Since very early this morning my mind has been reviewing my history with relationships, spurred by Amanda asking about how I've navigated certain relational terrain. I didn't say much at the time she asked, due to my own uncertainty of how much to share at that moment. Its an interesting and important line to walk as a therapist/facilitator of how and when to share my personal story or history. I always ask myself whether doing so is truly in the service of the group, or client, and I have to really be clear on that. I am pretty sure that for at least some of you, it could be helpful to hear an honest account of the important learning and growth I have experienced through relationships. So, I will write more here. If you don't feel that would be helpful to you, trust yourself on that and feel free to stop here! I won't write an autobiography, but will try to speak to some of the topics and questions that came up last night in our group, and how they surfaced for me, and how I found my way through them. And really, I feel like I have nothing to hide about any part of my life or myself, so do know that I am open to questions and will continue to be open with you, while listening to and honoring my own boundaries in the moment.
In my twenties I had several serious relationships with men, interspersed by long periods of time spent being single. I am pretty comfortable on my own, and enjoy my independence, so that was OK with me. I also really love connection and relationship, and knew that I wanted a partner and put a lot of energy into relationships when I was in them. During my twenties I was also moving forward with my career path, and along with that came embarking on my own therapy, and a lot of personal work as I was becoming a therapist. My relationships during that time were under a lot of reflection.
My time single was critical for developing my sense of my self, getting clear on who I was and who I was becoming, and moving my own life forward. It really helped build my strength and confidence in many areas, although at times I felt lonely and unsure if I would ever find a relationship that would sustain over time.
When I was 28, a relationship I had been very invested in ended, despite me doing everything I knew how to do to keep it going. I was devastated. I was in the midst of graduate school at Naropa, though, and had an amazingly supportive situation amongst my peers, and a therapist that I still feel so grateful for. And probably because I was so well supported, for the first time I was able to consciously feel what was one of my core woundings: a fear that I was unloveable. I feel sad even writing that now, that I lived so long with this deep fear, rather unaware of it, but it was always operating on some level. It all made sense given my family dynamics, and how I functioned for so long, but to really feel it was a whole other deal.
I started to see how I chose men who were rather unavailable in some way, and my unconscious hope was that by getting them to love me, I would then feel loveable. Because they were unavailable or "hard to get" in some way, my unconscious hope was that I would really feel loveable and special if I got the "hard to get" guy to commit, open up, and love me. I was actually setting myself up, without knowing it, to be disappointed, and to be thrown back on my own unresolved pain, and face my fear as it seemed that these relationships were confirming my worst fear of being unworthy of love. The genius in my approach was that I did have to eventually deal with myself, which is what needed to happen all along, and to attend to this fear I was carrying without expecting or needing someone else to do it for me (which no one can, anyway, I found out as well). So, I spent more than a year picking up the pieces of myself that had been so disowned and gradually, somehow, using every tool I knew, came to a new way of being in myself that felt more grounded, safe, and reliable. I now am actually grateful to all those men for not rescuing me (which they actually couldn't have anyway) from my own work that I needed to do to restore my own wholeness.
When I finally met my now husband, I was 29, in a much more comfortable place in myself, and ready to start again. And of course, he was somewhat unavailable! It was about a year from our first meeting before we actually started dating, and in that year I was just watching how I would have moments of being interested in him, then be completely turned off by his lack of availability, that before would only have made me doubt myself and then be more interested in him. So I was happy that finally, I was not attracted to someone who kept himself at a distance.
When we finally started dating, he was more ready and available and I was so much more clear that I didn't need his love to feel loveable. It was a good start! But we still both had more work to do. In 3 and half years, we broke up twice, very painfully, him not ready to commit more fully and needing to do more work on himself, and me having to grieve and feel the loss despite thinking that it should work out since I had really done my work! I was angry, heartbroken, and completely at a loss. I finally was able to see that on a very subtle level, I STILL wanted him to love me and commit to me so that I could confirm my worthiness of love. It was still there, and once again it took losing the relationship, TWICE, for me to see that and really get it.
Still working with the same therapist, I just kept going with my own work, using the friendships I had cultivated for support, too. After our second break up something really shifted in me, I was angry and I also felt my own certainty, finally, that the relationship was over NOT because I was unworthy of love. I finally just knew it very deeply, that I was loveable, regardless of whether he--or anyone--loved me or not. I wish I could say how exactly that occurred but I just think it was an accumulation of staying with my experience, for years, with really solid and skilled support around me, that I was able to shift how I felt about myself. That simple, and that hard.
When we did get engaged, about a month after our second break up, we both had learned big pieces for ourselves. I learned that I was OK without him, and he learned that was OK with me (his fears were more around losing himself, being engulfed, being abandoned). So, then we were ready! I laugh as I write this, what we had to go through to get to being Ok with ourselves. The human journey is rich, challenging....and kind of funny. :)
Some of my friends and family were supportive of us getting married, and some were openly opposed, given our roller coaster of break ups, etc. That was disappointing, but I also knew again that even if he decided to end the relationship on our wedding day, that I would be sad, AND that I would be OK, was very comforting to me. Knowing I will be OK, whatever happens, allows me to take the risks in my life that lead to fulfillment.
We have an amazing marriage, I must say, and I think a lot of it is due to getting a lot cleared up before we committed to each other. We both continue to work on ourselves, and take responsibility for our feelings, insecurities, fears, etc. We support each other with doing our personal work. We have a strong community of support, too. We are both committed to and highly value personal/spiritual growth, and our relationship is a spiritual path for us. We both work at staying connected to ourselves, and each other, and have a low tolerance for checking out. And we have fun and laugh a lot.
There is so much more I could say but I hope that gives an overview of the path I have walked when it comes to creating a committed relationship for myself. There is no right way, but I do believe that relationship is a path to growth, healing, and if we use all the opportunities that come our way, we will have no way to go but to evolve. And that is fulfilling, whether it leads us to partnership or not.
SIDENOTE: I just had Jayson (my husband) read this, and he added that he really felt something shift energetically and spiritually for him when I landed solidly in myself and my self love after our second break up. He feels that shift, in combination with him doing his own work, allowed us to finally come together. He also says I was more attractive to him after that shift in myself, however subtle it was, he noticed it, for what that is worth. For me, whether it was attractive to him or not, I am grateful for the growth that I experienced.
Last thing! All those years, in my twenties, struggling through relationships, I was "doing" self care. Journaling, extensive time in nature, movement, yoga, meditation, social support, all the stuff we think of.....it was supportive to a point: none of it was touching the deeper work that needed to happen. Relationship is what helped bring out my deeper work, which was so helpful, and feeling everything in my being as fully as I could, with support and awareness, is really what helped me grow and evolve. So for me, self care is REALLY about feeling my experience fully, and doing whatever helps me to do so. I think that is important to know so that we all make it a priority to figure out what actually is caring for ourselves, in a deep and meaningful way, that helps our life be as fulfilling as we will let it be.
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