THE PERFECT PARTNER – INTO YOU I SEE ME.
Relationships bring out the best and the worst in us.
We are always in relationship with something or someone.
Friends, family, environment, colleagues, pets.
Why do relationships trigger the highs and lows within us?
Deep friendships, our colleagues, but ultimately our love relationships offer the biggest learning.
Without that mirror we couldn’t really see ourselves.
To answer the why question is kind of simple, to live it is a different ballgame. Every person deeply longs for unconditional love and hopes to find that. Everyone wants to be heard and seen.
A lot of people have a desire to meet the “perfect”partner.
We hear stories about soul mates, twin souls and the one and only that can bring fulfillment. The number of divorces and challenges in relationships show us that there is still a lot to be discovered about the phenomenon of relationships.
MY OWN STORY
I have a rich relationship history with a lot of toiling, searching and being completely infatuated. Losing myself and not being able to set boundaries. I had a lot of practice looking for Love and who I really am.
I have been hopelessly in love with so-called “unavailable” men, I lived together with my boyfriend when I was 20. I couldn’t resist the temptation and fell in love with others. I fooled around, have been hurt and hurt others myself. I married when I was 29 and divorced. Eventually learning what Love is for me.
Over time the image of the perfect partner has changed a lot. I started to realize that I have always had “the perfect partner.”
MIRROR MIRROR ON THE WALL
The time when I fell for “unavailable” men, they were already in a relationship or not interested in commitment, showed me my own fear of commitment.
When I had become aware of that and healed parts of it, my first husband soon came into the picture. We were super in love and married within a year. Getting married still scared me though. I was recovering from fear of commitment and “forever” still gave me some jitters.
Unfortunately the marriage didn’t last forever. I never regretted 15 years of marriage and the love between us is still there, but has taken a different form. What happened? During the marriage I started to long for a deeper connection. I was discovering spirituality, I was growing, healing and wanted to share about my journey. Not just that, I wanted so badly that he would take that journey together with me.
And what so often happens, I projected it outside of myself. I felt that he had to open up more, share his feelings, go on a healing journey and be different than he was. Of course we ended up growing apart.
I have heard stories of many women sharing the same longing and journey.
But after my divorce I saw that especially the deep connection with myself was still a challenge.
So how could I have a deep connection in my marriage when the connection with myself still left a lot to be desired. And that’s what often happens in relationships.
We come together because we recognize something in each other, similar wounds and patterns, similar needs. Something must be resonating otherwise you would not be in a relationship with each other.
You simply cannot attract someone into your life who does not resonate at all with what is alive within you. The other is always a mirror and sometimes it is difficult to look in that mirror, especially when you are in the middle of a difficult or painful situation.
When you feel worthless within you may attract a very dominating partner. The opposite of what you are, inviting you to learn about boundaries. If, like me, you are not able to fully commit, how can you attract a partner who will. There is always a soul lesson to be learned, even in very painful relationships.
Ideally, you develop together, but very often we lose each other along the way. Then we get divorced or stay together but live separate lives. We take ourselves with us in every new relationship. And very often the same dynamic will show up, unless you have healed. I took the same dynamic with me, learning to open up more and go deeper with my new partner. I also realized opening up and being vulnerable in the relationship wasn’t so easy. It was also painful to realize the pressure I had put on my husband. But it was easier with my new partner, because he was less judgmental. So it brought a lot of healing.
THE DEEPEST DESIRE
Every person has a deep soul longing for Love, for connection, for wholeness. Almost everyone initially looks for Love in someone else. That’s simply what we learned growing up. We knew exactly what to do or not to do to be loved by our parents. We are often disappointed in our parents’ love when it was not as unconditional as we had hoped and we get hurt. Unconditional love is a deep desire in each of us.
WE ARE LOVE!
It’s very cliché, but it’s important to love yourself first and always be prepared to look in the mirror discovering what the relationship is telling you about yourself. To discover that the Love you long for is really within.
To realize that we cannot make our feeling of happiness and fulfillment dependent on someone else.
Sooner or later, that other person will not “stick to the (unspoken) agreement”, behave differently than you expected and then you will be disappointed.
What happens then is actually very simple. The pain that was already within you long before you met your partner, is felt and becomes visible again in all its glory in order to be healed.
Here dissatisfaction and trying to change the other can enter the relationship.
It can be such a beautiful and transformational moment though.
It is a great opportunity to heal, to listen to each other, to understand old patterns that are being triggered and take full responsibility for your own pain and part in it. Our (partner) relationships are the ideal playing field for this.
My experience is that we always have the perfect partner to help us grow and if we dare to look in our own mirror in a relationship, beautiful transformations can take place.