Killing Off The Ones We Love

I remember a beloved who broke down in tears under my persistent demands that she be different: “You don’t understand,” she wept, “the independence and groundedness you love in me is directly connected to my detail oriented nature and follow through. I can’t be like you and drop everything on a dime and still be the person you are attracted to. There is no way for me to win!”

As I write this I feel deeply touched by one of the most painful experiences in relationship: our partners asking us to change a characteristic that is inherent in a persona that we love and want. When we don’t understand that you cannot just take a personas living eco system and change one piece without affecting the whole, we can learn to embrace and willingly pay the price for what we value in each other.

I remember feeling in a similar trap with a partner that was ferocious in her nitpicking about housekeeping, but loved my free spirit, adventurousness and spontaneity. When she continued to needle me I realized she was killing off the part in me she loved the most and would miss most when it was gone. She was too blind to see what she was doing, and too triggered to care. It cost her the relationship because I did not like the personas within myself that met with her approval as much as the free flowing personas I came into the relationship with. This is a tragedy that needs compassion: most of us cannot help ourselves from crucifying our loved ones.

In order to understand this, it helps to know that when my partner was killing off my wild creativity and demanding order, it was not really about me or a conscious desire. Events in her life had taught her that wild energy gets you killed, or worse, abandoned and even though it was attractive to her, she could not blindly make her way through the wall of feelings stored in her body she would have needed to pass through in order to accept that part in me. She was, in effect, terrified that I would bring her worse fears upon her. But all this was beneath awareness: to her she was just surprised that no matter what she could not let go of certain details around the house. Which suggests something else: the little things that really get to us about our partner are often very big things lurking below our awareness.

Action: Accept the full package of your partner’s personas. With financial wealth may come a degree of stinginess. With aliveness may come unreliability. With spontaneity can come accidents. Are you willing to pay the price?

Contents

Cresting the Waves:

A guide to sailing through life on

Relation-Ships

Dane E. Rose