I’ve been with my husband since I was 19 years old. So young! I know. There is a wisdom that comes from experience. I can say that I know what it is like to love and be loved in spite of my wounds. I understand that my defenses can be regarded into instead of separated from. I have watched and witnessed both myself and my husband spiral into our own growth time and time again. To be honest, that spiraling has not always been pretty. We have transformed not only each other but ourselves through our decades together. We are actually more in love than when we met. This is not a fantasy. This is embodied fact.
Do you believe me? (Because I’m curious about what reading this brings up for you.)
I can’t talk about 30 years of learned transformational relationship dynamics in one post. You’d be reading for a year or so at least. My intention today is to give a bit of a ground to those of you who have someone in your life that makes you think,
“hmmm. I might be able to relate deeper here.”
Last month a friend of mine described my relationship with my husband as “enlightened.” Another friend recently told me she couldn’t believe how honest my husband and I talk about ourselves and our relationship in front of each other. She was noticeable uncomfortable with our ability to share our struggles openly with acceptance and clarity. Something clicked for me as a result of these unexpected feedback statements. Afterall, I’ve been in this relationship for decades. I’m more likely to take it for granted than appreciate it.
By cultivating a relationship that prioritizes working through triggers, giving space for triggers, and allowing for personal autonomy; my husband and I have something that others want for themselves. It’s kind of silly that I don’t realize in the day to day living just how special my relationship is. We’ve spent over 15 years in transformational programs and psychotherapeutic training. Often together. It’s not like what we have together is surprising. Yet people’s reflections have me thinking… what do we do for each other that goes beyond the relationships that I see all around me.
In my line of work I feel blessed to say that I have also worked with some couples (not always romantic) that have a similar commitment to honesty and growing into each other through their triggers. These relationships need to be honored for how truly rare they are.
When you meet someone who wants you to grow in spite of yourself and what they know of themself, you have met someone who is interested in loving you into your soul.
Couples, family bonds, and deep friendship can all hold the potential for a transformational relationship. Many of us humans have major issues around one gender specifically or can only attract a certain type of person that seems repetitively toxic. When this is the case, it’s important to give space for other relationships to have a potential of transformation instead of over fixating on the need to find the perfect match or soul mate ideal.
A transformational relationship requires equal power.
The only relationships in our lives that can give us the freedom to be our fullest selves need to be completely 100% clear in regards to a power differential.
Many relationships’ innate power dynamics undermine the ability to mutually enlighten.
Feel into or think into this concept of power for a bit. It’s an edgy topic to write about and definitely an edgy one to think about. I wouldn’t even know if it to be true if I wasn’t blessed with the mutual interest in transformation that exists in my own relationship. Since I work on the other side of the power deferential too, I have the contrast necessary to know that the power differential is a limit to uninhibited transformational growth.
Teacher to student, therapist (or coach or healer or medium) to client, doctor to patient, guru to the masses, self help book writer (or influencer or pod cast creator or substack writer) to an audience.
Every single one of these relationships have an innate power dynamic. A power differential of over and under.
The contract that exists in these relationships is that the practitioner has done the work to have a specific expertise in regards to wholeness and health. The client relies on that work to find health and wellness for themselves. Don’t misread me. There’s a benefit to these relationships. I’m simply not writing about that benefit today.
Mutual conscious transformation cannot be cultivated whenever there is an agreed upon power dynamic (or a shadow power dynamic that is fueling emotional triggers). When this power dynamic exists, we are going to keep a part of ourself separate from the other.
That part we keep separate? No matter how it is expressed or what we think it is, it ultimately relates to the part of the self that feels like we are innately unlovable.
Transformation in relationships have a flavor of disassociation similar to personal growth. In personal process we want change to happen but we don’t want to be there for the process of change. In relationships that flips a bit. It becomes, “You do your work. I’ll do mine. We’ll see if we still want to be together on the other side.”
Great idea.
BUT.
Divided, you’re missing something epic!
You are unquestionably missing an essential concept in any thought process you engage in that requires separation to transform. A deeper unknown is being avoided. Some underlying separation dynamics to get curious about here.
There could be shadow power dynamics present as an undercurrent playing themselves out in your relationship or your relational fears. Uh oh…FYI. These will always haunt a relationship until they are mined into the surface of consciousness and equalized.
There could be an aspect of self sabotage within the desire to hide a piece of yourself away from your partner.
There could be codependent merging that you are trying to escape from.
There could be a competition for needs/space/attention that is controlling your ability to take up space.
There could be an aspect of your unloved self wound that does not trust your partner to love you through or in spite of what you find within your own work. Did I say “could”? For this one, I should probably say “is.”
While there is value in engaging in individual work, demanding it of the other or not being interested in each other’s process is a red flag.
Hiding any part of your psyche from a person you deeply care for is a choice to engage with the limiting belief that not all of you is capable of being loved for who you are.
A question: Where can your dark sides transform into something ordinary and accepted if not in the relationships most important to you?
Most relationships have a boundary that says to your unconscious shame and hatred, “you are not welcome here.” Your internal monsters are set free in your own mind but never let out into the air of safe mutual relating.
Worse, is when we use our internal monsters to self sabotage and push people away, thus proving the point that we are incapable of being loved for all of who we are.
Relationships needrelational acceptancefor both the ordinary and the worst aspects of yourself to feel completely loved.
And
Relationships needrelational interestin the ordinary and the worst aspects of yourself to fully love yourself.
Doing work apart does not create the capacity for ordinariness to be mutually nourishing. Doing work apart definitely does not show us that our shadow monster inside has any ability to relate without being a monster.
Showing up for another person in a relationship can’t happen without an all inclusive crucible of cultivating an ability to love and feel loved AND WHOLE by self and other.
This is a tall order. I know. But think about it.
You are never going to be safe to be fully yourself or feel deeply connected to others if you don’t believe you can trust others with the worst parts of you. That part of you that is NOT your friend inside, that thinks mean thoughts about you, that does not let yourself be fully known to those you love is going to hunker down and control your experience into sabotage and separation.
If you want to feel free in relationships to be yourself, you need to be able to accept all of who you are. Everyone deserves to have someone in their life who accepts all of who they are. The work starts within. Then that work reflects without.
