Got this reprint in an email. It's from a magazine that can be found here: http://www.areallife.com/ .

This is long but good, IMHO.

------------------------------------------------

Loving the One You're With

Our culture is marked by the relentless pursuit of the better deal. We take it as our divine right to go for the bigger house, the faster car, the more prestigious job. Driven by a blind force, we look outside ourselves for more. The result is a frenzy of activity, powered by the fear of missing something, which exhausts us emotionally and leaves us spiritually empty. Nowhere is this pursuit more destructive than in our intimate relationships. Wanting a better car is one thing; wanting a better wife or husband is quite another. We have brought an acquisitive, judgmental force into a place where it does not belong - the realm of love.

I witnessed an extreme form of this in a patient of mine, an actor in his mid-thirties, happily married with two children, who had struggled for years in his career. Out of the blue, he got the lead in a film that became a hit. Suddenly he was a movie star, an event for which he was emotionally unprepared. It was understandable that he would immediately trade up to a better home and buy some new toys. But that was not enough. He began to talk to me about "getting a better wife." As twisted as it sounds, he felt his newfound success entitled him to something more in the marriage department, and he was driven to find it before his career took a downturn and he lost his window of opportunity.

The most shocking part was his fantasy about what the new woman should be like. She would have to be rich and famous on her own, incredibly charismatic, with a jet-set lifestyle. He was quick to admit that his present wife was beautiful, loving and quite creative in her own right. But her human qualities paled in comparison to this fantasy companion. He searched for his ideal among the famous actresses his new status allowed him to meet. Each seemed promising from afar, but inevitably he would find enough flaws to convince him that she wasn't it. During his hunt, his wife filed for divorce and within months, he was begging her to take him back. She did, and only then did he begin to understand what was involved in a mature relationship.

This man almost destroyed his marriage in the search for an illusion. The specific attributes he was seeking weren't important. What he was really looking for was someone with the magical ability to change the nature of reality. Reality is uncertain, often painful, and makes constant demands of us. Reality requires work. The consumer culture is continuously selling us on the magic of products we acquire, so why not go for some real magic - a person who could exonerate us from reality itself. Such a person could lead us into an alternative universe where we feel good all the time, where life is easy. Problem is, no human being, no matter how attractive, has this power. All we can do is project this ability onto another flawed human being. But once we spend time with them, we always end up disappointed. They seem no more magical than we are. How does this happen?

Think of a movie projector showing a film. The screen must be at a distance from the projector; if it's too close, no image will appear. The same is true with people. It is only possible to project magical properties onto a person if they are at distance. As you get to know them, the emotional distance disappears and with it goes the image. You see them as they really are, and it's a huge disappointment. So, you project onto yet another person, the more unavailable the better - one who's married to someone else, uninterested in you, or one you haven't even met - to keep the distance and keep your dream alive.

Eventually, it dawns on most people that this master race of superior partners doesn't exist. At that point, they become more willing to work with the person they're with and to understand the reality of love.

To put it simply, love is a process. All processes require endless work because perfection is never achieved. Accepting this fact is not thrilling, but it is the first step to happiness. You can work on finding satisfaction in your relationship the same way you'd work on your piano playing or your garden.

This takes some inspiration - you need to feel that the work is actually good for you and believe that you have a reasonable chance of succeeding. Otherwise, you will quit on the process and go back to looking outside your relationship for the magical high only an unknown can give. Here are the areas to work on and some effective tools:

Fantasy Control It's human nature to fantasize about other partners. We tell ourselves this is a free and harmless pleasure, and often it is. But beyond a certain point, fantasizing becomes an obstacle to a relationship. You will know that your fantasies are out of control if they are long and involved, if you use them as an antidote to dissatisfaction with your partner, and if they bear no relationship whatsoever to reality. Fantasies are constructed of images and therefore hold a tremendous amount of emotional energy (that's why we love the movies). The more energy you pour into your magical non-partner and fantasy life, the less energy you will have for your real partner and your real life. Be honest about the amount of time you spend in the clouds. If you are out of control in this area, which is very common, you must develop the will to interrupt each fantasy. This includes sexual fantasies, the most compelling kind. You'll resent this at first, but each time you come down to earth you're telling yourself that you are a committed adult who is strong enough to face reality. This will make you more satisfied with yourself, a pre-condition to becoming satisfied with any partner.

Judgment It's hard enough to accept that our fantasies have huge power. It's even harder to accept the power that our judgments have. When you think about some unavailable person, it's easy to be filled with positive thoughts about their intelligence, personality, sexuality, etc. The truth is, these thoughts are nothing more than judgments based on emotion, and they often turn out to be false. Most of our reactions to even our own partners have less to do with objective truth than with our thoughts about who he or she is. It is insulting to our egos to accept that most of our judgments are subjective and not inherently "right." But if you admit this, you become free to select thoughts that enhance your relationship. First, you have to gain control over negative judgments about your partner. As their failings become obvious in the course of a relationship, we all tend to have more and more negative thoughts. We fixate on their weaknesses. But our negative judgments are not "right," they are a product of the disappointment that our partner is not perfect. The process of loving requires that you catch yourself having these negative thoughts and dissolve them from your mind, replacing them with positive ones. You must actively construct thoughts about their good attributes, and let these thoughts renew feelings of attraction toward them. All this effort pays off; not only will you feel more content with your partner, but this new mental self-control carries an inherent power that will make you more confident and emotionally stable for the rest of your life.

Emotional Expression We like to believe that the emotions we express to our partners are based on how we really feel about them. But it is also true that the emotions we express determine how we feel about them. Try this: whenever you are with your partner, particularly when you're alone, talk to them and touch them as if they are tremendously desirable. Do this with more passion than you feel. Try this consistently for a week. I guarantee they will become more attractive to you. Once you see how effective it is to express positive emotions regularly, you will accept it as part of the work that is required in the process of loving. Your partner will experience the effort you've made and will usually reciprocate. Not only will you make your relationship better, but you'll learn how to inspire others through the power of your own emotional self expression.

We have not been trained to think of love as requiring a tremendous amount of disciplined effort. But like it or not, it's the reality of love. Once you set about the work, you will feel forward movement in your relationship and have hope about its future. Eventually, you will see a higher purpose in your relationship. This is your opportunity to accept and practice the endless work that love demands. And there's no greater teacher than the work of love.

-by Phil Stutz, MD, as printed in the newsletter A Real Life, #6.