A User's Guide to Caring for Important Relationships

Automobiles and many other machines and appliances come with user guides and schedules and suggestions for upkeep and maintenance to help ensure ongoing optimal functioning - The important people in our lives do not.

Some deliberate and ongoing attention is required to assure smooth operation and to improve the chances that small problems will not develop into big ones. That is, we can and must do things to ensure some parallel ongoing optimal functioning.

Not many of us would expect a new car to run well for 40 or 50 years on its own volition and without human attention. If we never maintained it, changed the oil, etc., we might not even expect it to run for two! By what line of reasoning would we expect relationships to be self-maintaining and to continue to function well without attention to their maintenance needs?

In my professional life, I am often asked if I think that everyone who is having a problem needs to seek psychotherapy. The short answer is, "Of course not." But, in that answer, there is the presumption that people can do lots of things to help themselves.

Although it can include them, self-help isn't just about seeking support groups or reading books about someone else's ideas about how to be of help to yourselves and each other. It is, perhaps more importantly, about learning to appreciate our own self-care needs and to recognize and try to address those of people who are important to us.

This article focuses on the issues related to helping ourselves sustain and improve our most important relationships. It is about attending to them in a preventative manner before the relationship equivalents of red lights on the dashboard of a car suddenly glow to tell us that something may be about to sputter and break-down. Consider, please, the need for the preemptive attention to the needs of our most meaningful relationships.

The 'oil change' simile works pretty well here. Everything that involves change or motion, tend to create some kind of friction and requires some regular attention (new lubricant) to sustain its smoothness and functioning. In this way, a relationship is a lot like a car.

Changing the oil doesn't mean the same thing to every person - but, given a little thought, it probably, with a little thought, means something to everyone.

A kind comment, an expression of appreciation, an unexpected hug or simple expression of fondness or empathy can go quite a long way toward keeping the workings of that important relationship rolling along. Of course, there are always bumps in the road - for cars and for people alike.

But bumps needn't send us flying off of the road, upside down into a careen and into the hospital Emergency Department. A well maintained relationship tends to weather those bumps much better than one that has been neglected.

And those little red lights: They mean that something is wrong (or is just about to go wrong) and the manuals and technicians generally instruct us to pull over and stop or get to the closest service center as quickly as possible. In close relationships, too, there are warning lights. They are not the same for everyone and for every relationship - but if you have been with one person for a while, you probably know well what they are.

Sometimes, it's a look or a comment that just doesn't feel quite right. Sometimes, it can take the form of a customary activity being ignored or a routine expectation being neglected. Try to keep a sensitive eye out for those lights!

Because, like with your vehicle, if you ignore one (the relationship equivalent might be denial or even some of what is called 'passive aggression') your relationship engine might just blow a gasket... The engine block might even crack and suffer irreparable damage!

Checking the air in and tire wear on our relationships is as important as checking them on our cars. Has the traction diminished? Lots of wheel spinning? Not enough air in the tires? All is repairable until they are ignored long enough that a blow out happens while you are doing 70 MPH down the Interstate (or on a vacation where you really want everything to go just right.) Close, personal relationships have wheels and tires as well as engines.

Of course, most of the time, relationships are not warranted by Lemon Laws - returning one after deciding in a brief trial drive that it isn't the one you really want most likely leads to seemingly inexplicable multiple failed relationships. Early and effective prevention would involve making careful choices.

It is also difficult to find Marriage or Relationship Insurance, although I understand that Lloyd's of London will insure just about anything - for a price! It is, in many ways, a lot easier to change cars than it is to change relationships. For one, we spend money - for the other, our hearts, hopes and perhaps other parts or aspects of ourselves.

So choose well, exercise good preventative caution and develop a program of Relational Care and Maintenance. In this way, you are less apt to lose the thing/person that really matters most to you in the world.

If those Bostonian mechanics who call themselves Click and Clack on Public Radio were mental health professionals, I would expect them to agree!

Happy Relationshipping!