Saving Your Most Significant Relationship

The quality of the relationship you have with yourself is what determines the quality of your relationship with every other person in your life.                                        Josephine Faulk, MPH

Perhaps, like I did, you have been waiting for someone to come along and magically make you whole. The naked truth is, until we do the work of recovery, we are incapable of choosing someone that can offer us the sort of love, acceptance, affection and security we so deeply hunger for. Instead, we repeatedly choose someone who creates the same confusing and hurtful feelings inside us we felt in our childhood. Why on earth would we do something so painful?

      Behind that seemingly poor choice is the loving intention to alleviate childhood pain and fear by conjuring up the same dynamic and emotions we could not control or resolve as a child, so we can have another chance to work it out. This is quite unfortunate for our unsuspecting love-partner, or rather love/hate-partner. They become the target of our insecurities while simultaneously being cast in the role of our rescuer. Lamentably, we usually choose someone who also hails from a highly dysfunctional childhood. It’s that old quantum physics magic of you draw to yourself what you are. I know, it’s a crummy and unfair natural law. It’s also a huge motivation to pursue recovery with a vengeance.

       What do you need and desire in a loving partner?  Those are the things you will need to work on cultivating within yourself. A loving relationship with yourself is pivotal to having a loving relationship with others. It has been a trend to write down everything you want in a partner and then hold each prospect up against this imaginary picture of perfection. There’s nothing wrong with making a list of what characteristics in a mate would be essential to your happiness, but it is step two or three, not step one. Two very wonderful people, who are dating each other, may not click and so it becomes necessary for them to move on to continue their search for the partner best suited for them. It is vital to our mental health to recognize that this does not constitute rejection and abandonment. You have simply moved one step closer to finding the person you are really meant to be with.

     The list I am going to ask you to make will be applicable whether you are single, in a relationship or in a very long-term relationship. It is never too late to cultivate the relationship you desire. Imagine what your ideal relationship (versus ideal partner) would consist of. To help you get started on your own list, I’m sharing mine with you. It begins with David Richo’s five essential components of a healthy relationship from his book How to be an Adult in Relationships. The comments on The Five As are my own desires for my ideal relationship.

My Lifelong Love List

• Attention: We make quality time for each other to connect, have fun and communicate. We are fully present when communicating and we tune in to the needs, feelings and desires of each other.
• Appreciation: We recognize each other’s strengths and what is beautiful and good about each other and we express that often. We notice the little kindnesses and express our gratitude.
• Affection: We take opportunities daily to show our love in ways that are meaningful to each other and we easily express our affection verbally and physically.
• Allowing: We allow each other space to learn, grow and contribute in ways that enlarge our life experience separately and as a couple.
• Acceptance: We allow each other our quirks, our bad days and to make mistakes and start over. We create an environment where it always feels safe to be our most authentic selves.

       Whether you are single or already in a relationship, you should still make these lists as goals for the type of relationship you desire and deserve. The lists are idealistic; no one should reasonably expect to have all these things all the time. But they are definitely worth striving for. Next are some additions to my Lifelong Love List of what I need in a relationship. Notice I don’t say ‘in a partner?’ There are two people in a relationship and even though I might meet a man who is a wonderful guy, we might not, for whatever reason, create the relationship he or I want. No one has to be blamed. We just move on. Next!

My Lifelong Love List, cont.

• Good communication: We are authentic and feel safe conveying our needs and feelings
• Chemistry/Passion
• Humor
• Trust: On every level
• Flexible: We don’t have to have everything our way. We are open to each other’s needs and ways of doing things
• Love: Not just attachment, which is about getting needs met you don’t know how to meet yourself
• Consideration: We are mindful of how our choices, words and behavior affect each other and act in ways that strengthen our love and respect for each other
• Reliability: It is important to us to be there for each other in every way
• Fun and Adventure: We even have fun making dinner or doing the laundry. Adventure that is fueled by curiosity and a sense of fun
• Kindness
• Intellectually stimulating: Even if you do have lots of passion you still have to do something with the other 22 hours in the day!
• Easy to be around: Not demanding, not bossy, not compulsive, open to suggestions and able to laugh at ourselves
• As a woman I want to feel cherished, protected, desirable, free and safe to be completely myself, be listened to and feel that I am one of the most significant persons in his life—as he will be in mine.

     In western culture we are hyper-focused on romantic love. Many of us were raised to believe love conquers all. But sometimes love can break you in a million pieces, trick you into putting up with excruciating pain and leave you a mere shadow of your former self; barely breathing, scarcely alive, or so it seems. How can this possibly be? Because while our culture was chocking us full of love fantasies, like the knight in shining armor who will come and make our life a fairy tale, or that our kids will grow up and love and honor us until we die if only we sacrifice enough for them, or we must find The One to complete us, or we should have loads of friends to do fun stuff with all the time, they left out a major part of love, and that is R-E-S-P-E-C-T.  How do you spell love without respect? D-Y-S-F-U-N-C-T-I-O-N-A-L. Seriously, read this entire paragraph again. I want you to burn that into your brain.

      We may have been loved by our highly dysfunctional parents, but we were raised without respect being modeled in our home. So, what passes for love in our minds is a pale comparison to the splendid love that comes packaged with an equal amount of respect. Learn how to cultivate the best possible relationship with yourself that it may radiate outward, embracing all within your heart’s reach in WORTHY A Personal Guide for Healing Your Childhood Trauma. I’ll be there every step of the way to love and support you–I promise.