I remember once at university, back when I was a sophomore,
coming across a member of staff who had married a few
months previously. Out of politeness, I asked her how she was
enjoying married life, fully expecting the usual retort: “It is
hard, but worth it,” or “They say it’s always difficult at the
beginning”. Instead, I was astonished to hear her say:
“Marriage is so cool!” Her eyes shone like never before and it
was clear that she meant what she said! Part of me still
questions whether she was faking it and I knew nothing about
her family but it struck me that she was the first person I’d
ever heard enthuse about how she was enjoying that new
stage of her relationship. We didn’t speak for long but for
years it left me wondering whether there could be a better way
to live in a relationship. What does it take to make a happy
marriage? Why do so many people suffer within marriage?
Why do they get divorced? Is divorce a solution to a difficult
marriage?
I started looking for answers, and due to my state of mind,
discovered that attachments to external circumstances
appeared to be the key, especially when leading to loneliness
and despair. This realization was confirmed in the spiritual
teachings of Byron Katie, Deepak Chopra and Oprah Winfrey,
and research undertaken by professional family psychologists
Hal Runkel, Prof. Dr. D. Javier Escriva Ivars, amongst others.
Essentially, everything in my life in the past, present and
future begins with me, not with the external circumstances. As
soon as I had embraced this concept, I began to notice all
sorts of remarkable transformations in my relationships with
family, friends and people around me.
My challenge, almost two years ago, was to share this sweet
discovery with female adolescents attending vocational classes
in Almaty, as part of an international project. I came up with
seven answers to the question of how to have a happy
marriage. My husband and I then developed our theory, after
he asked me to find a simple metaphor on which to pin these
seven recommendations. We were in the kitchen at the time
and I remember searching the room for a familiar object
which could embody these ideas. Dismissing the table, fridge
and microwave as unsuitable, I felt a rush of excitement when
I noticed that the chair had seven sides. It was an obvious
choice and almost immediately, I realized that an analogy
with ‘Musical Chairs’ would provide a fun way to explore this
theory2.
The next day I gave my first lecture in Almaty. When asked
why people get married, most of the class provided
predictable, positive responses including: “Because they love
each other”; “To have children legally”, or “Because it’s
traditional.” I then asked why they thought people got
divorced. After an initial silence, there came a few hesitant
replies: “Money issues?” “Mismatched personalities?”
“Relatives?” In order to illustrate the key answer to that
question, I asked 6 participants to come onto the stage and in
pairs, run around three chairs. The format was similar to
‘Musical Chairs’ except in this instance, I asked each ‘couple’
to only run around one chair. I also placed another set of three
chairs within their sight and reach. When the music stopped,
there were three possible outcomes for the participants:
• Two were sitting side by side on one chair;
• One was sitting and one was standing;
• One was sitting on the lap of the other.
As fun as it was, they soon grew sad and pensive as they tried
to grasp the meaning behind the metaphor: most people enter
marriage without a “chair”, since nobody told them NOT to
take one with them. In my experimental game, I placed a
further three chairs within a few metres of the three set up in
the centre of the stage. When the music stopped and they
were sitting awkwardly on their chairs or standing nearby, I
showed them the other three chairs that they could have
requested or moved of their own accord.
I had said nothing against them taking one of these chairs yet
none of them had even tried and thus had not questioned
what they perceived to be the rules of the “unhappy marriage”
game. Alas, there are too many people playing it like this for
real, without realizing the consequences.
And so, the initial reasons for getting married – love and
support for each other – are lost and marriage becomes a
competition about who can grab the seat first. It’s no wonder
that the couple end up quarrelling or maintaining cold, hostile
silences as they harbour bitterness for each other. They then
end up getting divorced or out of fear of loneliness or abject
criticism, tolerating an unhappy marriage. How could they
not? There is a lack, a perpetual lack, of something they could
have taken to the marriage in the first place; something barely
mentioned in our culture. We are conditioned to believe that
through marriage, your partner will provide you with
something which is missing from your life. We also think that
a happy marriage is exemplified by the wedding celebration
rather than how we cope with the obligations and
responsibilities which begin when we sign by the marriage
certificate. They say that love is about giving. But how can you
give something you don’t have? How can you share your chair,
when all you think about is how you tired you are of standing
and want to sit down? We are continuously told that all we
need is a prince or a princess, but all we need is a chair!
So what does our chair stand for? In this instance, it is a
symbol of maturity. People get divorced or stay in miserable
marriages because they have not taken maturity into their
union. I came up with the term #machairity (maturity +
chair). They hope that now and then, their partner will allow
them to sit on their chair, if indeed they have one! They don’t
realize that if they are able to construct their own chair,
independent of their partner, they are much more likely to be
happy in a committed relationship. We are living in an era
when we expect a ‘quick fix’ for everything but simply saying
“I do” at the altar will never guarantee happiness. Maturity is
not so much a destination as a principle; a state of mind and a
desire to grow.
A chair is made up of many parts so if it represents maturity,
we must ensure that each part is properly maintained in order
that it serves us well. Otherwise, any ensuing imbalance may
cause it to collapse and cause us discomfort and pain.
Why a rocking chair? For me it is something that offers both
fun and a sense of calm; two emotions which I hope you will
experience while reading this book. It is also like a pendulum,
which can gently stop and bring you, into the now: a place of
power, insight, understanding and acceptance of reality, and
lots of humour! As Eckhart Tolle says, contrary to popular
belief, our purpose in life is not to provide some grandiose
meaning for humanity. That is secondary. Our primary
purpose is being present. Later I will explain how powerful
that is for relationships, especially the one you have with
yourself.
I don’t claim to have discovered anything new but instead,
have enjoyed playing around and reinterpreting previous
findings. So be prepared to digest familiar concepts cooked in
an unfamiliar sauce.
One of the other benefits of constructing and developing your
own chair is that you start noticing and attracting other
people who have chairs. You will think twice before
committing to a relationship with a ‘chair-less’ person and
should always resist the temptation to construct a chair for
them. Only he or she can know what is best for them and your
hard work will be in vain. It is like push-ups – nobody can do
them for you. I remember being asked at a lecture: “What if I
met my husband when he was completely chair- less, and I
constructed one for him within our marriage?” The answer
came to me much later; I wanted to ask her, “Is he happy with
the chair you constructed for him? Are you fulfilled with
yours? Did you spend most of your energy constructing his
chair or truly loving each other?” Many of us like to feel like
heroes, yet we forget to fight in the right field – in our own
mind, not someone else’s.
Another frequent question I’m asked is: “If someone is fully
mature and self-sufficient, why would they bother with a
relationship?” Well, wouldn’t it be nice to enter into a
relationship out of curiosity, rather than the need to fill an
imaginary gap? When two people who have already reached
maturity get together, that intimate contact with one another
makes them more open to a deeper understanding of
themselves and how they relate to the world. Just like this
book, its value becomes known through reading rather than
sitting on a shelf. Interaction with others offers us a reflection
of who we are, through the eyes of our ‘readers’.
But why are we hesitant about giving it a try? Could it be due
to something in our early programming?