Blake Jennelle has blog

In your most important relationships, what happens when things go wrong?

Do they spiral out of control? Or do they whirl and spin and shake, only to settle firmly where they belong?

Physicists talk of stable and unstable equilibriums, and relationships obey a similar physics.

A stable equilibrium is like placing a marble in the bottom of a deep bowl. You can jostle the marble and shake the bowl, but no matter what, the marble will eventually return to where it started, as stable as ever.

An unstable equilibrium is what happens when you turn that bowl upside down and place the marble on top. As soon as you touch the marble or nudge the bowl, the marble careens off the side, onto the table and eventually drops onto the floor.

You can put the marble back on top of the bowl, but it’s precarious. The smallest disruption and it’s on the floor again. The equilibrium is always at risk.

There’s no such thing as a good fight. But there is such a thing as a healthy fight within a healthy relationship.

A fight is healthy if it highlights the underlying stability of the relationship and increases your confidence in it. Confidence can be self-fulfilling. It keeps you around the table long enough to hear the sense in what the other person is saying.

It’s also healthy if it puts the relationship inside a bigger bowl. It’s an opportunity to get to know each other and learn where you each need support. It teaches you when and how to reassure each other. It reminds you of how deeply you both care.

All of this makes for a more stable equilibrium.

But if the relationship equilibrium is not stable in the first place, none of this matters. The marble almost always ends up on the floor. And you don’t always get a chance to pick it back up.

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