Reclaiming Our Lost Selves

We say that we are in  relationship with some one. In fact we are a relationship with some many. When we meet some one we meet the face that is drawn out by the context in which we meet. The other sides of our partner remains hidden from our view until we enter other contexts. We do not meet the wife or husband persona until we are married. We don't meet the divorce persona until we are divorced. We do not meet the day to day persona until we are no longer on vacation.

As you deepen your relationship with another you will see more and more of their faces. They will see more of yours. As this happens the relationship broadens and incompatibilities will emerge. When their cleaning persona meets your business persona there may be sexual chemistry or dismissal and resentment. When your leader persona meets there meditation persona perhaps you judge and they accept. Each context of our lives magnifies certain aspects of our personality and subdues others. 

The side of you that works at your job may respect and admire your partner. But as you spend more time at home, the home maker in you may resent your partner’s long hours. The lover in you may appreciate your partner’s submission or dominance.  The spiritual part in you may find such behavior offensive.

This creates a conversation of deeper conflict, pleasure and complexity. We are often so unaware of these micro relationships that emerge that it all gets lumped into one big mess of confusion and ambivilance.

If we do not consciously navigate this terrain the default is often control. One partner will do their best to suppress the sides of the other that bring up conflict. The goal is not to harm, but to create ease and allow the attraction to remain strong. Hence the grief and emptiness so many feel in long term relationships as many parts of their personality quietly pack up and leave the relationship they are a threat to. You both remember that there was more of you before you signed your pact of acceptability with one another and it is an area that becomes taboo.

While suppressing or hiding parts of ourselves is a valid approach many have used to maintain a relationship they feel is better than nothing and would not exist without this compromise, other approaches exist that require greater consciousness and skill to execute. If you want  to find and renew your lost vitality, this process will become important.

Action: Go through your memories and find the parts of yourself you have banished in order to be acceptable. Negotiate a safe place within your life where more of you is welcome.

Contents

Cresting the Waves:

A guide to sailing through life on

Relation-Ships

Dane E. Rose