NOTE: This is Part 1 of a 2 – Part Post. In Part 2, I shall look at what we truly seek in a relationship and what we mistakenly believe we want
Let me begin with a few questions and please do answer them before you continue reading:
1. What would an *easy* relationship be like for you? What would its features, its qualities, its dynamics be? Most importantly, how would YOU be in such a relationship and what’s stopping you from being that now?
2. If you think that an easy relationship is one where you get what you want, how would you ensure this? What must the other person do/be for you to get what you want?
3. From the other person’s perspective, an easy relationship for them would be one in which they get what they want. What must you do/be in order for them to get what they want? Are you prepared to do/be this? Why or why not?
Relationships are ‘hard’ because, first and foremost, we see and think and feel them that way. And we see/think/feel them that way because they do not conform to our image/ideal/expectation/demand of what relationships should be like.
In our image, we expect the other person to behave differently, to think differently to suit our expectations and demands. When the person doesn’t, we are disappointed, angered, resentful.
We feel ‘entitled’ to think the way we do, to expect that people and things are a certain way, to make demands on others. Perhaps in our upbringing, we have had strong models of ‘entitlement’ imposed on us by our parents, our teachers and our society. We have had to acquiesce to their expectations and demands and now, as adults, we feel ‘entitled’ to make our own demands, set our own expectations of others.
In our mental imagery, we also decide that when the other person behaves the way ‘I want them to behave’, then ‘I’ll behave the way they would like me to behave’. In other words, our willingness to conform to their image of what we should be like is conditional – they must conform to our image of what they should be like first.
There is that awful moment when you realize that you’re falling in love. That should be the most joyful moment, and actually it’s not. It’s always a moment that’s full of fear because you know, as night follows day, the joy is going to rapidly be followed by some pain or other. All the angst of a relationship.
Helen Mirren
Relationships also feel hard because we have spent a long time doing the same thing in them and getting the same disappointing, undesirable result. We feel that we have put a lot of energy into them for very little return or at least not enough of the kind of return we want. We are tired and depleted of fresh ideas and even of hope and desire.
Relationships can also feel hard when we believe that we are trapped in them, that the choice of getting out of the relationship is too difficult. So we end up feeling frustrated and resentful. We express this frustration and resentment consciously and unconsciously and feel indignant when faced with their unpleasant consequences.
Relationships feel hard because we’re always looking for what we can get out of them for ourselves, for our entitlements, and when we don’t get them, we feel that our efforts are being constantly and deliberately thwarted and our happiness denied – the other person doesn’t like us or wants to hurt us or does not care for us or is unwilling to understand or appreciate us.
Relationships are hard because we don’t want to forget hurts or misunderstandings or disappointments from the past and we constantly use them as a weapon against our partner, consciously and unconsciously, silently and verbally. Just doing that makes life unpleasant for us. And when our partner responds in a way that displeases us, it makes things even more unpleasant for us.
Relationships feel hard because in addition to all of the above, we also fill them with our insecurities which we’re constantly and deeply fearful of being exposed. This pressure impacts on the relationship directly and indirectly, consciously and unconsciously, so that both parties get caught up in the dynamics of variously pretending that their insecurities don’t exist, feeding them and exploiting them.
The only real security is not in owning or possessing, not in demanding or expecting, not in hoping, even. Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what it was, nor forward to what it might be, but living in the present and accepting it as it is now.
Anne Morrow LindbergSo what is insecurity? Why are we insecure in our relationship to each other? There is tremendous disturbance, turmoil and agony in the external world, and each one wants his own place, his own security, and wants to escape from this terrible state of insecurity. So, can we together inquire into why we are insecure?—not into what security is because your security may be an illusion. Your security may be in some romantic concept, in some image, tradition, or in a family and name. What does that word ‘insecure’ mean? In your relationship to your wife or husband, there is not a sense of complete security. There is always this background, this feeling that everything is not quite right.
JD Khrisnamurti
Now that you know why they are hard, you now have the key to how you can make your relationships easy. Or, if you don’t wish to do that, you know that you have the option of leaving.
If you choose to make it easy, you will be supported by the power of the universe. If you choose to leave because that is what feels truly good (and not because your partner is a *#@^), you will be supported by the power of the universe.
If, on the other hand, you choose to stay but don’t choose to make it easy, then you will be pushing against the might of the universe, the natural flow of love – which is what you have been doing – and things will continue to be difficult and painful for you.
Then again, if you choose to leave believing that whilst your partner was unable or unwilling to give you what you wanted, someone else will, you will simply be repeating yourself since your beliefs about relationship have not changed.
What right do we have to demand of another that which we will not do for ourselves, which is to love unconditionally? What right do we have to demand that someone else alters their life, their behavior, to please us? If you’re not happy, either change or leave. Those are the only ‘rights’ you have.
You will enter the new relationship with old beliefs, old expectations, old demands, old entitlements, old needs, old insecurities, something that is often called ‘baggage’. And while the initial thrill of a new person, a ‘new’ relationship will feel wonderful, you will quickly revert to your old state of mind.
Still, there is always the possibility of a ‘new’ relationship working well. Like a ‘sea change’, the psychological upheaval that accompanies the ending of one relationship and the start of another can be productive and just the thing you need to give you a fresh outlook, renewed confidence and a healing shot of enthusiasm.
While it may sometimes feel too effortful and too overwhelming to make changes in your existing relationship, the promise of something fresh can inspire a sincere desire to change, to replace old, limiting beliefs with new, empowering and liberating ones. I say:
Choose to change the way you want to or be changed in ways you don’t want to.
So, the question that remains now is: What do you want to do? How do you want to change?
Lovingly,
Lucy
Read Part 2
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