Thoughts on a successful relationship

Someone asked about therapy for their relationship …

Never been a fan. Expensive, normally biased advice, based on partial truths.

A relationship is like a garden allotment managed by two committed gardeners who visit the space, sometimes alone, sometimes together. They tend the space and care for it creating something that is shared. The reward is the creation and the act of creating. Neither takes out; rather they work on putting in. Their labour is creating their reward. There is purpose.

If one gardener takes over the other, the garden loses its joy and its ‘soul’. In the end it dies. There are no personal needs to the detriment of one over other.

A therapist is like a gardening club – a source of ideas perhaps, maybe good to listen to but tangential to the work of committed gardeners whose focus is on the joint product and the joy it creates for them and other observers – away from everyday personal needs. Beauty is created from acts of selflessness; needs, with ineffective communication or balance, take and destroy.

Therapy, like self-help books, primarily benefits strangers outside. Common purpose and sharing maintain and grow relationships.