How can a son differ with his generous mother and still be a good son? How can a daughter feel pity for her father and respectfully disagree with him without feeling guilty? How can a wife set limits with her husband and still love him? How can a husband and wife be diametrically opposed on an issue and still find common ground? How can children succeed when their parents insist on it? How can a single parent “do something for herself” without feeling guilty for leaving her children?

Is the husband who withdraws and isolates always leaving because he doesn't care enough about his wife or could it be that he cares too much about her reactions? Is the wife who attempts to control her husband compelled to do so because she only wants her way or could she be so afraid of his impact in her life that she defends herself this way? Is it possible for an employee to disagree with an employer without being disloyal? These questions point to common relationship struggles that appear to make relationships very difficult and sometimes impossible.

Relationships involve being connected with, but separate from another. Connecting to another, while still keeping your own thoughts and opinions is relatively simple when two people are not “close.” But when two people are “close” or care about each other being separate, yet connected is anything but simple. While most emotionally conflicted relationships appear to need more “closeness,” in fact they need more separateness in order to allow for less emotional reactivity and more thinking. Relationships that appear to be distant and polarized are completely enmeshed not allowing separate thinking or responses. Reactions of one are immediately met with an equal and opposite reaction from the other. The inability to determine where I stop and where you start is the weakness in most relationships.

Efforts to maintain some measure of “self” are often met with sabotage in the mistaken belief that separateness leads to not caring. Overcoming disappointment, resentment, and hurt can only be achieved by a strong sense of self. The ability to be a separate thinking person in the emotional caldron of conflict or seduction is directly related to one’s ability to be truly connected. At the same time, the ability to connect with another is directly related to the level of self maintained by a person. Three dynamics in a relationship: closeness, separateness and the feelings generated in everyday experience fosters two different approaches to connect.

The two approaches used to establish and maintain relationships are cooperation and compromise. A distinctly different set of relationship assumptions are at work in compromise and cooperation. A relationship based on compromise assumes fairness as the standard, leverage as the method of change and conceptualizes relationships as a zero sum game. Cooperation assumes justice as the standard, self-regulation as the method for change, and that the whole of the relationship is greater than the sum of the parts.