So a funny thing happens last night on our way to the pizza and game place with the kids and some friends.  I get a call on my cell phone.  The man on the other end of the line says his name and mentions that we met at the World Wellness Expo.

Immediately, I tell him that of course I remember him and that he’s been on my mind many times since that weekend 4 weeks ago.  It was the guy I just told you about in my last article ‘Hurry Up & Wait’ - he was the one telling me about his 42-year marriage that was ripping at the seams.

He just called to tell me that he greatly appreciated that I took the time to listen to him and encourage him and that he and his wife had opened up communications about bridging their gap.  He was candid that they may not be ready to attend individual coaching sessions or even the relationship seminar but it seemed he had a renewed hope.  I hope that is what I was hearing.

When we stood and talked at the convention center, he seemed very intrigued by my ability to lay out both of their personalities and conflict areas without him saying anything specific.  I get this often.  This is what makes the LifeMAPP profile system so powerful.  We get so lost in the shuffle that we fail to see the simple group of patterns that we all fit into. 

There are the basics of opposites attracting – extraverted pairing with introverted (social vs reclusive) that we see in the majority of relationships – probably even a more emotional guy with a more logical gal.  This is our principle of Interaction Styles – and rarely do we pair up with a person with the same Interaction Style especially in the extraverted/introverted realm.  There are primitive, survival reasons for this and you don’t have to look past Hollywood to see what happens to marriages of similar ‘shine the light on me’, ‘let’s have a social’ personalities.  They explode.

But, when it comes to ViewPoints, we tend to seek similar minds.  Otherwise, what would we talk about?  What common goals would we pursue?  How would we meet if we weren’t in common situations/environments?

So the goal for this marriage would be to get them back to their roots – their common ViewPoints, then to show them how their different Interaction Styles actually are mutually beneficial – not a destructive force.

Ah, but it’s never quite that simple as the biggest help they probably need – as we all do – is in dealing with their Masks.  If they’ve grown apart, one if not both of them are/were wearing Masks and at this late stage in the game, they feel it’s now or never to finally be true to themselves rather than slaves to their Masks.

This is a great growth time.  Masks are unhealthy – and we all run around and operate with them to some degree.  So, what they need is kudos for stretching and this new growth, but not without a huge dose of ‘you can grow together rather than grow apart’ and encouragement to embrace this new phase of their life.

I don’t care if you’ve been married 1 year, 5 years or 50 years – this is true: having someone who believes in you and stands by you doubles the joys and halves the pains that life deals us.  This is why, statistically, married people live longer.  Our key is to get couples to embrace that rather than abandon it.

Hopefully, I will get a chance to help them through this – to help them find new freedoms – together.  And with national divorce rates climbing even higher than 50%, we have our work cut out for us in helping the countless thousands that are in this same dilemma.  Maybe Oprah could expand our voice?

Author | Dave Darby

Dave Darby is a husband, father of 5, son, entrepreneur, speaker and well, a renaissance man who frequently needs to dump his brain on thoughts about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.