Why couples stick together despite conflicts

Clinical psychologist Sadia Raval unravels the reasons why unhappy couples stick it out together and try to make damaged relationships work.

A happy marriage or relationship is where both partners understand each other, love each other unconditionally, communicate effectively and love doing little things for each other -- so we are told. Those marriages or couples that don t display such understanding are not quite there!

However, it s easy to see that both our relationships and those that involve others closest to us, do not always possess these qualities. And yet they last -- some for decades! Ever wondered why it is that these bonds last, in spite of lacking these so-called basic requirements ?

The answer, I believe, is in all those things that we do not idealise. In my interactions with couples who come to therapy, I have searched for the unspoken factors that make two people endure internal struggles, fights with each other, terribly hurt feelings and pain -- all to strive to be together and stick it out.

If one does a quick Google search on why unhappy couples stay together, one finds a number of reasons, most fear-ridden and sad. Here are some that appear repeatedly: fear of being lonely, having nowhere to go, social disgrace (especially in a country like India), financial dependence, loss of a sense of identity or the role as a married person. This whole range of reasons makes such a sad case for couples, relationships and marriages. It appears that partners who do not get along brilliantly are motivated to stay together and fight for their relationship only because they are afraid of functioning in any other way!

Sadia Raval is a Mumbai-based clinical psychologist with over 10 years' experience in therapeutic counselling. Her website is: www.sadiaraval.com

Our social conditioning teaches us to value relationships, and later marriage, as an aspect of life that is secure. We feel unloved, unimportant and insignificant if we are not attached. We suddenly feel pushed out of this whole happily married, close family, loving and being loved situation and get into a lonely, not really belonging anywhere kind of space.

However, I am not convinced that is all there is to the story. I feel there is much, much more. And this much more is not seen because it s either between the lines or we have focused so strongly on what we are conditioned to see and understand, that we have tuned out the subtler aspects of our relationships.

Here I have tried to briefly cover some of the happier reasons why people stick together, despite pain and struggle in their relationships:

There is nothing to hide

Close, intimate relationships are perhaps the only place where we are completely exposed. We are both detested and loved for who we are. The anger and rage, the affection and goodness, the virtues and the vices are all there out in the open. We are criticised and judged and evaluated and complained against but stillwe are tolerated and are lived with. Isn t that the biggest boost? If you read between the lines, it is one partner telling another no matter who you are, and no matter what I say about you, you are good enough for me to still be with you . Wow! That felt good, didn t it? I felt good just writing it...

We repeatedly feel important

We think (not always at a very conscious level of course), My partner is fighting with me in order to make me understand him/her better. That tells me I am important! However angrily I am reminded of the fact that I am terribly daft and the most non-understanding human that ever walked this earth, I am still being told, between the lines, that I am important enough to be fought with. My viewpoints and opinions are important enough to be turned around, to be fought about for hours and days. That feels nice too, doesn t it?

Conflicts help us to grow

Perhaps angrily and grudgingly, somewhere in the back of our minds we know that coping with the conflicts will strengthen us. We know there is more to life than a happily ever after. Although we chase the happily-ever-after, we do not really believe in it. We seek to grow, naturally. Yes, we could do with a lot more support and we could do with some more rest, but internally we know, as we face these conflicts, that they help us to broaden our view of life and identify more with life.

Love is attractive

Not only in the sense that we need to receive it but also in the sense that we need to give it. It gives us a positive sense of purpose. We are needed to give love and are wanted for whoever we are.

Disclaimer: I am not talking of relationships here that are characterised by abuse . Abuse doesn t do any of the above. Abuse tires us, violates us and makes us feel like very small versions of ourselves.

PS: Now be fair and don t categorise your conflicts into emotional abuse. Abusive relationships do not come about from just a difference of perspectives.