Marriage is a Tango

Dr. Sue Johnson, the pioneer of Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy, compares a couple's relationship to a tango. A tango can be a beautiful dance or an awful spectacle dependent on whether partners are attuned to each other and there for each other. A tango is two people becoming one, gliding and stretching across the ballroom floor; at times pulling away from each other, but never apart, holding onto each other in a supportive way that allows a safe return to the other's arms. There is independent singularity and interdependent duality at work in a complementary way that produces a beauty neither could produce alone. Two "me's" become a "we." It's not a push and pull competition wherein one will win and the other lose, but a game of catch and release where both win. Daring turns to beauty as each protects the other; individual creative expression is enabled by interdependent steadfast devotion.