Healthy relationships

The criterion for being in a relationship is the same as that of any important choice in life.  Is this a context in which I will find the safety to be myself; to live in accord with my deepest needs, values, wishes, and potentials, and to fulfil my life purpose?

An ego based question in a relationship is “What can I get out of this?  A spiritually healthy question might be.  “What will it take to be a contributer here?”

In a committed relationship or friendship, partners can challenge one another without fear of disrupting or ending the connection.

Some people, especially introverts find strength by withdrawing into themselves.  Can you handle that as a partner’s style, or will you take it as rejection?

You may seek – or be in – an attachment that feels good and call it love, rather than a connection that is good which is love.

The central fear of intimacy is that you will have to give up control over how someone loves you. If a partner gets too close, you may feel the fear of engulfment.  If a partner goes too far away, you may feel the fear of abandonment.  You may be fearful in some way all your life but you no longer have to be fear based.  There are ways of working with fear in therapy and in spiritual practice.

If you are sensitive to abandonment, it is natural to become terrified when you are criticised or when someone shows disappointment in you .  This may be because it feels like a serious or permanent rejection, a severing of a desperately needed bond.  “This criticism means she doesn’t like me, wants to leave me, and won’t love me any more.  When people don’t like me, its my fault.”

A soul mate is not the one who says he or she is your other half but the one who shows you you are whole.

“He is all I have.”  This may be why you are staying in an untenable relationship.  such resignation to pain leads to despair, a loss of your lively energy.  Despair in this context is believing there is no chance for the five ‘A’s (affection, appreciation, attention, acceptance, allowing). That is a reason to mourn rather than to give up.

Expectation is a personal longing that we try to get someone else to take care of.  An adult has given that up.

We imperfect human beings need each other, not perfection, to become happy and whole.  We are “good enough” for each other as we are.

There is a central difference between living in a committed relationship and in single life.  In single life the virtues of humility, compassion, attentiveness, caring and patience are recommended.  In a committed relationship they are required.

David Richo