Speaker: If relationships are so difficult, why we do keep getting into them?
Gloria Macdonald: There is nothing simple about relationships. They really, truly are difficult. They are complex and one of the reasons why they are so difficult is because we are never taught how to do relationships. I mean, think about it, we go to school, we learn how to read. If no one ever taught us how to read, reading would be really difficult. If no one ever taught us how to do arithmetic, addition and subtraction and multiplication and division. Arithmetic, Mathematics would be really difficult and yet where do we go through the whole schooling process to really learn how to communicate with one another, to learn how people think differently to learn that men and women are different and we approach life differently.
We are biologically, psychologically, emotionally, physiologically different and yet we are never taught about that. We are never taught how to deal with those differences. And relationships are probably one of the single most important things we’ll do in our life. You cannot get through life without being in a relationship with multiple people. You have a relationship with your mother or your father. You have a relationship with your friends. You have the relationship with your teachers at school, and yet we are never taught, truly taught, truly taught how to deal with relationships.
So when it comes to romantic relationships and they are really are difficult as we have said, one out of every two marriages ends in divorce. Why do we keep doing it if it’s so difficult? Well, it's a biological imperative. We can't help it. We are actually physically wired to be in relationships with one another. And it's also been scientifically proven that we need those relationships to survive. There have been test done where they have isolated babies and the babies sitter isolated, even though they are fed and they are kept in warm environments when they have no human contact, they die.
We would literally die, if we did not have human contact, relationships with another. So we have to have relationships with one another.