I once saw a book in the self-help section of a bookstore called, “The One Question That Can Save Your Marriage”.  Having been, at that point, in the midst of extended marriage counseling, with no light at the end of the tunnel, I seized on the book like a rope in quicksand. I was hoping for some heretofore un-thought-up communications tricks. Something along the lines of, ‘how to fool your spouse into realizing he (she) is the source of all your relationship issues’. Instead, the question was, ‘what am I like to be married to’. Hmmmm.

The author was a marriage counselor and he had written this book because so many of his clients were focused, not on healing themselves, but on healing their partners. On this topic, I could have written a PhD thesis. My main task in counseling was memorizing what the therapist said to my husband, while artfully ‘forgetting’ everything he said to me. New levels of dysfunctional arguments replaced old tired disagreements, culminating in recriminations like, “Even the therapist thinks you’re controlling!”

Projection and relationships go together like night and day. Our parental patterns play out in our relationships, illuminating unresolved personal issues and distorted belief systems. The less conscious we are of our own reactions, the more likely we are to blame our partner when old issues arise.

As for the blame part, that is a bit like hitting the side of a barn. There are unlimited weaknesses in others around us that make projecting our own issues on others easy and believable. But focusing on other’s reactions will bring us no closer to healing our own personal relationship.

We need to ask ourselves the question: ‘what am I like to be married to?’ and answer with brutal but compassionate honesty. Then we can begin true relationship therapy. 

Martha Wright is a Life Coach and seminar leader with over 20 years experience designing and teaching life skills in Fortune 500 companies around the world. She lives in Princeton NJ. Follow her on Facebook and twitter. https://www.wrightlifecoach.com.