How to accurately distinguish the weeds from the plants is the ongoing work: what thoughts, beliefs should be nourished and which need to be radically plucked from the soil?
In my work with couples, new clients almost, without exception, enter my office with some variation on a “weedy” distortion. One version is that they come in blaming each other for the problems in their relationship. Their stories, although diametrically opposed are inversely the same. “If only he wouldn’t…or if she wasn’t so….” The other common presentation is that they share the same distortion; both agree that one person in the couple is “the problem”.
Both of these orientations are corrosive and destructive to the relationship because neither is based in the fact that the responsibility for the relationship is shared. Couples inevitably resist the reality that each person in the union plays a role and has a choice as to how they respond in every interaction. In this way, the problems that exist between them are co-created and jointly perpetuated.
The distorted thinking about relationships, like weeds, is persistent and could take the form of: “I wouldn’t be like this if I was just with a different person.” “Marriage should be easier.” “Because this relationship is so difficult it must be the wrong one.” All these ‘weeds’ are invading the truth of the matter and interfere with the possibility of real change.
Inhabiting the fullness of responsibility in a relationship involves the ongoing challenge of owning one’s part, not reacting from the past, staying cognizant of the choice each person has to act, feel and respond in every moment. It is not unlike the work of tending an extensive garden. Both require continual care, attention, watering, fertilizing and most especially, weeding….
