Let’s face it, you think you’ll remember what you’re reading in 5 minutes, but try to write it down and you’ll see the glaring differences: in life, we hardly know what each other is saying. How is it then that we ever get anything done together?
Consider that Relatedness is an essential, often ignored, ingredient: who am I for people? who are you for people? what is the stand we take together that is larger than each other? Divorce would never come up if the couple had a shared sense of the contribution the marriage makes to the world.
One can establish such affinity by my getting in the other person’s world, by recreating in conversation what he/she is up to. If we both stand for the same vision, that’s all that will be needed for joint progress. No love is necessary; actually, it’s only a nice to have. I’ll get your back, and you’ll get mine.
This is what the French expressed when they gifted Lady Liberty to America. We still find them weird, but we did save their ass from the Nazis. And they did take a stand for our values after 9/11, more than our populous comprehended.
