RELATIONSHIPS ARE MEANT TO EVOLVE
RELATIONSHIPS ARE MEANT TO EVOLVE
But our society is obsessed with the stage of new love and is lacking in true role models
of mature deeply connected intimate relationships.
Relationships are meant to evolve...
But this is not the story we are told.
We are sold the story of everlasting love..
of prince charming...
"the one"...
the story of "happily ever after"..
and when the story inevitably prove not to work, we assume we don't have the right partner so we try again to find "the one"..
Sooner or later - perhaps when we are around 50 - some may give up on relationships all together. The pain of broken relationships and broken heart is too much and they settle for a life on their own.
The story of love our culture sold us is broken, and is wrong.
It is not the story of good healthy long-term relationship, instead it is all about the beautiful phase of new relationship when we first fall in love...
The stage of falling in love is glorious.
It feels amazing.
But it is not meant to last.
It is there to bond us, to connect two previously strangers...
But then it shifts into something new...
It meant to.
We can not - and we are not meant to - hold on to the feeling of falling in love.
It is only available in a new relationship, as we learn to get to know our partner, and it eventually ends. And it is OK.
INDIVIDUATION
Sooner or later our love is no longer "new". The high of falling in love settles into something more ordinary. More every day life. More sustainable!
The desire to be constantly together gives way for a need to also nurture parts of ourselves that our partner may not share or that we simply want to do on our own.
This is normal, natural and a healthy stage of the evolution of our relationship.
How we handle this stage is a key to the quality of our relationship.
MANY PEOPLE GET LOST HERE.
They either strive to get back to the high of falling in love or they individuate too much and lose connection - whether they remain with the same partner or not
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It is really important to emphasize that this is not a personal failing. This is not your fault. This is systemic and cultural; this is the story we are told since birth by everything around us, from fairy tales to movies and ideal of a good relationship.
Very few of us have had the privilege of having a good role model of mature love when we were children and even as adults we rarely see it in the relationships around us.
SO WHAT IS MATURE LOVE?
Fundamentally mature love require both partners to be whole; which is not the same as perfect.