You don't fix ten flaws at once

At the beginning of my relationship with my wife, we separated several times. After a longer breakup, she asked me for a single promise:

"Thierry, do your best. Promise me you won't leave at the first problem."

I made that promise.

It forced me to stay long enough to discover that the person I wanted to leave was not always the only problem. My way of looking at her flaws, of reproaching her for them and of avoiding my own was also a problem.

I wanted to leave every time I was right

During the first year of this new season, I thought about leaving hundreds of times. Every difficulty seemed to prove that my partner was wrong and that our relationship was a mistake.

Yet the speed of an argument is not the maturity of a relationship.

You can understand the flaw very quickly and still be incapable of helping to produce a different response. You can win an argument and lose the other person's desire to talk to you.

I was sometimes right about the problem and wrong in my method.

I was handing out verdicts

I made one or two reproaches a day. Every mistake awakened another flaw. My partner received a permanent evaluation of her inadequacy.

I called that telling each other everything.

I hadn't understood that a truth can be accurate and badly used: wrong moment, overwhelming frequency or absence of a path.

When ten flaws remain open, none of them receives all the attention it needs. Wherever the person places their effort, they remain at fault elsewhere.

Choosing a priority does not erase the other difficulties. It gives them an order.

Let's look for the root before ten branches

Several behaviors can come from the same logic. Indifference to plans, lack of attention and decisions centered on one's own comfort can be the branches of a difficulty in consulting the common interest.

A root remains a working hypothesis, not an identity or an insult.

The most spectacular behavior is not always the first useful piece of work. A brutal word can come from an inability to tolerate contradiction. Broken promises can come from a refusal to look at one's limits.

The prerequisite does not replace the change. It prepares the ground where that change will be able to hold.

Let's tolerate our own resemblance

We denounce the other's impatience, but become impatient with their pace. We demand their listening and interrupt their explanations. We ask them to acknowledge their mistakes, then defend our own for twenty minutes.

Resemblance removes the comfort of superiority.

A difference in seriousness or frequency may exist. It must not become an automatic hiding place.

Seeing my part did not cancel what my wife had to correct. It changed the place from which I spoke to her. I too knew the slope.

Responsibility for her behavior remained hers. My responsibility concerned my way of intervening, what I was feeding and the path I was making practicable.

Reproach names, support builds

A reproach can be necessary. It names what hurts and what can no longer continue.

Support adds a priority, a possible root, a step and signs of progress. It acknowledges progress and also allows the person making the request to correct their method.

Supporting does not mean working in the other person's place. The flaw belongs to the one who applies it. The partner can offer an example, a support and information. They cannot produce the other's will.

We cannot show a path we refuse to take. If I ask for better listening, I must examine my own. My example offers a possibility; it does not impose my method as the only proof of good will.

Choosing a first piece of work that truly relieves daily life

Not all subjects must be corrected together. An inventory that is too broad can produce shame and little action. We need to choose one precise problem whose transformation would make a noticeable difference in daily life.

Let's imagine that discussions deteriorate because requests immediately become general. The first piece of work can be to name one fact and one request, without adding all the old scenes. That does not resolve all disagreements; it makes some of them more workable.

The choice of priority must nevertheless keep the seriousness visible. A threat or violence does not wait for a small flaw to be better settled. The first piece of work is the one that protects what is necessary with the available margin, not the one that seems easiest to correct in the other person.

A local progress can then open other possibilities. We observe what it changes without making it proof that everything is settled. Support becomes more useful when it makes the next step practicable instead of demanding an entirely new person by tomorrow.

A misstep does not erase the trajectory

I treated every relapse as a verdict: "You see, you're starting again."

The efforts disappeared behind a single moment.

A misstep is an old gesture within a movement that is still visible. Lasting return appears when the person minimizes, abandons their practices and reinstalls the old response.

Patience observes frequency, resumption, adjustments and repairs. It does not offer eternity to a promise that does not move.

Encouraging does not mean declaring the work finished. We can say: "I saw that effort. This point still needs to be corrected."

That sentence refuses two lies: everything is fine, or nothing good exists as long as everything is not settled.

My partner was not only the person to be corrected

With time, I understood that our differences had also shaped me. Her flaws revealed mine. The woman I looked at as the person to be corrected became one of the mirrors through which I was able to correct myself.

My princess did not come in the expected form. She came with a reality that taught me to love, to stay, to observe and to transform a part of myself.

The first piece of work must open the following ones

The first useful piece of work is often the one that makes the others possible: listening without preparing your defense, acknowledging the effect of your actions, keeping a small promise or coming back after calming down.

This concentration does not put demands to sleep. It makes them practicable.

The person making the request can no longer scatter their frustration. The person who must act can no longer claim they don't know where to begin.

Maturity does not ask for less change. It refuses to confuse demand with crushing.

One problem at a time. One root before ten branches. One introspection before the trial. One path after the reproach.

The questions that make my demand practicable

Which priority is getting lost in all my reproaches?

Which root connects several behaviors that I denounce?

Where do I still resemble the other person?

Which progress have I erased after a misstep?

Which first piece of work will truly open the following ones?