James Cordova

And when you're trying to make the fern happy, the cactus is feeling overwhelmed and rotting.

But when you can recognize that you're just different types of plants, then you can actually collaborate on being good and loving each other skillfully.

and what i find over and over again and this couple in particular is like oh i think you guys might be like you're more like a cactus and you're more like a fern their eyes just lit up and they started laughing right because they recognized themselves in the metaphor like that is us you are like she's like slapping his shoulder you are like a cactus and he's like you are like a fern and

And there was a delight in the recognition of that pattern in their relationship.

And you could just feel the release from the conflict.

Oh, like I'm never going to win a battle to turn my fern partner into a cactus.

And I'm never going to win the battle to turn my cactus into a fern.

But I can learn how to love a cactus.

And I can learn how to love a fern.

And we just didn't see it before.

But once we saw it, the solution seemed so obvious.

It's so important.

We're all blind to the patterns that are characteristic of our relationship.

You know, one of us is more delighted by spending and the other of us is more delighted by saving.

And we get stuck in what we call a spender-saver pattern, but we can't see it ourselves.

And we just end up fighting about whether or not to get a brand new TV.

And one of us gets called cheap and the other one gets called a spendthrift.

But if we can see the pattern, oh, we're stuck in a spend or savor pattern.

We're stuck in a cactus fern pattern.

Being able to name it actually makes it really hard to continue doing it.