Partnership Skills for Intimate Couples
Mature & Immature Love © Martyn Carruthers

I wanted to map the consequences of mature love and immature infatuation – the path of healthy partnership vs shallow affairs. Do you want to better understand your relationship habits and fulfill your dreams of happy partnership.

Many couples start partnerships based on fantasies, with high expectations and limited partnership skills (let alone parenthood skills). They may wake up a few months or a few years later … perhaps with children and debts … wondering what happened to love.

Perhaps we are playing a game
A game called we are not playing a game
If I ask about the rules our game
I break the rules of our game
(the game called we are not playing a game)
And you punish me

We help people understand their expectations and fantasies in ways that they can discover both themselves and each other. This opens possibilities for partnerships based on honesty and maturity. We help couples achieve their dreams of happiness.

Is your Partnership Healthy? See Solving Couple Conflicts

Relationship Problems are Normal

When I was a teenager, I thought that happy partnership was mostly luck. Like so many people, I learned about relationships from watching my parents, TV shows, movies and by listening to the lyrics of popular songs. It wasn’t at all clear to me then that happy partnership requires supportive beliefs, shared values, teamwork and many, many relationship skills.

As many people appear to lack mature partnership and parenting skills, over half of the couples you know will likely suffer partnership breakdown. Many people you know will separate and divorce more than once, or stay together bonded by guilt. Few couples that you know will live happy ever after.

My wife and I have been happy together for 40 years … I am often told how lucky I am although my wife says that it took her years to mold me into something she could live with … I think she is joking … Oregon

Did you know that there’s little financial gain from happy people! There’s lots of money to be made from unhappy people who search for distractions. There’s lots of money to be made by selling anti-depressants and stimulants. Unhappy people spend a lot of money to forget how boring and senseless their lives are!

Observe how couples and families are portrayed on television … listen carefully to modern love songs … check the divorce statistics … explore what you and your family accept as normal! Those few mature couples who enjoy lasting happy partnership have worked hard to develop and maintain their joyful harmony – in a society where it may be normal for immature partners to barely tolerate each other.

Sometimes, a partner says, “Our partnership is fine”
while the other is preparing to leave.

Partnership Requires Maturity!

One step to maturity is emotional freedom from your family of origin. If an adult is overly concerned about pleasing a parent, that person may have problems sharing love with a partner. If an adult feels closer to a family member than to a partner (especially an opposite-sex parent, child or a sibling) – he or she may be enmeshed in emotional incest. (Consequences of emotional incest include immaturity, impotence & frigidity, and affairs).

In the following tables are some of the consequences of immature infatuation and of mature love. I also compare immature and mature partnership skills. Healthy partnership skills requires a mature attitude that’s easy to claim but hard to fake – you expose your maturity with your every sentence and your every action.

1. Infatuation or Love?

Infatuation may last from a few days to a few years and may be called true love although it is often the shortest phase of partnership. Love at first sight often indicates transferences (one or both partners do not see the other as real people – rather as idealized images based on their histories and needs). For more, see Soul Mates.

Steps to Infatuation	Steps to Love
You meet someone with whom you might fulfill your romantic fantasies	You meet someone who you find interesting, mature and attractive
You hope that this person can rescue you	You check if you are both available
You don’t want to change anything	You feel inspired to develop yourself
You will do anything to prolong your good feelings of being with this person	You explore your shared goals, history, ethics, expectations, morals and values
Your life feels intensely romantic	You enjoy exploring each other’s realities
You hope that all your needs and desires can be fulfilled effortlessly	You together consider and discuss ways to fulfill both of your needs and desires
You believe that your good feelings will last forever	You do things together to build trust and to see each other in many contexts, even stressful
You break rules to maintain good feelings	You discuss the rules of your relationship
You believe that you can communicate telepathically – without words	You discuss many topics candidly and you compare your heartfelt beliefs and values
You evade important issues and tell lies to avoid spoiling your nice feelings	You tell raw truth to increase intimacy
You ignore important parts of your life (friends, family, work, savings, etc)	You share important parts of your life, including the darker times
THIS is your One True Love – your Soul Mate – no other partner is possible!	You know there are many potential partners for you and this person seems like a good choice
You’re in love!

Love can last for lifetime if there is a strong basis for attraction, mutual trust, shared values and a willingness to create happiness together. Infatuation might lead to lasting love – yet more often leads to disappointment and affairs. (People who repeatedly build relationships on infatuation instead of love, may be called love addicts – addicted to the intense emotions associated with romantic fantasies and conflicts.)

2. Disenchantment or Responsibilities?

Infatuation usually reaches a peak and then diminishes. Reality intrudes when people must make ordinary, practical decisions … when immature fantasies may start to feel unrealistic. Mature love will continue to grow as people plan, assign and fulfill daily life responsibilities together.

Maturity and responsibility are choices – they are not gifts that can be given.

You feel disenchanted	You accept responsibility
Your fantasy is replaced by daily life	Your daily life is the reward of your work
Romance is replaced by boredom or conflict	Love grows as responsibilities are shared
Something wonderful is slowly dying	Something wonderful is slowly emerging
You may feel that you are being cheated	You may feel that you are being rewarded
Your partner cannot fulfill your dreams	You clarify your dreams of partnership
You blame anything and anybody … except perhaps yourself	You take credit for your efforts – and responsibility for your mistakes
You are very aware of other potential partners	Other potential partners exist … so what?

If someone generally avoids responsibility and commitment,
see Mother’s Prince and/or Daddy’s Princess

3. Conflict and Withdrawal!

Housework can be fun together-time or can become power contests. Who takes out the garbage? Who washes these dishes? What exactly does clean mean? Unless resolved, many people, after a threshold of suffering, withdraw or react childishly. They may consider separation or affairs. Yet mature partners use those same conflicts to improve their happiness together!

Conflicts LOSE energy	Conflicts GAIN energy
You argue and fight over small issues	You find fun ways to manage small issues
You feel emotionally unavailable – dissociated	You find nice ways to be in your body
You become withdrawn or aggressive	You find interesting ways to recharge
You fear loneliness or uncertainty	You know that you are friendly and competent
You long for lost intimacy and passion	You explore ways to increase intimacy
Sexual intimacy decreases or stops and flirting or affairs seem more interesting	Sexual intimacy ebbs and flows, and you learn to ride the tide and go with the flow

We coach people to build healthy relationships.
We help people solve partnership problems.

Continued in Partnership Skills 2 … Evaluate and Decide