03/26/2024
Semi-profound thoughts by Ari Hoffman
When I was 18 years old and, in my perception, at the peak of personal wisdom and maturity I was learning in yeshiva in Israel. In a class with my rebbe, Rabbi Noach Orlowek shlit”a, Reb
Noach said the following line.
“The definition of maturity is the recognition that how I feel now is not how I will feel for the rest of my life.”
When I think back now to my immediate reaction to that line it is with a bit of humorous embarrassment. The initial response in my head was a slightly offended “is he implying that I’m not yet mature?” And I can honestly tell you that I didn’t realize the greatness of this line until probably about 18 years later.
I’m continually awed and amazed by the things that I hear in the course of my work as a couples therapist. One such statement came after I told a young woman that it is ok to love your partner
and also be irritated and even angry with him. She looked at me with wonder and said, “I’ve never been told that before! I always thought that if I’m angry with my husband then there must
be something wrong in the relationship.”
Relationships, especially committed partner relationships, are like two strands constantly moving into and out of connection, converging and diverging and then converging and diverging
again. There is stress in the divergence and relief in the convergence. This pattern is normal and is even an important part of building trust, intimacy, and healthy sexuality in the relationship.
If there is only divergence then I can’t trust that we will come back together but if there is only convergence then I have no opportunity to learn that even though we might be in conflict our
relationship can handle it. In the process of convergence and divergence we begin to trust that our relationship can handle some challenging elements, we learn that the relationship is resilient. When we know our relationship is resilient then we can trust it’s ability to sustain stressful things like having a baby, moving, the death of a family member, physical or mental illness, and all of the normal stressful things that can happen in the course of human life.
When you find yourself in conflict with your partner tell yourself it’s normal and try conceptualizing it as a temporary divergence and then work together to repair and come back in
to convergence. This is the time to invoke that maturity and remember that even though I feel in divergence with my partner, it will not always be that way. And while you’re doing so keep in
mind that this is exactly what it’s supposed to be like. You don’t have to be worried if you’re in divergence as long as you’re still in motion. The pathology happens not in the fight or argument
necessarily but when the dynamic (still moving) becomes static (not moving at all). When that happens and we’re in what feels like perpetual divergence (or even perpetual convergence for
that matter) then that might be a time to enlist the help of a couples therapist to help make the static dynamic again. That just made me think of an acronym – MRDA, Make Relationships
Dynamic Again. I think I need to start selling some hats.
