Keeping All Four Feet “in the Ring”

In marriage, couples encounter many problems, including difficulties in communication, misalignment around parenting, conflict about money, inequality in sharing power, problems in intimacy and loss of trust. When such difficulties remain unresolved for periods of time, it is sometimes easy to get discouraged and start questioning your commitment to your marriage. It can be attractive to think that you would not encounter these difficulties in another relationship. Creating partnership requires the courage and the resolve to keep all four feet in the marriage when you are having difficulties and stay committed to your vision of a successful life together.

For people who have one foot in and one foot out of their marriage, it becomes challenging, if not impossible, for them to create partnership. At best, they will find themselves sitting on the fence, waiting to choose, “Am I in or am I out?” “Are we committed or not?” Having all four feet in the relationship is a prerequisite for creating partnership. Many couples that go into marital therapy do so to resolve the fundamental issue of whether they will keep all four feet in their marriage or not.

If having a successful marriage is learning to negotiate effectively, communicate honestly, resolve conflict fairly and work together, doing any of those activities while one or both partners has one foot out of the relationship is very difficult. Imagine two boxers in a heavyweight match where one of the boxers has one foot completely out of the ring. No matter how good the other fighter might be, he does not know whether to move in closer, lay back, appeal to the referee or stop all together. Without each partner having both of their feet firmly in their marriage, working on their effective interaction or “learning to fight fairly” becomes hard to do.

It could be said that, when two people have all four feet in their relationship, the couple “stands together” for their partnership and for their marriage. When you and your partner share a clear commitment to your relationship and your life together and are playing by an agreed upon set of rules, you can see more clearly what’s going on in your current circumstances. Your circumstances may be challenging, at times, but you can assess what is working and not working and take effective action. You both can work together in strengthening your relationship out of your choice to be in the relationship fully. This allows you both to create whatever future you envision, be in action and work out difficulties as they arise.  In other words, you are able approach life as partners.

Posted in Partnership Marriage