My writing partner, Katie, and I can both go “manly” with each other fairly quickly. I, without a doubt, “married” her for her cock-y-ness about writing, her talent and arrogance in an area where I can be a notorious chicken. So, I’m thinking it’s pretty fair to say–and she’d agree–that I’m the chick in this relationship. And for the past six months of our two-year friendship and partnership, we’ve had some issues.
Lately, we’ve been having less fun, getting stuck where normally she wouldn’t and although we have an “open” marriage (we can write with others), I’ve been jealous of her other projects and whinier about ours. YUP, I even mentioned “divorce.” And, no shocker here, it started to seem to me that our script, our only “child” together was going to community college while her other “children” were off to Harvard. Needless to say, my fangs, my self-pity, and my Costco-bought bulk tissues were out.
Suspicious of me yet?
With the help of a friend/coach (yes, we coaches have coaches), a two-hour call with the three of us, I got to see my role in what sucked in our relationship. I saw that, for me, love is conditional. I only loved Katie, my “second husband,” when she was working on my project and was great with it. When she wasn’t, I didn’t love her. Period.
Have you met my parents? Uh, now you have.
And, once I saw who/how I was being, besides obviously apologizing, I made new promises. Like the subtle one called, uh, “I’m not allowed to hate Katie. Ever. And, if I do, I lose my dessert, my wine and or my daily run gets longer (ugh).” All consequences that would, without a doubt, stop me in my tracks from being an ass with someone I love, am married to and with whom I share “a kid” (or script and dream in this case.)
Equally, Katie got to see where she stopped giving love to the project, where indeed she allowed herself to get bored with “our child” and love her other ones more. Where she was unforgiving, impatient and mean. Whoops and phew. No kidding, within a day of our coaching session, we were back on track. We loved each other, we giggled and in four days, finished the revisions on our script. We each were on the right length leash: short.
Love,
HG