Stephen J. Betchen - Magnetic Partners : Discover How the Hidden Conflict That Once Attracted You to Each Other is Now Driving You Apart

I knew I couldnt lose with two great literary agents in my corner. Elisabeth Weed, thank you so much for recommending me as a client to Holly Root. If it werent for both of you, this book would probably never have seen the light of day. Holly has been a super agent: assertive, empathic, knowledgeable, patient, present, and positive. I couldnt have asked for a better experience than I received and continue to receive from Holly and her colleagues at the Waxman Literary Agency. I feel blessed to be with the best.

Speaking of the best, my editor at Simon & Schuster, Emily Loose, amazed me with her speed in grasping the clinical concepts in this book. And her ability in helping me clarify my theories and interventions made them easier even for me to understand. I will never forget Emilys dedication to this project. Thanks for believing in me, Emily. Its been an honor to work with you and your terrific staff, especially production editor Edith Lewis and Anne Cherry, my most skilled and insightful copyeditor.

Ive been working with writer extraordinaire Cynthia Hanson on Ladies Home Journal s Can This Marriage Be Saved? column for more than eight years and were still at it. A friend as well as a colleague, Cynthia was also instrumental in the initial development of my proposal. She took time out of her hectic schedule to copyedit the entire manuscript before I had the nerve to submit it to be reviewed for publication. I will always relish Cynthias seal of approval. While her name isnt on the cover, it is in spirit.

And finally, my daughters Jennifer and Melanie have always been an inspiration to me, but I must give special mention to Melanie, who, lo and behold, wants to become a psychiatrist. I wish you only the best as you pursue your dream. I truly believe that youve got the key ingredients for the work: the ability to empathize, and of course, talent.

Stephen J. Betchen completed his doctorate at the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Work (now the School of Social Policy & Practice) with a specialization in marriage and family therapy. He subsequently completed fellowships in sex therapy and psychoanalysis. He is a licensed marriage and family therapist and a certified sex therapist with a practice in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, specializing in couples therapy. Dr. Betchen is the author of numerous professional articles on relationships and the well-received book Intrusive Partners-Elusive Mates: The Pursuer-Distancer Dynamic in Couples. In addition, he is a contributor to the popular Ladies Home Journal column Can This Marriage Be Saved?

If theres one thing Ive learned about relationships in my thirty years of doing couples therapy, its that theyre complex. Wed all like to think that we fall in love, choose a life partner, and then the rest is as effortless as riding a bike. But the truth is that relationships require a constant job of adapting, compromising, and keeping pace with our partners so that we avoid growing apartand that is the easiest piece of the puzzle. The hardest is usually beyond our level of consciousness: Im talking about knowing ourselves. We must start out with personal insight and an understanding of how we were influenced by our pasts. Whats driving us to do the things we do? Whats compelling us to feel the way we feel? And, as Ill encourage you to explore as the special focus of this book, what inner conflicts are a constant struggle for you?

Some people may be in relationships that are all smooth sailing. Maybe the stars are aligned in their favor, and these couples have somehow managed to control their conflicts. It could also be true, however, that theyve decided to settle, not wanting to rock the boat because they dont believe that a better deal awaits them. And, of course, there are those who are afraid to change. After all, change is hard, and for most of us, relationships are tough to manage. But I dont say this with pessimism. Im actually a confirmed optimist, and a big believer in relationships. Im stressing the difficulty involved because in my practice Ive seen too many couples give up too easily on their relationships. Ill never forget one newlywed who decided to divorce her husband after six months because she felt that a normal marriage should be easy. Again, not true. To achieve relationship success, youve got to be patient, be committed, and work hard. In his book Way of the Peaceful Warrior, Dan Millman wrote: Stress happens when the mind resists what is. In Magnetic Partners, we will face reality together.

Through the course of this book, I will share with you my strongest conviction as a couples therapist: an underlying, largely unconscious conflict is responsible for most of the truly intractable relationship problems Ive helped couples through. Affairs, chronic fighting, troubled sex lives, and most dating dilemmas, I have found, very often can be traced to what I have come to call a master conflict, a powerful conflict that largely controls your relationship. Whats more, this same master conflict has very often also acted as a powerful bonding force in the relationship. The great irony about master conflicts is that they are often the underlying force of attraction that brought a couple together with an almost magnetic power, and yet, just as often, the same force is pushing a couple apart.

What is a master conflict? Think of it as an unconscious struggle within yourselflike having two politicians inside you, arguing about some issue, and you just cant make up your mind as to whom you should believe. The especially tricky thing about this struggle is that one politician is not necessarily right and the other wrong. In this struggle, neither side is necessarily better than the other. But even in those situations when one side does seem to be the more appropriate choice, those two politicians in your head are both scoring points, enough to confuse youblurring the difference between right and wrong and making it even more difficult for you to make a decision. For example, you may be conflicted about being either powerful or passive in your relationship: being in charge is gratifying but too much work; being passive leaves you with little responsibility but too little control. Or you might be conflicted about meeting your needs: taking care of yourself may feel good but evoke guilt; taking care of your partner may be the right thing to do but may also lead to too much responsibility.

Trying to reach a compromise with your master conflict is usually no easy task. Why? Because compromise means change, and change usually brings with it the anxiety of taking on the unknown and the depression that comes with a loss of the way things were. But there is good news: these feeling-states are usually temporary, so if we can tolerate them, they may lead us to a much better life, one that we never could have imagined. What Im saying is that underlying fearthe fear of anxiety and depressionmakes it difficult for us to choose one side over the other or to strike some sort of compromise between the two sides. Shifting back and forth helps us to avoid the pain that might come from making a choice. Why take charge in your relationship if you fear having too much responsibility? Why be passive if you fear being controlled? Master conflicts can cause us pain, but to avoid discomfort we prefer not to challenge them; we prefer to stay the same without the pain, and who can blame us? We may seek help to stop the suffering but not to change the internal master conflict. Ill show you what I mean.

Take the case of Seth, who at age fifty-five was still a bachelor, though in a painful, dead-end relationship. He couldnt move on because a master conflict had a tight grip on him; he was torn by the inability to decide whether to commit to a lasting relationship or to remain free of the responsibilities that such a relationship requires.