In any frustrating situation we can take it serenely, try to change it courageously or leave it.

• Taking it means ignoring the problem because you’re invested in the relationship.
• Trying to change it means focusing on the problem because you’re invested in the relationship.
• Leaving means neither ignoring or focusing on the problem but divesting yourself of the relationship.

Sometimes sustainable serenity just ain’t happening and instead couples enter a period of unpredictable and amplifying oscillation, efforts to achive the serenity to accept, whipsawing with courage to try to change each other.

Understanding the three-way serenity prayer and how it plays out in all relationship can make us less spiteful in the end, more wise even about when to give up on seeking more wisdom. We become more agnostic and less regretful and/or angry about what went wrong, about whether we tried unconscionably hard to change them or not hard enough, about whether they were stubborn narcissists or just on a different path.

That and an appreciation for the fundamental challenges we face in seeking and creating compatibility goes a long way toward gear switching into forgiveness.