The Simple One realizes that he or she is not enough for the Complicated One and needs to change. This is a shock. The Simple One loses the feeling of security and faces a dilemma: either the Simple One stays how he or she is – which forces the Complicated One back into the confines of the little rooms, feeling like a bird with clipped wings – or the Simple One tries to open him- or herself up to new fields. This isn't easy, because the Simple One does it under the critical eye of the partner and doesn't know if he or she can ever live up to the other's high demands. Or the Simple One reacts with guilty feelings and gives up hope for a fulfilling relationship.
In both cases the Simple One is made to feel insecure. The Simple One loses touch with him- or herself and with the partner. The homestead doesn't feel like a familiar home anymore, but becomes gradually uncomfortable – the dark forest casts its shadow all the way here.
The Complicated One wavers between being true to self and being true to the partner. If the Complicated One puts pressure on the other to expand his or her spaces, it makes like in the homestead uncomfortable and later perhaps even unbearable. The Complicated One can try to shape the Simple One in his or her own image and to pull the Simple One "up" – as in the musical My Fair Lady, where the language teacher turns a common street girl into an educated lady. But the Complicated One won't get an equal partner this way, just a different one. Another possibility: the Complicated One can retreat to one of his or her many rooms. But it doesn't get lonelier than that.
Whatever the Complicated One does, he or she ends up feeling torn. In the end, the Complicated One looks outside of the relationship for what the Simple One has found inside of it – and the Complicated One finds him- or herself again in the dark forest.
Page 2 of 4 - read page three to learn how to simplify!
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.
