Judith Sherven and James Sniechowski are Best-selling co-authors of  Be Loved for Who You Really Are : How the Differences Between Men and Women Can Be Turned into the Source of the Very Best Romance You'll Ever Know

It's Gardening Time, So Fertilize Your Love

© 200 3  by
Judith Sherven, Ph.D. and James Sniechowski, Ph.D.

    When we met Jim was 45 and twice divorced. Judith was 43 and never
married. We weren't each other's type and there wasn't instant chemistry.
    Yet, on our fourth date, when we touched for the first time, the energetic intensity of merely holding hands announced the presence of a deeply connected soul-meeting. It scared us—but ever so deliciously. Several nights later when we kissed for the first time, Judith began to weep with joy—for reasons too profound to understand at the time. So despite the lack of predictable romantic patterns, we couldn't deny that something remarkable was happening.
    Rather soon, we began to discover how very different we were. Judith was like a neatly tended Bonsai and Jim was more like a wildly ranging Grapevine.. We each had deeply entangled roots from our early years in separate "nurseries" and the pressures of later "hot houses." While we'd each grown robustly in certain ways, neither of us had received care-filled and expert pruning. Judith had been overly trimmed back, while Jim lacked appropriate direction. This was hardly stuff for the best cross-fertilization.
    Yet, we knew it was in our differences that the soil of love could best
be fertilized.    The test would come, after we'd transplanted ourselves into a new  with our first real fight.  
    Four months later we went away together and had a wonderful time in the mountains. As we paid the hotel bill, Jim saw a notice for a jazz concert a few months later. He asked Judith if she'd like to come back for the event. Judith was silent.
    Rather abruptly and a bit sharply, Jim said, "Okay, we won't."
    Judith, shocked and hurt, shot back, "What's wrong with you? I didn't say no."
    That did it. We were in our first fight. We stalked out, angry and scared.
    Judith: Why did you snap at me? I didn't do anything.
    Jim: You were silent for so long I thought...
    Judith: (defensively) I was just thinking!
    Jim: Well, why didn't you say so? I thought you hated my idea.
    Judith: You didn't have to take my silence personally.    
    Jim: You looked sullen, it made me feel insecure.
    Judith: Insecure! Really??? I thought you were punishing me because I
didn't respond immediately. I felt attacked.
    Deepest truths had opened up -- Jim's insecurity and Judith's fear of attack. How would we respond to the private pain these truths revealed?  
    It took a bit more curiosity and clarification, but then our hearts opened to the real romance of compassion for one another's injuries and the old wounds accompanying us on our adventure into deepest intimacy.
    We'd opened a can of worms, but just the kind every gardener hopes for -- to create rich fertilized soil for whatever new life is being grown.
    Sadly, most people avoid fertilizing their love with healthy conflict. They never learned how important conflict is to their own self-development, healing and cultivation of new life together.
    A conflict is just an SOS. It says, "Listen, your relationship needs to change and if you change your love will be weeded and pruned and your garden will be even more beautiful and larger than it was before."
    And no conflict is one-sided. When the beans and zucchini feel invaded by each other's expansive growth, they each have a solid complaint. Likewise, each person in a conflict has a point of view that needs to be taken seriously. But most people try to force the other to change against their will, like trying to get a rose to become a pine tree. It never works.
    Yet, when you use conflict to get to know one another better, especially at deep emotional levels, you both feel recognized and understood. You want to change, to help your relationship grow.    
        Fertilize the garden of your love. Fight well. Fight fair. Fight to
grow the love you share.
    Only then can you continually turn over new soil, creating spiritually rich, growing conditions for you both.

Copyright 2002 Judith Sherven, Ph.D. and James
Sniechowski, Ph.D., all rights reserved

Husband-and-wife psychology team Judith Sherven, Ph.D. and Jim Sniechowski, Ph.D., are the bestselling authors of Be Loved for Who You Really Are : How the Differences Between Men and Women Can Be Turned into the Source of the Very Best Romance You'll Ever Know (Renaissance/St. Martin's Press 2001, paperback edition
early 2003 from Griffin Books)

Judith & Jim also provide workshops, seminars and lectures to singles and couples nationally and internationally on all issues of gender and relationships. They also consult to corporations on these issues. They've worked with 100,000 people to date.