Quote: Your assumption rests on the premise that neither spouse should make any concessions. And because of this, there is no meeting of wills and so the two must part. I have never known negotiation to be successful under this scenario. Be it in business, diplomacy or personal relations, reaching agreement means both parties are unhappy with the outcome. But they are still happier than no outcome.
I didn't see that as Corri's premise - that neither spouse should make any concessions.
I read it that one spouse cannot force the other spouse to make concessions.
You can change yourself and you can change what you put into the relationship. Since the relationship is a combination of what both spouses put in, if one spouse changes their input the relationship also changes. However, there is no way to guarantee that your positive change in input will have a positive response from your spouse or a positive outcome within the relationship.
Quote: To term the issue as irresolvable is to accept failure. We are not dealing with irrefutable laws of nature, but merely human wants and desires, which are always changeable.
You cannot force your spouse to be what you want in a spouse. If appeals to emotion, logical reasoning, bargaining and negotiation fail to work in convincing your spouse to provide for your emotional needs, then it is unsolvable unless you decide that you'll accept a continuing denial of what you long for.
The sad fact is that sometimes spouses won't make any true effort to change or even acknowledge the breadth of an issue, until the other spouse leaves. Human beings can be quite contrary that way. You can read the divorce boards and see that both men and women who have been left cry out "I didn't realize how unhappy they were." And sometimes reconciliation and true change can occur as a result. Suddenly the spouse that was left is capable of working on all the things the walkaway spouse had been trying to address for years. But sometimes the break is permanent.
People with long term relationships (and this can include friends) get into relational ruts. Where action and reaction are predictable and almost impossible to break out of. Oddly enough, this hit me in the face last year when I got together with 3 highschool friends. We hadn't been together as a group for 30 years. I was somewhat horrified as well as bemused to see the relational patterns *from 30+ years ago* immediately fall into place. I fought sliding back into the group dynamic that once defined our friendship and found it damn near impossible.
How much more does this exist in marriages that have had several years to promulgate strong relational undercurrents and riptides that drag us out and down?
It definitely can be done, and one spouse by him/herself making changes in their relational input can make a great impact for positive change. At some point in the process the other spouse has to come to the table to negotiate with some semblance of good faith.
