My own view is that marriage is a vessel in which we can explore life with a companion. Happiness is not the goal as much as vitality, to be saved from a dull existence. This is not the ordinary wish to have a perfect life—a luxurious home, a good job, and successful children—but a profound and essential urge from the very root of our being to become somebody. At the wedding, most people don’t know what they are looking for. Their emotions have a great deal of energy but not much content or direction.

When I have done couples therapy in the past, on occasion I asked one partner to sit in a chair off to the side while I worked with the dreams and life stories of the other. My idea was that the people did not really know each other. Maybe by listening to each other and exploring their psyches they might have more empathy and a deeper appreciation for what the other was dealing with. As couples share their lives, they may come to think that they really know the other well. But that kind of intimacy can be misleading. Familiarity is not knowledge, and, in fact, it may be a block to really knowing the partner as a separate person. Some distance is necessary, hence my practice of attending to one person at a time. I encourage the one partner to be a close observer, perhaps gaining some empathy for the other. By listening to the soul I mean hearing the story that can’t be told.

There is a kind of happiness in a relationship that does not require constant peace. Disagreements and frustrations don’t have to negate happiness but can give it the shadow necessary to be real and lasting. If a therapist feels she has to help the couple create constant calm, she may be contributing to the problem. She needs a philosophy of relationship that is suitably complicated and cognizant of the shadow.

To say that human beings require warm relationships is no touchy-feely idea. It is a hard fact. Scientific studies have told us again and again: human beings need nutrition, we need exercise, we need purpose, and we need each other.

Our basic relationship needs are not complicated. We need love, connection, and a feeling of belonging. But we now live in complicated social environments, so how we meet those needs is the challenge.