What Works is Functional

Of course we are all partner-dependent to differing degrees and achieve intimacy in various ways; if a couple's level of dependency works for them, why gainsay it? Problems only occur with sufficient relationship inadequacy and unfulfillment: not enough shared symbols, or shared interior space, or shared understanding, to maintain enough intimacy in the manner desired. And we try to get what we want from our partner, in either good or bad ways, with good or bad communication, effectively or not, successfully or not.

Problems are about choices: what to do, what to give, when to give it, when to give up. If we're unwilling to give up on the relationship but not on the problem, we often find something to channel our remaining, leftover, unmet desire. And since we're used to channeling minor relationship dissatisfactions that don’t really affect our overall happiness, a little extra channeling from whatever unhappiness we have is often easy to do.

Yet whether channeling unhappiness works is a different question for certainly there is always a limit, though it's different for everyone. I write because I find meaning in adequate expression and it helps me understand better. Yet since I don’t want to burden my wife with appeals for more of anything, I also channel minor dissatisfactions through writing too, because it works for me. However, I never want to sublimate unhappiness because I believe it's ultimately untenable; better to knock and ask than await silent suffering's explosion.