“Without the knowledge of one’s inner self, there is little possibility for a truly rewarding and successful relationship. A relationship is not something that exists just between two people. Any relationship involves a multitude of selves in each person that interact with similar or opposite selves in the other. We have to learn who in us is interacting with our partner at any particular time.
Also if you surrender to the process of primary relationship, then you must learn to listen to your partner. This does not mean that you must obey or agree with your partner, just that you must truly listen and feel your partner’s reality. If you cannot listen or you do not hear what your partner is trying to say, then you must find out why this is so. You must continually give energy to the process of relationship and do whatever is necessary to move through the roadblocks that inevitably develop between partners.
Further, it is not easy to find a balance between this process of understanding a relationship’s capacity for choice and freedom and your own need to feel and behave like an independent human being. If you do something that goes contrary to the requirements of your partner, you must learn to understand the viewpoint and feel the pain of your partner. You must carry both of your realities, yours and your partner’s. You cannot just fly off into rebellion or power to prove that you are tough and strong and independent as you go off to ‘do your own thing.’
The key here is that each of us must learn to feel our own vulnerability so that we can feel the vulnerability of our partners. This deepens connections. Embracing our vulnerability is a very threatening thing to do in a relationship because it means meeting the other person without defenses. To learn to live with our vulnerability in an emotionally healthy way is to learn to live in a relationship in an undefended way. This does not mean that we give up our power and become victims; it just means that we must feel our vulnerability.”
Partnering A New Kind Of Relationship – How To Love Each Other Without Losing Yourselves, Hal Stone, Ph.D. & Sidra L. Stone, Ph.D., pgs. 24 – 26.
