“The sweetest woman in the world can be the meanest woman in the world – if you make her that way”

Anyone who has lived long enough can most likely tell you about painful encounters they have observed among friends, family or acquaintances who have suffered through an ugly divorce or breakup.

Breakup events are numerous as statistics show that 40% of the couples who get married in the United States will end up divorced at some point. The percentage of breakups for non-married couples is even greater.

It is rare when relationships end amicably and most people can recall stories from their own life – or from newspapers, books, movies and television – about the sad personal attacks and nasty character assassinations that usually arise when two people who once loved each another suddenly turn from allies to enemies.

This verse from a Pretenders song “It’s a Thin Line between Love & Hate” made me think of the puzzling metamorphosis that takes place in relationships as love eventually turns into hate:

 “The sweetest woman in the world can be the meanest woman in the world if you make her that way”

The paradoxical sentiment of that line resonated with me because it acknowledged the significant role couples have in the health and well-being of their partner.

It puzzles me when someone feels like it necessary to publicly put down and disparage their ex-spouse or partner; and when I witness it happening I always wonder if the person realizes that it often reflects just as poorly on them as it does on their partner.

One of the basic rules of civil society is not to talk poorly about other people in public, especially behind their back. Besides that, there is another dynamic in play that occurs when spouses or partners start verbally describing all the ways that their ex is a terrible human being.

When I hear an injured partner recite a litany of sins committed against them I begin to wonder what changed and what role each had in the demise of the relationship. You have to believe that at one point in life the injured person thought their partner was sweet and caring and someone worthy and wonderful. What could have happened along the way to turn the sweetest person in the world into the meanest person in the world?

The lyrics from this song hint that the actions of each person in a relationship can have a great influence on how their partner behaves. So when a partner complains about the mean behavior of their ex, they would do well to examine how their actions may have contributed to this behavior. It is important for couples to realize that the things they do and fail to do every day are partly responsible for the health of their relationship and those actions can either strengthen or weaken it.

We affect the health of a relationship every day by what we say and do and how we treat our partner. Our actions serve to strengthen the relationship when we are attentive to our spouse, when we comfort them when they are discouraged, when we offer to help when they are tired, when we lend a sympathetic ear when they have had a bad day, when we show appreciation for the things they do, take interest in the things that are important to them and treat them with respect and dignity.

Unfortunately, quite often we take actions that serve to weaken our relationship with our partners. We stop communicating with them, we ignore their feelings and the things that are important to them, we concentrate on fulfilling our own goals at the expense of our partner, we point out faults and complain about the ways our partner disappoints us and we treat them with disrespect or even contempt.

I read once that the opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference. I think there is some truth to that. Love and hate are similar in that they are both extreme emotions driven by very strong feelings. Indifference on the other hand is exhibited by a lack of caring and emotions and it is this pernicious lack of caring I think that is the beginning of the end for many relationships.

When people decide to stop caring, they in essence give up on the relationship and they start acting independently in ways that alienate and hurt their spouse – whether they intend to or not.

This is common when a love relationship is initially based on self-centered interests instead of self-giving desires. Too many relationships come with specific strings attached (an unspoken understanding that my love for you is conditional based on you satisfying my self-centered interests). When a partner fails to meet those conditions, the conditional love relationship is broken and the partners feel justified looking elsewhere for someone or something else that will satisfy them.

The relationships that seem to last are those based on a more mature unconditional kind of love. In these relationships, each of the partners look first to the well-being of their partner and are willing to sublimate their self-indulgent tendencies to achieve a strong and successful bond.

The best relationship advice I ever received was given during a church homily on the subject of marriage. The priest said that the first thing a husband and wife should do when they wake up in the morning is to ask themselves; “What does my spouse need from me today?“.

He explained that if both spouses asked themselves that question, they were sure to build a long and successful relationship because each spouse would then be actively focused not on themselves, but on the unconditional well-being of their spouse.

I have tried to follow that advice – even though I am still too often guilty of selfish and self-centered behavior when it comes to having my needs met. But I try every day to be a supportive husband and I take solace believing that there is a corollary to the Pretenders song verse that partners can help make come true for each other.

 “The meanest woman in the world can be the sweetest woman in the world if you make her that way”