Happy Life with a Russian Wife

Posted By admin on November 17, 2009

Questions asked in the comments to my post at http://justbestlife.com/2007/12/09/o-pyati-yazykax-lyubvi/ “On Five Languages of Love” were left unanswered for the time being due to different circumstances. However, it is time to return to them… and not only to them.
By and large, will all nuances, the questions come to doubts about whether it is possible to learn to understand the “love language” of your partner and to learn to speak it, and about how you can let him/her understand what you do not want to speak about in his/her language. It is a big issue, which is pretty difficult, and one post would not be enough to cover it. So let us start with the following question, “Do you really want to learn?”
Do you really want to understand each other? To trust each other more, to discover new attractive sides in the already familiar partner – do you want it? And would you like your partner to express his/her love and gratitude in the way you need?
So what is the hassle?
Frankly speaking, I do not know any relations free of recurrent misunderstanding. We all face resentment from time to time, especially when we expect it less of all. Successful and happy couples are different from unsuccessful and unhappy ones in the ability to talk about each other’s needs in the language clear to the other partner. As a result, they do not keep making the same mistakes on and on.
At work, we learn to understand what our colleagues and boss say. It is in order of things. Because colleagues are unfamiliar and far away, and your family is near, explains my husband, communications professor, when our misunderstanding comes to its climax. Being inside a very emotional situation, it is hard to remember that your partner is not your property or your twin, even if you have lived together for many years. He/she has his/her own ideas about life and stereotypes different from yours. It is good, because if it were otherwise, it would have given you the blues. So there is much to be learnt and fulfilled, if you want it, of course.
But more frequently people want to run away… Men want to join men’s company and cut loose. Women want to join their girlfriends, who would understand and reassure that “men are all like that” and that “he does not deserve you.” Comforted from all sides, family members return home relatively peaceful and convinced that they are right – until the next time, which is not far off, because they have not learnt to understand each other.
What happens in substance? I will talk about women, because I myself belong to this wonderful sex, but what I am going to say applies to our beautiful halves absolutely to the same degree.
So then, we need to complain about what has happened to us in our relations, and we come to our girlfriends (mothers, sisters…). It is great if your girlfriend is an honest person who is happy in her own life. Then she will listen to you and ask, “What do you want to do with it?” Maybe she will give you a piece of advice, which might not work in your family, because your family, husband and situation are different.
But we come to our girlfriends for other things. We come to confirm our righteousness, to make sure that we are clever, and he… He will just die without our thoughtful guidance! He just does not understand it! In any case, we look for proofs that we are innocent victims. We come to validate our pretty shattered self-esteem. And if our girlfriend starts digging deep, we will call her cruel and go to another one for reassurance.
And we will find it! To our own misfortune…
The problem is there is no solution in this kind of reassurance. It is just a “black hole” that feeds on energy so necessary for restoration of your relations with the loved one. To restore the shattered trust, it is necessary to change something and to see the situation from another angle. Sympathizing with you and giving advice (most often the one she does not follow herself or admittedly unsuitable for your situation), your friend will deliberately or not create such a powerful resonance with your negative attitude that it will be very difficult to get out of it. But what else can she do? She does not want to become your enemy for the rest of your lives. That is why she is your friend…
So take a piece of advice: do not mess your girlfriends up complaining about your lives. They are not responsible for them. Instead of finding the proper solution for yourself and your partner, you go farther and farther away from it. And it will be more and more difficult to return to the initial point… The more often it happens, the more confirmation of your “adequacy” you need from outside, the worse it will work out for your family.
In your family, you need other things. First of all, you need understanding. To be understood, it is necessary to express your thoughts in the language your partner speaks. Of course, it would be fine if he understood what you say; there is no doubt about that. For example, it ticks me off from time to time that my husband does not want to learn Russian. But somebody has to take the first step!

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Tags: Choice, Commitment to Change, Happy Marriage, Mutual Understanding, Nurturing Each Other, Personal Growth, Stages of Relations