THE FOUR PARTS OF A HAPPY CARL ROGERS MARRIAGE

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Marriage is an unusual relationship: potentially long-term, intense, and capable of continuous growth and development. Rogers believed that marriage is subject to the same basic laws as found in “meeting groups,” therapy, and other relationships.

The best marriages involve partners who are congruent, minimally burdened with “conditions of value,” and capable of genuine acceptance of each other. When marriage is used to maintain incongruity or reinforce people's inherent defensive tendencies, it is less satisfying and less stable

Rogers' visions of long-term intimate relationships, such as marriage, are based on four basic elements: constant involvement in the relationship, expressing feelings, rejection of imposed roles, and the ability to share the inner life of a partner. He describes each of these elements as a commitment, an agreement about the ideal for an ongoing beneficial and meaningful relationship process.

• Attitude for involvement in relationships. "Partnership is a process, not a contract." Relationships are work; it "is carried out both for its own sake and for the sake of mutual satisfaction." Rogers proposes to put it this way: "We are both committed to working together in the changing process of our relationship, because they constantly enrich our love, our life, and we want them to develop."
• Communication is an expression of feelings. Rogers insists on full and open communication. “I will take risks trying to convey any stable feeling, which is a part of myself, positive or negative, to my partner - to the extent of completeness and depth, as I myself understand it. Then I will venture to try to understand, with all the empathy I am capable of, the partner's reaction, be it accusatory and critical or open and supportive. " Communication contains two equally important phases: the expression of emotion and the openness to experiencing the partner's reaction.

Rogers suggests not just expressing your feelings, he argues that you should be equally serious about how your feelings affect your partner. it's much more difficult than just "blowing off steam" or being "open and honest." it is a willingness to accept a real risk of being rejected, misunderstood, punished, and aroused hostile feelings. The agreement to establish and maintain this level of interaction, which Rogers insists, contradicts the common idea of the need to be polite, tactful, avoid sharp corners and not touch the emotional problems that arise.

• Not accepting roles. Many problems arise from trying to meet the expectations of others rather than defining their own. "We will live by our own choice, with the greatest organic sensitivity that we are capable of, and will not indulge in desires, rules, roles that others so want to impose on us." Rogers points out that many couples experience tremendous stress trying to live up to the partial and ambivalent acceptance of the images that their parents and society as a whole impose on them. A marriage burdened with too many unrealistic expectations and patterns is internally unstable and potentially unsatisfying.

• Becoming yourself. This is a deep attempt to discover and accept your own holistic nature. This is the most difficult decision - the decision to remove the masks as soon as they appear. “Maybe I can get closer to what really exists deep inside me - sometimes anger, sometimes fear, sometimes love and care, sometimes beauty, sometimes strength, sometimes rage - without hiding these feelings from myself. Maybe I can learn to appreciate the wealth and diversity of who I am. Maybe I can openly be more myself. If so, I can live according to my own experienced values, although I know all the social norms. I can allow myself to be all this complex set of feelings, meanings and values with my partner - to be free enough to surrender to love, the anger of tenderness, as they exist in me. Then maybe I can be a real partner because I am on my way to becoming a real person. And I hope that I can help my partner follow his own path to his unique humanity, which I am ready to accept with love."