic. Companionable activities constantly slip to the bottom of daily priorities. Discontent, loneliness and a growing estrangement can result.

A key antidote to frenetic modern life is conscious cultivation of friendship. This means carving out time, no matter what, to connect in meaningful ways with one's partner. It means finding an hour or so every day to talk with and really listen to each other. It means scheduling time during the month for walks, dancing, bicycling, bowling, singing, exploring, sharing chores, playing with the kids or whatever turns you both on. It also involves loyalty, generosity, patience, honesty and mutual support during hard times.

If a conscious decision is made to do more of these activities, even when it means cutting back on outside social or work involvements, the time together will provide fuel for the fire of romance. Gradually a brighter flame will warm the home hearth.

This leads to a more subtle, and perhaps the most important, consideration: Are you friends with yourself? It's astonishing how many Americans, deep down, don't fully love and honor themselves. In therapy, people often reveal the painful judgments that they carry about their own intelligence, looks, humor, likability, creativity and capabilities of all sorts. The phrase sometimes wells up, "I'm damaged goods."

This is sad, because one can see that they are intelligent, attractive, sensitive and capable people who have just been scarred in childhood by overly critical or neglectful guardians, or battered by subsequent tough relationships or hard times. They have simply lost touch with their own inner beauty.

If you are not liking yourself, there are various ways you may act outwardly that will inevitably reduce closeness with loved ones.

One way is withdrawal - becoming less available physically or emotionally so as not to impose your imagined shortcomings on the person you love.

Another projection of self-dislike is to overcompensate for the imagined personal shortcomings - for example, acting extra clever or funny or seductive, reducing one's partner to the role of spectator. Or the partner may be enlisted to act out in some supportive way. For example, a person carrying inner shame from growing up in a chaotic alcoholic family may demand that his or her spouse be exceptionally classy and charming socially. Such playing out of roles is inimical to intimacy.

One other way self-dislike may play out negatively in a relationship is through frequent criticalness - bringing one's partner down to your own supposed level, keeping that person feeling a bit crummy so that he or she won't get uppity on you and leave.

So if you wish to have a happy and lasting intimate primary relationship, it is essential, then, to cultivate active friendship not only with your mate, but also with yourself. There are hundreds of books, workshops, spiritual practices and types of meditation out there that can help you do this. The main thing is to set the creation of inner and outer friendship as a vital goal, and then pursue that goal as if your life, or at least your primary relationship, depended upon it.

And of course we need to remind ourselves that living is to a large extent a creative process of trial and error. We all make mistakes and blunders now and then, and we all need to forgive ourselves and our partners, work the problem through to renewed friendship, and then move on with this amazing gift called being alive.

If you have been a reader of this column over the years and found it helpful or meaningful, I would very much appreciate hearing from you at jeffreysbrown2@gmail.com.