What Are Relationship Values?
In an earlier post I reflected on the place of values in relationships. Values are important because they capture how you want to be in the world. Values invite you to think about what matters most and what you want to stand for. Values also invite you to consider how you want to interact with others, how you want to be in relationships.
No relationship invites you to consider your values like marriage. In marriage you have two who have committed themselves to one another in a lifelong covenant relationship. You have two people who have committed themselves to be there for one another, to help the other person grow, and to be open to how you can grow because of the presence of the other person. And all of this happens in the countless daily interactions that make up a marriage.
And yet, because marriages consist of countless, daily interactions, it is easy for the rhythm of marriage to become a routine. And the routine of marriage becomes a rut. When this happens, couples begin to complain that something is missing. There may be feelings of emptiness and disconnection as each of you live mostly separate lives. The dissatisfaction with this routine and rut can be expressed in conflict and emotional pain. This conflict and pain come from the fact that each person may be blaming the other person for the emptiness that both people feel in the marriage.
But there is something bigger going on here. The pain and the emptiness you feel can tell you something about what you value deeply in the relationship, and these values can tell you something meaningful about the pain. Observing the nature of the conflict and the nature of your pain in that conflict can give you information about what you find important and meaningful.
An Example
Let’s say you become aware that you are feeling lonely in the relationship. You sense that your partner is detached. You are not feeling understood or loved. If you decide that the behavior of your partner is responsible for all you are experiencing, you may become angry or resentful or hurt. And you will find ways to express those feelings that are not helpful for you or the relationship.
But what if you used these feelings of loneliness and lack of connection to help you learn something about what you find important and meaningful? You can ask yourself questions like: Is there something important that this emotional pain is trying to tell you? What are the ways that these thoughts and feelings are stopping you from doing something that is an expression of how you want to be in the relationship? What is the loneliness telling you about what’s important to you and what matters to you in a relationship?
All of these questions are about values.
They help you see that values are more than inspiring ideas that you think about from time to time. If you spend some time reflecting on these questions, you have a chance to see that values can guide your thoughts and actions in the everyday moments that are part of your relationship. So often moments of pain and struggle like this become an opportunity to see how your partner is not matching up to the person you need them to be. But from the perspective of values, these moments invite you to consider, in real and specific ways, the kind of partner you desire to be and how you can allow that desire to shape your actions right now.
Please go to my page on marriage counseling that describes in more detail how you can explore your relationship values.