Relationship Advice For Couples - Commitment is Easier When We Stop Taking Things Personally

Commitment is a funny word. The first definition in the Encarta® World English Dictionary describes it as something that takes up time or energy - not a very appealing proposition. The third definition says it's an activity that cannot be avoided. Yikes! The fifth definition refers to the act of confinement to a mental health facility. No wonder commitment within relationships is so tricky!

Only the second definition speaks to what we tend to mean when couples talk about commitment: devotion or dedication to a person or relationship. So, how do we wade through the other possibilities and make devotion and dedication the cornerstone of our bonds?

Let's start by looking at the negative experiences of "commitment:" we're losing energy, feeling trapped, maybe acting a little crazy. How did we get there? All too often, it's by taking things personally. You know the drill: your wife comes home grumpy from work and somehow it feels like it's your fault. Your boyfriend is stressed about a deadline, and you find yourself walking around on tiptoe. Your lover trips over the coffee table and you apologize. After another fight with your partner, you're wondering if maybe you're just no good at this relationship thing.

We can fall prey to taking things personally in any arena, but it's especially insidious in love relationships. We know this person better than anyone in the world, right? So, of course we can tell just how much their actions or reactions are really about us. But in reality we typically far overestimate our own impact - and in doing so, we sow the seeds of our own hesitancy to commit. By taking responsibility for their reactions, we inflate our own sense of importance and responsibility, but at the same time we create a losing proposition: why would we sign up for being permanently responsible for every peevish partner mood, every unfortunate incident, every failed communication or relationship snag?

How do we get ourselves into this way of thinking? Well, imagine a board meeting where all your worst insecurities have gathered to figure out how you should be running your life. Let's call them The Board of Mis-Directors. They'll tell you what you did wrong, where you're likely to fail, why others are laughing (or sneering) at you, how suspicious or angry you should be. And they will insist that you must take things personally. They yank on our need to know ourselves as significant, to know that we matter to our beloved (heck, to anyone) - sending us into spasms of worry and concern. This drama creates an illusion of importance, but let's get real: do we really want to measure our significance by whether or not our spouse is grouchy today?

In reality, taking things personally distorts our perceptions, wildly inflates our worst fears, and keeps us endlessly distracted from what really matters as we try to read meaning into irrelevant details.

The truth is: what your loved one does has astonishingly little to do with you. And that's good news!

There are so many things that affect how any one of us behaves. There's our upbringing, our culture, our personality, and our past experiences. There's the time of day, the time of the month, and the influence of the stars. There's the music we're listening to, the news we just heard, or whether or not we have a headache. (And this, as you well know, is not an exhaustive list!)

When we keep this in mind, it's much easier to remember why we're in this relationship in the first place. Chances are that you've chosen intimacy because you're interested in who your partner is - what is going on for them, what motivates them, how they see and experience the world. What if instead of taking your loved one's actions personally you paused and asked the question: "What else could be going on here?" Now you no longer have your back against the wall, wondering how you ever got yourself into this relationship and where the nearest exit is. Instead, you've asked an important question about someone you care about.

Devotion is being authentically interested in that answer. Dedication is being an honest companion, able to listen, support and challenge them in the places where their reality meets yours. Commitment gets a whole lot easier from there.