Dr. James Hollis

No, your point is very well taken and appropriate because it is a paradox.

First of all, in the Eden Project, a book I wrote on relationship and subtitled The Search for the Magical Leather, there is inside of us this infantile and understandable desire to find the right person who's going to make our life work for us.

who's going to take care of us, meet our needs, read our minds, et cetera, et cetera, you see.

And the other person has that going on in them, so they project that onto us.

You wonder why relationships get so complexed, you see.

But the great gift of relationship

if you can tolerate it, is the otherness of the other produces the dialectic, produces the enlargement that comes from encountering the other.

I've learned so much from my wife, and I believe she's learned a few things from me.

Our ongoing dialogue, because we're both similar and very different at the same time,

is one that has at times been conflictual, naturally, but most of the time is a pattern of growth because we are allowed to bring in that other perspective and see the same reality.

My wife has taught me to see some things that I wouldn't have seen before because she has an artist's eye.

On the other hand, there are places where you have to come up, as you said, against what is central and critical to your own well-being or your own integrity.

And then you have to stand for that.

And the wisdom to know which is which at any given time is not inbred.

It's one of those times where we have to find that balancing point between legitimate dialogue and compromise and sacrifice in a relationship.

There's a place for sacrifice.

But at the same time, there's a place where you have to say, all right, but I also have to separate myself here and stand for this on the other side of that.

And, you know, it takes a Solomonic wisdom to know always what's right.

But over time, I think one can get a sense of what that's about.

So, you know, again, that's why we have to individuate as individuals by definition, but also in relationship.