Acceptance means living with limitations, accepting your partner's behaviors

Dr. David Sanford is a couples counselor
and relationship coach, practicing in
South Portland. He was for 24 years the
Partners columnist for the Maine Sunday
Telegram. He is currently at work
on a book about day-to-day love. His
Web site is www.marriagesupport.com.

How can you live
with what you don't like
about your partner, if
your partner's disagreeable
traits aren't likely
to change? You could
leave your partner, of
course. That is what
plenty of people do,
when they decide not to
tolerate any more what
they don't like about the
person they are with.
But let's say you are
not going anywhere.
You consider yourself
committed to the relationship.

What do you do then?
Basically, you've got
three options: You can
spend your time yearning
for a better relationship,
presumably with
someone other than
your partner; you can
become resigned; or
you can accept the way
things are. The following
story will illustrate
the differences among
these three options.

Imagine that you live
in a rented apartment
in a large city. You have
a tiny back yard that
goes with the apartment.
You don't like
your back yard. It is full
of weeds and strewn
with bottles and rusty,
old cans.

Concerning your ugly
back yard, imagine that
the same three options
are available to you
yearning, resignation
and acceptance.

1. You can dream
about the farm with
ample garden acreage
that you wish you
owned in the country
yearning.

2. You can pull the
shades down on the
rear of your apartment
and never look at your
ugly backyard, in hopes
that ignoring the mess
out there will help you
feel better resignation.

3. You can get rid
of the bottles and old
cans, dig out the weeds,
apply fertilizer, plant
seeds, water regularly
and make the best itybity
city garden you
possibly can acceptance.

When you have
decided against leaving
your marriage or
relationship, acceptance
means refusing either
to console yourself with
idle dreams of something
better or to settle
for bitter resignation.

It means embracing
the situation, despite
its limitations, giving
up the fantasy that you
can change the other
person or that someday
you will leave. Instead,
it means making the
decision to live as fully
as you can with what
you've got.

Why practice acceptance?
There are three reasons.

First, every relationship
is limited, and
doing relationships well
like doing politics
well means practicing
the art of the possible.

If you choose not
to leave, accepting what
you can't change is a
much better possibility
than resentful, angry
resignation.

Second, once you accept
what you don't like
and can't change, you
gain access to all that is
available in the relationship
companionship,
comfort, mutual support,
sharing (assuming
that the relationship
provides these benefits).

One additional reason
to practice acceptance:

The more you criticize
your partner for traits
you don't like, the more
resistant your partner
will almost certainly
become and the less
chance you will have
of getting the changes
you are pushing so hard
for. On the other hand,
the more your partner
feels truly accepted by
you, the more open to
your wishes he or she is
likely to become.

Growing a relationship
only occurs when
you strive to accept its
inherent limitations.
If you decide to follow
the path of acceptance,
you will probably need
to make a fundamental
change of perspective.

You will need, henceforth,
to balance your
natural tendency to be
driven by wants and
expectations with a
new willingness to look
for and pursue opportunities.
In an opportunity-focused
relationship, you
look for moments of
possibility. Gone is the
habit of lamenting what
you don't have. In its
place is a sensitivity to
those occasions when
what you do have can
be shared, enjoyed and
often expanded.

For example, you wish
that your partner enjoyed
reading out loud
together, but he doesn't.
With as little resentment
as possibility, you
let that possibility go,
reminding yourself that
there is plenty he would
like that is outside your
range, as well.

On the other hand,
you both enjoy exploring
new places. Taking
advantage of what you
do have, you take trips
whenever possible an
occasional weekend
trip, more frequent day
trips, even one-hour
walks through seldom
visited parts of town,
when free time is in
short supply. In short,
you withdraw energy
and attention from what
you don't have together
and lavish it on what
you do have.