Resiliency and Relationships  (I of II part series )

With all of us in New Jersey going through the problems that Hurricane Sandy has brought, the theme of resiliency struck me as an important issue.  As I thought about it I also realized that there is a strong connection to between resiliency and strong relationships.

Let’s start with a definition of resiliency which is a person’s ability to cope with stress and difficult situations.  I like to call it “The bounce back factor”.  If we apply this idea to a relationship it is a couple’s ability to deal with the bad times when issues occur between the two of them.

What is all over the news today is General Petraeus’s situation.  Here is a man who is extremely well respected and who has coped well with his professional life which can be considered among the most difficult of jobs, so you would think he is a terrific example of a very resilient person and in some respects he is, but when you talk about his ability to handle his personal life, clearly he was not as resilient. The important implication here is that we can be very strong in one area and not in an other.

In my next blog I’ll talk about some of the issues that important to have a strong relationship that is resilient.