“The dance of feminine and masculine is a tango that requires surrender to leading, to following, and above all to trusting.”
There are many common challenges that we create in our relationships. There are the challenges that come about naturally and those are wonderful as we can use them to grow and learn more about each other, but the one’s we create ourselves normally have no benefit to the relation.
I’ve outlined three of the major relationship challenges I’ve seen – you’ll notice two of them have to do with communication. For a more in-depth exploration see – The Dance of the Feminine and Masculine Within
1. Expressing your complaints instead of your desires
Do you ever find yourself telling your partner all the things they are doing or not doing that bother you? Even if you are just having this conversation in your mind, it is giving more focus to the things you dislike, and not communicating what you do want. Now, let’s take for instance, the complaint – “I told him I wanted him to take the trash out, and he didn’t even do that!”
You might think that the desire was expressed – to take the trash out. Yet, might the deeper desire be having a partner who takes initiative in the household tasks, who doesn’t need you nagging them. And even deeper, might the desire be to feel supported by your partner and know that you don’t have to do it all alone. So, what might happen if instead of the complaint expressed above, you expressed, “I want to feel like we are supporting each other and that neither of us ever feels alone nor overwhelmed in this relationship.”
Notice, the trash doesn’t even have to be mentioned anymore. It was simply a trigger for the deeper desire. So, express your deep desires, not your complaints.
2. Wanting to be heard, while not listening
This is one of the most prevalent challenges in communication, whether it’s in a relationship or not. The art of listening is a lot more than hearing the words someone is saying. It must also be accompanied by interest in what those words are. Most of us listen with an intent to understand, interpret and either agree or disagree with what someone is telling us.
What if we could listen with nothing but an interest in knowing what the other person is expressing? You see, communication is about coming to understand AND FEEL what the other persons truth is, whether or not you agree with it, you must acknowledge that it is the truth for the other.
In this way, you always feel heard, because you know your truth is being seen. For most, you will find that having your truth agreed with isn’t the priority. You just want to know that it’s really been heard and recognized.
In a relationship this is important because it allows partners to understand why certain actions, expressions, and emotions exist. Too often we interpret these things through our own “truth” filter, and thus we completely miss meeting the other in theirs.
In coaching sessions, I often recommend for couples who are struggling with this that rather than promising each other that you will “listen to what I’m saying”….promise each other to “give full attention to hearing their truth.”
3. Creating conditions, instead of Trust
This is a tricky and incredibly subtle pattern that permeates relationships, and it often has a lot to do with the level of self-trust each person has. Often, instead of opening into a space of trust with your partner, the tendency can be to create a limitation, to say, “I’m not comfortable with you hanging out with so and so”, or “I don’t feel that job opportunity will really work for you”, or even something as simple as “let’s only communicate the positive with each other”.
Most of these conditions we set are rooted in a fear of losing the partnership or even just the “honeymoon” ideal of the relationship. They are rooted in a possessive attitude, sometimes very apparent and other times quite subtle. We want to somehow control the relationship and how it gets to develop. This eventually becomes a power struggle between partners, both trying to control situations, expressions, and actions for the same goal of preserving the relationship, while in the arguing about how to best achieve that goal, you are destroying the relationship.
Trust does not simply mean trusting each other. It is trusting in the natural dynamics and flow of the relationship to take you into opportunities for growth, which may at times show up as challenging conflicts. If you give yourself the freedom to accept the challenge, move into and through it, you will grow within the relationship to places you could not have imagined – cause they were out of your control.
When we control our relationships with conditions, we circumvent the very purpose of the connection (and no, it’s not just companionship); it’s to grow.
Trusting one another and the relationship allows for you to have appreciation when things naturally evolve. If you have tried conditioning things and the natural evolution of the relationship doesn’t match with your conditions, there will be conflict, disappointment and struggle.
Thus, challenging as it may be to let go of control. In a relationship it is best to realize at the beginning that neither you nor your partner is in control…the relationship itself is.