Arnon Grunberg

Flaws

Talents

In the science section of today’s Times Tara Parker-Pope writes about marital strife: ‘Not surprisingly, some therapists are creating online self-help programs to reach couples before serious problems set in. Dr. Doss and Andrew Christensen, a psychology professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, are recruiting couples at www.OurRelationship.com to study such a program.
The online study, financed by a five-year $1.2 million grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, will deliver online therapy to 500 couples. It is based on “acceptance therapy,” which focuses on better understanding of a partner’s flaws — a technique described in “Reconcilable Differences” (Guilford Press, 2002), by Dr. Christensen and Neil S. Jacobson.
The method, formally called integrative behavioral therapy, was the subject of one of the largest and longest clinical trials of couples therapy. Over a year, 134 highly distressed married couples in Los Angeles and Seattle received 26 therapy sessions, with follow-up sessions every six months for the next five years.’

To understand each other’s flaws is one thing, I would say more important is to accept each other flaw’s or probably even love each other’s flaws.

I, for one, don’t want to be loved for my talents. I want to be loved for my flaws.