Annie Lalla argues successful couples need complementary polarities: one partner strong at self-focus, the other at "we/us" focus. They apprentice to each other's strengths, cross-training to cover weaknesses. She uses her marriage to Evan Pagan as an example.
Chapters
Every relationship that I've seen that's successful has these two sacred polarities. One that's good at ihood, mehood, and one that's good at we and us. And they find each other because they need to develop that underdeveloped skill. They need to cross train. You fall in love with your unconscious mind. Sean Stevenson used to say, you fall in love with that which you're not yet good at. And. And you hire them. You literally hire. The most important job you'll ever hire for is your partner. And you hire them to emancipate you from your night, from where you're not good at either selfing or othering because they're really good at it. But then when they bitch about how you're not selfing enough. I'm married to the best selfer I know, Evan Pagan. I literally was like, why are you so selfish? And he's like, why are you so obsessed with other people's needs? And so I had to learn how to self and become an apprentice to my partner's genius, and he had to become an apprentice to my genius, which is tuning into the system and the needs of the relationship. And so I think every successful relationship needs both of those polarities, and they need to cross train.