Relationship Strain
The longing for comfort, predictability, and security is inherent in all human beings. We may feel weighted down, cramped, caged, and suffocated under an excessive degree of rootedness.
In addition to roots, we humans also need wings in order to fly. Many of us opt for continuity and predictability rather than risk the instability that can come with change and growth. Unfortunately this attachment can, in the long run, squeeze the juice out of a relationship. The quest for eternal security can lead to boredom, complacency and, ultimately, stagnation. Truths are left unsaid, needs repressed, desires denied, all in order to avoid conflict. What had felt like security can begin to feel like a trap, a prison. Love it to death. Too much of a good thing can become a bad thing.
While in most relationships each holds the stronger, freedom or security. What distinguishes great marriages from good ones is that each partner is able to honor both of these aspects and are able to move fluidly between them. In this case, the relationship becomes invigorated with a kind of vitality that promotes co-creativity, instead of co-dependency, and there is a quality of ease and mutuality that pervades the couples' shared life.
A romantic partnership involves the interplay of many polarities, giving and receiving, action and contemplation, feeling and thinking, separateness and connection, and others. While few of us are comfortable taking both sides of each duality, we can learn to appreciate the value of our partner's ability to bring compensation into the relationship, those tendencies that are less developed in ourselves.
Most likely our natural tendencies will remain dominant in our predisposition. If possible to strengthen our less dominant side through practice, by paying attention to our partner and learning from them. By risking going into the areas that feel unsafe again and again, we can gradually become more graceful in this dance.
To prevent the stultifying influence of excessive predictability, there needs to be a full-hearted commitment on the part of both partners to maintain and deepen the passion and vitality of their relationship. We can keep the relationship in great shape by taking good care of it, making it a high priority, checking in with our partner and ourselves, every day is not too often. Being completely honest about any dissatisfaction and resentment, and consistently expressing through our words and actions, the love we feel inside. A passionate relationship requires room for expression of all feelings, gratitude, joy, hurt, fear, sadness, disappointment, loneliness, guilt, shame, resentment, anger and even rage. It is the willingness to risk authenticity and honesty that fuels romantic passion. As Zorba says,
"the full catastrophe."
Keeping the mutual adoration flame burning requires a commitment on both partner's parts to stay on the path of ongoing growth and discovery. It's never too late to make a different choice, even if your relationship has gone flat. It takes courage to make and put those choices to good use. Of course there may be risks to disturbing the status quo, but they are small compared to the potential benefits.
A delicate balance of security and adventure, the familiar and the novel, characterizes relationships that sparkle over the decades. A fierce loving connection, with the freedom to be your unique separate self is a genuine possibility for us all. It's a piece of work to have all the moving parts humming along, but well worth the effort.
Psychology Today
No comments:
Post a Comment