I wish I could say that relationships have always been top of mind for me, but the truth is that I’ve only been giving them serious attention for about three years. 2020 gave me more room to think than I’d ever had and my relationships quickly became a topic that took up the majority of my mental space. It also gave me time to have conversations with people in my life that were overdue. The perfect mix of circumstance, need, and intrigue allowed me to finally explore what the relationships in my life craved and what my role was in getting them to a place I felt they deserved. What started to emerge in my personal reflections as themes were supplemented and supported by what I’d been reading. And while I still believe there is no black and white thinking when it comes to relationships, I found these concepts to be most important and are something I want to continue to inject into mine.
Embracing the idea of “yes, and…”
Part of being human means that we are all walking around with years of experiences, wounds, and conditioning that is completely unique to who we’ve become. When you’re in a relationship with someone, it becomes two or more worlds coming together; it’s no mystery why we don’t ever truly see eye to eye – no matter how similar we are. This is something I work on with my partner regularly. Remembering that I will always see the world through two completely different portals than him is easy to forget. My goal is to never negate his viewpoint, but accept it as his (which doesn’t always mean agreeing with it), and knowing that it’s important to express mine, too. This will often mean letting go of the need to “convince” him to see my things my way because the reality is, he never can – it’s impossible. But what we can do is hold space for one another’s views, opinions, and thoughts and keep “yes, and” at the forefront. In a relationship, there will always be two “truths” and come to decisions together, without one truth being more “right” than the other.
Never stop sharing
I’ve been with my husband for almost 19 years and like to think there’s nothing I don’t know about him, but it’s so far from the truth. The longer we’re together the easier it gets to make assumptions that we can read each other’s mind, but in reality our needs, tastes, and wants are constantly evolving. Being vocal feels more important than it’s ever been. We need to keep sharing and continue to let eachother in. This helps set our partners up for success, not failure; because if we’re sharing and communicating then things are hidden and left up to a guessing game for our partners. Plus, we get the bonus of deepening our overall connection by remaining open and continuing to share.
Get to know yourself
The most important epiphany I’ve had within relationships is that it’s imperative to understand yourself first before we can ever expect anyone else to understand us. This goes for all relationships. As I mentioned above, we’re always changing and will continue to do so for the rest of our lives. Tapping into our inner selves and knowing what brings us joy, what we’re afraid of, what our likes and dislikes are, is so dang important. No sugarcoating, this requires a lot of work on our part. Just like we need to dedicate time to understanding another person, knowing ourselves takes just as much dedicated effort. Just like we listen to those we love, we need to make space to listen to ourselves – even the deep down icky stuff we don’t like digging up. The people we’re constantly changing into every year requires us to revisit the real life, often tough, questions about who we are and what we want so we can keep getting better about expressing ourselves to those we’re in relationships with. We can only be as honest and true with our partners as we are with ourselves.
