Published Articles
By Dr. William R. Morrow

“Relationship Requirements Not Complex”

I see the huddled masses yearning not for freedom as much as for connectedness. Yearning is hovering like a visible aura over the people I come in contact with. We mysterious human creatures, having reached the top of the food chain, seek to be in relationships of some kind. But what does it take to make a connection? What makes a relationship a RELATIONSHIP? Doesn’t something have to actually happen in a relationship to qualify it as the genuine thing? I believe I ought to get this straight, since I talk to people who tell me about their relationships. If you’re married, you must have a relationship, right? But people can be together a long time and still not have a relationship, because nothing significant seems to be happening. Maybe there’s been years of being together, but still the closeness hasn’t peaked. Thus, no relationship. My guess is that both parties to these insulated arrangements are yearning to connect up with someone, but still are left feeling lonely, and feeling that something is missing. Take the recent goofy movie, “Magnolia”: Does anybody have a relationship here? In the course of one day’s worth of Hollywood-contrived happenstance, we see an assortment of characters attempting to establish some real-life-type, relationship. Will Tom Cruise ever have an adult relationship with his dying, on-screen, father? How can William Macy’s cinematic girlfriend (who is horribly addicted) ever hope to have a relationship with him? Maybe the old man and his nurse have the best chance of anything resembling a relationship. See it for yourself or, better yet, don’t see it and thereby spare yourself the reminders of the pain people go through for the sake of connecting up in a relationship. I’ve got a character of my own, drawn from the archives of my old case files, that I could stack up against any of these fine Magnolia portrayals. This “urban hermit” started out his childhood mostly abandoned, which meant he didn’t have much to measure his future relationships by. Despite this, he yearned to live a regular life for himself. I am picturing Al Pacino in the adult role, or maybe Anthony Hopkins, getting married, having children, a job, etc. Then things falling apart. He loses his family; his children never want to have any contact with him, except to steal his his car. He ends up later in life with just his dog, very isolated. He used to tell me stories, on visits to my office, that revealed his yearnings to somehow relate to people around him. He would have been happy with just a simple, rudimentary connection. I have to wonder now what would it take for my Magnolia Man, and thousands like him, to have a basic, no frills, relationship? It comes down to this: I know it at least takes two people who want to share some life-experiences with each other , two individuals who want to fulfill their yearnings, where there is acceptance, and with an agreement about expectations of one another, usually called “commitment”. And some degree of openness, where the inner “real” self is revealed. So put THAT into a movie!

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