How to untangle your relationship troubles

The secret goal of your relationship is to develop a shared spiritual space in which each of you has enough room for what is most precious to him or her. For this space, the oft-mentioned researcher of the unconscious Carl Jung uses the images of rooms, which fits perfectly with the homestead: each of you has different space requirements for your emotional needs. One of you, whom Jung calls the Simple One, only occupies a few small rooms. The other, the Complicated One, takes up many rooms and a lot of space. This causes a double dilemma: to the Complicated One, the Simple One has such little space that there isn't enough room. For the Simple One, on the other hand, the Complicated One offers so much space that the Simple One doesn't really know where he or she actually belongs.

• Am I contained in you? Do you have space for me? Is there room in your soul for my soul? These are the crucial questions that can destroy a relationship. This is often what causes someone to have an affair, or pull away emotionally. So it's worth it to address this topic before something happens.

If you're the Simple One
Then you are content with you partner and feel well cared for in the relationship. You are contained in the other person, and the rooms you use in the homestead are enough for you. You appreciate the preferences of your partner and are proud of him or her. Perhaps, though, you also sense that you don't completely satisfy your partner's expectations. You have, as Jung called it, an "unsettling dependency" on your partner, who is a stronger personality or enjoys a higher social standing. You often allow your partner to lead or take priority.

If you're the Complicated One
Then you will always suffer from not being able to find all of yourself within your relationship. You look for new qualities in a partner that can complement your own. You push for expansion in the homestead: plow more fields or add new rooms. For you, your partner is too unrefined, too unsophisticated, or too inarticulate. At the same time, you know how your partner could further develop him- or herself, and you long to experience your partner in a new, equal way.

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Excerpted from How to Simplify Your Love, copyright 2008 by Marion Küstenmacher and Werner Tiki Küstenmacher. Used by permission of McGraw-Hill Companies. All Rights Reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced except with permission in writing from the publisher.