Relationships Invented Here

Are you afraid to make your own relationship model? Does the thought linger in your brain that somewhere out there somebody has already done this? Do you find yourself trapped in an analysis cycle where nothing is getting done? Is your relationship model mutating to accommodate other peoples ideas or ideals? If yes, then perhaps you are suffering from invented-here syndrome.

Most of use are aware of not-invented-here syndrome, but the opposite problem is perhaps equally troublesome. We can get stuck in the mindset that there must be a relationship model, tradition, or self-help book that already does what we want. Instead of just making our own way, a lot of effort is spent testing out other people’s practices and trying to accommodate our own relationship model to theirs. At some point we need to just say, “stop!”, and make the way ourselves.

Varying levels of quality

As a general rule it makes sense to not make up ways of relating that already exists. Often the choice is easy. We just pick up a standard relationship model, lump it in with our own ways of relating, and it just works as promised. These situations are great, and do happen often enough.

Past this come the less-than-ideal choices. Perhaps a tradition covers only 95% of the needs we have and making things work for everyone is a bit more involved, or the purpose has to be twisted a little bit — it’ll work, but not without some effort, or rethinking a few needs.

At some level we enter the realm of crappy relationship models. These are things advertised to do what we need, but fail utterly at that task. Or perhaps they just do something in a completely different way than expected. Maybe the fit with our lives is extremely troublesome. Perhaps the relationship model is just too dysfunctional to be trusted, or the culture around it is so bad that genuine practice is a mystery.

From what I’ve seen, the vast majority of relational models, advice, or traditions fall into this category of crappy societal framework. Being available on Amazon, being bought by thousands of people, or having a fancy web page, are no indications of a good relationship model. It’s trivial to publish self-help books on relationships nowadays. Chances are for any obscure needs we have there is already some matching relationship model. Just because it’s there doesn’t mean it should be used.

I should point out that the vast majority of any connection consists of more than one standard relationship model. Just consider the world we live in: our language, media, everyday interactions, and the education system. Add to this the excessively common or even built-in traditions like secular marriage, serial monogamy … even living together and starting families without ever actually getting married. The fear that a relationship is not using enough traditional ideas or ideals is often misguided.

It’s about the time

It shouldn’t take long to discover when a needed practice doesn’t exist. Sure, there may be relationship models out there but either they are far less than ideal or just too crappy. New inquiries are either coming up empty or returning the same results. Lists of popular, seemingly suitable, relationship models just don’t include any that really fit. That’s it. The search is exhausted.

I’m not saying we should immediately jump from here to making our own practices. No, now is the point where examining our values becomes important. Time is usually the critical factor here. How long will it take to come up with workable ideas? How long will it take to adapt one of the existing relationship models?

I feel that the time savings from using a less-than-suitable relationship models from other people must be an order of magnitude higher than making it myself to consider it worthwhile. Other people’s ways of relating have a lot of open questions, regardless of how well they have been evaluated. This uncertainty must be factored in to the consideration.

Getting stuck in analysis paralysis is very bad. I have no problem making my own way prior to completing the analysis. I consider this a valid form of examining values. Often I’m not really certain what I even need until I’ve attempted a relationship. Stalling a connection can often be heartbreaking. Perhaps my quick ways of relating are just enough for now and let’s us defer the decision to later.

It’s about the features

One trap that’s easy to fall into is looking at the full gamut of qualities of a relationship model when examining our values. Who cares about everything a relationship model can do. Our relationship has a specific list of needs we may have, and those are the only needs we should care about.

This is where a lot of popular relationship models falter. They offer a complete package, but we simply aren’t looking for a complete package. Sure, they have some qualities we want, but there’s no way to efficiently extract them. We need to view the individual qualities on their own. This is relevant to the time consideration. Clearly relationship model “XYZ” would take years or even generations to recreate, but perhaps practice “Q” will only take a few days.

A second aspect here is how vital a need is to our own relationship model. Compromising our values is going to doom the relationship to failure. There’s no value in saving time if it doesn’t result in the intended relationship model. We just have to face reality sometimes: getting the relationship we want may involve a lot of making our own way. We’re mindful and empowered though, so that shouldn’t scare us.

Warning! Being delusional here is not helpful, and can often lead to genuine not-invented-here syndrome. Most qualities can be realized in many different ways without changing the substance of them. The time invested to make a relationship quality exactly as we want has to be related to how critical that quality really is. It’s best to involve our heart or conscience in such decisions. It can be easy at times to lose sight of what is truly important.

Make your own way

Fretting over a selection of inadequate relationship models is not productive. While it’s entirely reasonable to avoid not-invented-here syndrome, becoming overly frightened of making your own way can land a relationship in a domestic quagmire. It shouldn’t be surprising that societal evolution involves creating new ways of relating.

A great mass of traditions, ideas or ideals, practices, ways or relating, and other relationship models available out there are either crappy in their own right, or simply not suitable to our relationship. Forcing things to work together can be costlier than simply making our own way to meet the needs we have.

And what if creating new ways of relating turns out to be the wrong choice? Well, that’s part of evolution. It’s quite possible that attempting our own ideas or ideals actually leads to a workable relationship framework from somebody else. Since we’re following what works for us and other people it won’t be a huge problem to swap ideas in and out as desired.