Dr. James Hollis

Because it's the otherness of the others that pulls us out of that self-referential system.

Otherwise, we get caught in a circular dialogue among our complexes, for example.

As Jung said, it's important to go to the mountaintop to meditate.

But if you stay up there too long, you'll be talking to ghosts.

Your complexes will be caught in this looping cycle.

And you need the other to pull you out of that into the presence of the other.

And it's out of that that the third comes.

Joseph Campbell made an important distinction once he said about committed relationship.

He said, if you're constantly sacrificing to the other, you'll grow resentful.

But if you're sacrificing to the project the two of you've launched together as a friendship or a marriage or whatever form it takes, you can do that in a very constructive way.

You're fed by that because you're mutually committed to the project that this relationship represents.

And that's an important distinction, I think.

I think all of the above.

First of all, young people tend to marry and make babies, understandably.

And then 20 years later, in some way, they're a different person.

And it's very hard for the premises that brought them together to still obtain in a developmental and honest way many years later.

When you reach that point, then there's a time for renegotiation or if need be, unfortunately, the dissolution of that relationship.

Because I had a colleague in New Jersey years ago who worked exclusively with the couples and she talked about starter marriages.

And she said, I would never say that publicly because that sounded too pessimistic.

But she said, if you're lucky, your starter marriage will be a good one that will evolve and so forth.