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The opening line from Fiona Apple’s “Criminal” has been in my head quite a bit over the past few months: “I’ve been a bad, bad girl, I’ve been careless with a delicate man.” As a man who has been called “emotionally intelligent” on my best days, and “too sensitive” on my worst, I have been saying both, “thank you” for this lyric and pondering my part in all of the occurrences in my life where I had felt that I was treated carelessly.
While it is my experience that everything is a relationship (marriage, friends, family, job, money, etc.), we mostly think of the romantic kind when the subject comes up. And, with all of these types of relationships, it is important to acknowledge that we have been socialized to believe that they are supposed to look a certain way, feel a certain way and produce particular results.
Taking marriage as an example, we are taught that we are supposed to meet our soul mate, there is supposed to be a spark, we are supposed to feel more connected to each other than anyone else ever, we are supposed to only be with that person and only desire being with that one person, we are supposed to get married, have children and grow old together. This is what I was very sure was going to happen for me, and while my relationship with my now-ex-wife began this way, it sure didn’t stay that way; and for most of us, it does not.
There are many who say that “relationships are hard,” and there are some who say that “a relationship with the right person will be easy.” Seeing as how the “Relationship Industry” is a billion dollar one, there is quite a bit of room for a whole range of opinions and descriptions, and they all help sell books, seminars and coaching packages.
To be clear, I am not diminishing any of these programs, especially since I participate in offering programs, I am simply pointing to how our expectations and experiences shape how we view our relationships and how we want to experience them. Relationships being “hard” or “easy” is subjective. I prefer to address what the couple in front of me is dealing with and what they want. Which leads me to the inquiry of what do we want from our relationships anyway?
A romantic relationship can feed different desires for different people: security, passion, companionship, growing together, deepening within ourselves, coasting through life, being set so you don’t have to worry about other things, procreating, fulfilling on familial or societal expectations, drama, control, and so on. I often see breakdowns with couples revolving around each person’s different inner desire and how it looks when expressed. For instance, one partner may want to deepen and grow and “do the work” while their partner may want to coast through life. Neither is wrong, they just have different desires to fulfill. Even if both partners desire passion, how each partner views that can be at odds as well.
I also get that things probably seemed so much simpler before, like the way things were in regards to the traditional marriage example. Perhaps our needs and desires were simpler or perhaps they were just suppressed; either way, we are here and now with many options and paths available to us. Whether it be monogamy, poly, open or any variation, we have many ways to not only experience relationships, but to experience ourselves.
The key is to spend time with yourself, in contemplation and exploration of how you feel, how you want to feel and the things you want to experience in your life. There is no right or wrong, it just simply is. And as you get clearer, communicating that and navigating that with your partner is the next step. Are you able to speak openly? Are you willing to listen and really hear each other, no matter what comes up? This does not mean you may not feel upset or anger, but are you willing to do that?
This is where the deeper connection comes in and the trust gets built. And whether that deep connection is what you desire or not, I invite you to ask yourself: “What do you want?”
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