When Do We Need to Go Our Separate Ways?
Four Pillars in Relationship To Help Discern When It May Be Time to Leave.
Relationships are about give and take, ebb and flow. There is no such thing as a perfect relationship. This week marks my 25th wedding anniversary. I am taking advantage of my own personal milestone to write about what the pillars of mutuality in relationship entail.
Any relationship that has depth, vulnerability, and intimacy is a friendship. Romantic relationships go deeper - combining emotional support and physical connection with emotional connection and physical support. A healthy relationship is one in which everyone can personally grow and come more alive. The overall relationship thrives in this stew of growth. Happy couples are couples that create new patterns, have changing interests, and heal themselves and each other as the relationship grows and changes.
Stagnant relationships are not thriving relationships. Yet this doesn’t necessarily mean that the relationship is unhealthy. Two people together choosing to stay stuck or get in ruts can have a healthy dynamic between them. Not everyone wants to become more alive as they age, grow, and connect. The important component is a sense of individual choice as well as a mutual reciprocity between needs, support, reactions, and boundaries.
Mission Statement
My writing today is meant to give support to those who need a clear assessment of their relationship. It also is a support for my many clients who have asked me the question - “how do I know if we should be together or not?” - in some form about their relationship. Many people right now seem to be questioning their choice in partnership. My perspective may help you answer your own questing mind.
For those of you who regularly fantasize about leaving someone, perhaps this post will give you the impetus to make a clear choice.
For those of you who are not questioning your relationship at all right now, my post may give you the perspective of gratitude for the partnership you do have and the mutual relating that exists in it right now.
Perspective
In relationships that last years, sometimes the person you love or you yourself lose touch with the self. This means that any assessment of a relationship needs to be through the lens of time, not just the current moment or trouble.
Your own relationship needs an unbiased story keeper.
If we judge ourselves or our partner on a bad moment or series of moments, the will to stay together is centered around reactions. Reactions do not allow for clear perspective. At the same time, forgiveness can’t be forced. When a relationship is going through a particularly hard time, space to assess and regroup is necessary to create clarity and appropriate objectivity.
Similarly, if we over focus on positive moments to avoid the reality of a consistent negative, we are suppressing the will to act. Suppressing will create an inevitable rebound effect. There will be a pile up. The overflow of shadow and resentment must rear its head. When it does, there’s an explosion because too much was held back and not dealt with at the appropriate time.
Relationships require perspective when assessing whether it is time to stay together or separate. The foundation of a relationship is found in the mediocre times where there are no extremes of experience. Knowing the way your couple is as itself is just as important for your relational container. This grounds a relationship with a frame of reference when difficulty and challenge exist.
The Four Pillars:
Boundaries, Needs, Reactions, and Support
What cornerstones of mutuality hold a healthy relationship together? Boundaries, Needs, Reactions, and Support - in no specific order. Again, let me stress. We humans get lost. We mess up. We are not perfect. It is completely normal and natural for a couple of these pillars to get lost for a time when one or both people in the relationship are going through something intense. It is absolutely necessary to utilize the continuum of your own honest story keeper to assess whether or not these pillars have been present in the past if they are not available to you now.
If any one of these pillars are not present right now in your relationship, action needs to be taken. It is important to try to see if it is possible to change what is going wrong, not ignore it or resent it. We cannot blame a partner for not doing something we haven’t asked to have done. We need to take self responsibility for our own inaction towards problems in any relationship. Blame is only healthy when we have tried every avenue of internal and external change and nothing has succeeded. Otherwise blame is just an excuse to survive an unhealthy partnership.
Relationships that survive and thrive do so because both partners are willing to mutually compromise their egos on behalf of the relationship itself.
Communication - The Most Basic Requirement
All relationships require the ability to have effective communication. When communication breaks down the relationship inevitably breaks or implodes. If communication around any of these pillars cannot happen, outside support is needed to open the door to communication. If getting outside support seems impossible, it is time to assess what the future of the partnership is.
Issues with communication require unbiased mediation and support. Why unbiased? Clear communication only happen without the demand that the relationship survives. Allowing someone to witness and support any issues in a relationship without biased intervention allows the partnership to authentically discover itself. Demand for the survival of the partnership will too easily create triangulation that will not allow for an authentic sense of choice.
We cannot expect anyone to know what is going on in our own minds. While we may need space to come up with what we need to say to someone, choosing to not tell our partner what we are thinking is an act of deliberate sabotage to the relationship.
The Questions.
With any of these pillars, the following is the assessment for health of the relationship. Think of these questions as building blocks. If you answer “no” to any of these questions, it is important to get a “yes”before continuing on to the next question. Each pillar requires a “yes” to all six questions.
Do I believe this pillar can be discussed between me and my partner?
Can I come to a place of personal clarity around the pillar - my part in it and my space in it - before trying to communicate with my partner? Can I maintain this clarity when discussing the pillar with my partner?
When we have a discussion around this pillar, is there mutual respect and listening?
Does my partner not only hear me but also consider me in our communication?
Do I hear and consider my partner in relation to this discussion?
Can a mutual agreement (that may be imperfect or need to be revisited) be reached in relation to this pillar?
Obviously all relationships are incredibly complex. The core of a relationship that thrives is the ability to grow personally, then have that personal growth be something that allows the relationship itself to grow. Time in between discussions to assess and reassess sometimes needs to happen, especially in cases where mutual wounding is creating a lot of negative feedback in the relationship.
Core Wound Interaction
The greatest hopelessness in a relationship is felt when core wounds are being torn open and more personal awareness is needed for healing. Simultaneously the relationship itself is having its own reaction to this meeting of core wounds. These are the places we need to be most careful and most attentive. The core wound is going to want to speed everything up and push our partner away. Perspective is going to be limited. Demand is going to get loud. Only through time, space, and mutual self growth will the relationship get past its rift in a healthy way.
Here is where the relationship can have a launch in growth or an epic trauma. Here is also the place where going slow, having long term perspective, getting support, and giving mutual space can create a relational “ah ha” moment. An entire new platform of ground and trust for the relationship can happen. Each pillar needs to be looked at individually to get a relationship through a core wound relational wounding. Go back to the basics and simplify. Take the time if your history tells you the relationship is worth it.
Complexity As Necessity
Having a long term healthy relationship is really freaking complex. No wonder the separation rate in couples is as high as it is. It is fair to say that if you are in a relationship that you want to put the time into, you may need to think about getting outside support with someone who understands these pillars and can put the relationship into long term perspective.
What’s the realization I am getting to here? If you are asking a friend for relationship advice who has never had a long term relationship, this probably is more a sign that you don’t want the relationship to work than a sign that you are interested in solutions.
My advice? Find people who understand the give and take in relationship to help you through finding yourself in your own or use your inability to do so as a sign.
I so often see people in relationships hold their partners hostage. There’s an entire hidden world of fantasies and desires happening and only one person who knows what is going on. This doesn’t mean the other person in the relationship doesn’t FEEL the hidden world. It just means the partner doesn’t know the content. Mutual honesty and sharing are the foundations of any relationship.
The need for open communication goes beyond the pillars. It is what keeps relationships interesting and alive. After all, if you were interested in someone without letting them ever know, the relationship itself would never have begun. Once you have begun a relationship, it is your responsibility to honestly share with your partner what you are thinking about in relation to your partner and your relationship. Hiding will only cause the relationship to falter and separate.
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