Relationship Strengtheners: Education & Connection

What would it look like if we treated relationships like we do other areas in life we find important? Lovers' Ed instead of Driver's Ed? What would we want everyone to know that would keep things healthy? Join me for my ideas on this as well as the role of connection in determining the health or dis-ease of relationships. Learn ways to connect and other philosophical shifts that are helpful on the journey to happy and healthy relationships. 

Transcript

E14 Relationships Strengtheners: Education & Connection

Hello and welcome back to the B Spot, the place that gives you almost therapy but not quite therapy. I want to thank everyone who takes time to listen to my mostly mental health musings, and my hope is that you hear something that makes a difference for you. If you have, please share the sessions or at least the insights with others so that we can spread the seeking of rational truths and human understanding. Before we dive back into relationships, I want to remind you that you can participate in this podcast by emailing me at bhellercounseling@gmail.com with any questions or life events that are causing disruption for you, that you want to hear more about. Now, back to the topic at hand.

Last session, we began the discussion about the complex world of relationships with a deep dive into dysfunctional communication patterns. How to identify Gottman’s 4 Horsemen, and what to do to move past them toward a healthier relationship. And is there a more dysfunctional communication pattern than dishonesty? Violations of trust are the most powerful relationship ruiners, because in order to be in a healthy relationship, you must be able to trust your partner. When trust is broken, the walls that represent all of our past trauma rise up all around us, and leave us feeling isolated, even if we are rarely alone. And it’s hard to be in a healthy relationship when you’re feeling isolated. We talked about strategies to rebuild trust IF both people are committed to the health of the relationship. We also explored the significance of a person’s relationship with their opposite sex parent, in shaping their views and expectations of relationships. 

I find it interesting how little attention is given in our educational system to teaching kids how to understand relationships, and to be in relationships. When I think about the complexity of building and maintaining healthy relationships while also avoiding toxic people and dysfunctional situations, that sure sounds like a lot to expect kids to learn on their own. We’re more focused on building industrial skill sets than emotional intelligence, which seems so backwards to me, given how important emotional intelligence is in so many aspects of our lives, especially in relationships. The demystification of healthy relationships would benefit kids so much more than many of the other areas which continue to be a greater focus. I’ve heard from so many people over the years who say they just didn’t have good role models or good information about how to build and maintain healthy relationships. They just don’t know what that looks like.

We make kids take driver’s education because we acknowledge that this is a thing that is going to happen, they are going to drive, and because it presents a risk to self and others, we teach them everything we can think of to help them become better drivers, and we make them practice, a lot, before it counts for real. We do this for the good of the individual AND others. It’s curious to me that we don’t take a similar approach with relationships. They are certainly something that is going to happen as a part of the human experience, and they definitely carry a significant risk to self AND others. The emotions that can be elicited when we are in romantic relationships have significant power and can so easily bleed into other areas of life. So what would a course even look like if the goal was relationship education? Lover’s Ed? What would be the appropriate age be for a child to start to learn about these things? Would it be a one time course or would it need to be an ongoing education that takes on increasing amounts of “adult information” as our kids get older? Maybe an elementary school level, middle school level, high school level, and of course refresher courses available for adults? 

When I start to think about what this could possibly look like, if the goal is to provide relationship education throughout the developmental years, a general outline comes to mind that covers the basics and a lot of the nuances involved in relationships. And since none of us were able to enroll in such a program when we were kids, this outline applies to adults as well. It isn’t so much about your actual age, it’s more about your emotional and relational IQ that will determine where on this scale you would want to enter.  You might say it’s your stage, not your age. If you would like to hear more about any of these points on the outline in future sessions, email me and let me know what’s going on and I’ll see if I can help. 

I guess the early part of that education would involve teaching kids how to understand and express their emotions in healthy ways. It’s important to teach kids how to feel good enough about themselves that they don’t feel the need to dominate other people in order to meet that need that we all have, to feel good. Most elementary school age kids are ready to learn about healthy communication patterns, and how to identify toxic types of communication. They’re old enough to learn about those 4 Horsemen: Criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling. If you want more information on that, check out the last session on relationships. It’s amazing to me that even young children can often identify toxic communication patterns, we just don’t teach them consistently enough healthier ways to communicate. So yeah, we’d start with emotional self awareness and teaching healthy communication patterns.

As we move to the next phase of relationship education, the topics will grow in complexity but will be built on the foundation laid in those early years. This would be when we teach kids about setting and respecting boundaries in all relationships with others. Teaching kids that they have the right to be treated the ways that they like, but that they must also respect that others have that same right. And now, building on the learning about toxic communication patterns that took place earlier, kids are now better able to learn to recognize toxic behaviors in relationships, and learn how to avoid people who behave in toxic ways. This could be a whole psychodrama situation where actual common scenarios are acted out and kids problem solve together how to navigate those difficult waters. Kids at this age need to be taught not just that they are going through puberty, but also how to deal with not only their changing bodies but also their changing minds, desires, fears. 

We must define consent and teach both kids and adults how to recognize and respect their boundaries and the boundaries of others. It needs to be made especially clear that while touch requires consent, breakups do not. We have to teach that coercion can be abusive and that loving does not equate to owning. Respect your partner’s right to move on without you. The days of women being considered property are long gone, never to return, and men especially need to be educated on this point. If someone tells you that they don’t want to be in a relationship with you, you can try and present your side if you believe the relationship could or should be saved, but in the end, your partner does not need your consent to break up with you. And remember there is a big difference between fighting for your relationship and trying to ruin the life of the person you feel has left you behind. The hard truth is that the best thing for each of us is most often the best thing for all of us, even if we aren’t in a position to see how.

As we continue the transition into the adult relationship education sessions, it’s time to let go of the idea that being in a relationship means finding someone to complete you. Thanks Jerry Maguire! No wonder so many of us find ourselves in codependent relationships. Love songs and Rom Com movies have conditioned us to believe that we all have another half person out there we need to find in order to be complete. But a healthy relationship is not one where two people complete each other. A healthy relationship is one where two whole people come together and compliment each other. Accentuate each other. There are significant differences between being in a codependent relationship and being in an interdependent relationship. The key difference is that codependence is dependence to the point of dysfunction, the point that it has a negative impact on your life, and interdependence involves sharing life and enjoying each other, but not to the point that you lose who you are because of your perceived need to be loved and accepted by your partner, at all costs, no matter what. It’s important to not let yourself need your relationship. You can want it and love it, and definitely prefer that it be a part of your life, but you can’t need it. When you need it, the pressure to sacrifice yourself becomes too great. The pressure to overlook dysfunction, disrespect, and even abuse. If the thought of losing the relationship is scarier than the thought of losing yourself, you will allow yourself to be treated in dysfunctional unfulfilling ways because you won’t want to risk losing the relationship by standing up for yourself. So, check your emotional needs and do the work necessary to know that no matter what happens in your relationship, you will be ok. This will free you up to ask for, and demand from others, the relationships that you want, that will lead to growth and strength, rather than decay and despair.

Another critically important point to stress with anyone who wants to learn how to have successful relationships is that your ego, my ego, everyone’s ego has the potential and the power to keep us from the things we really want. To have a relationship with another human being, we must understand that we both come into the relationship with our own stuff. Our own set of experiences that have shaped our views of ourselves, relationships, and the world. Every person was also once a small child, who desperately sought the attention and approval of their parents or caretakers and felt less than if they didn’t get it. Those feelings will play out in romantic relationships because that is the closest we can come to recreating those situations that left us feeling less than others. So when your partner says something that taps into any of that trauma, and you feel that need to defend yourself well up inside, it’s helpful to learn to question how much of your reaction is based on this event, and how much is based on previous events, and of course, previous relationships. What impact may this confrontation have on the relationship and is it worth it. Is my point so important that it is worth risking conflict? 

There are many times when that assessment will lead to the conclusion that confrontation does need to happen, and in those situations, it should, especially if that means standing up for the idea of a healthy relationship. But there are also many other times that ego leads to inappropriate expressions of anger and resentments. And while that expression may feel mandatory in the moment, what makes it feel that way is the damage felt by your ego, not the potential positive impact of confrontation. Ideally, confrontation in relationships is never about admonishing or punishing your partner, confrontation should be about making the relationship better, healthier, and more fulfilling for both people. Many relationships have ended because of ego. Ego can convince a person that it’s better to make a point than to sacrifice that desire for the greater good of the relationship. And many people spend years regretting the decisions they made to protect their ego. I’m not suggesting you become a doormat, but I am suggesting that all humans need to learn to recognize ego needs vs real needs and learn to think and act in ways that help us achieve what we really want instead of what may feel vindicating in the moment. 

While we all share the same basic human needs, what we perceive we need from a relationship can vary greatly from one person to the next. There are many forces that come together to influence how much attention we need from our relationships but what’s more important than how much or how little we need, is how well our partner’s needs match ours. There are basically two ends on the relationship spectrum. There are those who I call Pyramid people and those I call Flat tops, and again, there are varying degrees of both. Pyramid people are those who place their romantic relationships at the top of their pyramid of importance. These are the people who prioritize their primary relationship over all other things. They would never think of canceling a date to hang out with friends. Now the Flat tops value their romantic relationship but they also value their other relationships and roles about equally. These are the folks who say yes to everybody and focus a lot of their energy outside the relationship. There are no rights and wrongs here with what a person’s style is. What matters is that if you are a pyramid person, your needs are unlikely to be met by a flat top who is unwilling to slide closer to your side of the spectrum. And if you are a flat top person, you are likely to feel suffocated by a pyramid person and their need to be the center of your world. Knowing which type of person you are is key to finding the right relationship for you and helping your partner learn how to love you better

Speaking of great frameworks for understanding of self and others in relationships, it’s important to think of your primary relationship as a live entity, that is improving or deteriorating all the time. Relationships don’t sit stagnant for very long. The lifeforce that courses through the veins of this live entity is connection. Connection is what gives relationships life, and it’s never stagnant. Each of us is either feeling more connected or less connected to our partner from one day to the next based on how our interactions have been going, and if we go long enough moving in the wrong direction, the divide that is created can become too great to overcome. This is when the questions start to feel overwhelming about whether we can find fulfillment in that relationship, and when we rightly determine that fulfillment without connection is unlikely, and that feeling disconnected from our partner doesn’t feel like the type of relationship we would like to have, the entity that is the relationship, is dying. Now it doesn’t have to die. It can be brought back to life if at least one person in the relationship is willing to work on it and the other person isn’t completely closed off from it. That’s right, all it takes is one person to start pushing that boulder up the hill in order to start repairing a relationship. Eventually, both will need to participate but it only takes one to get the process started. 

So, let’s talk about connection. Connection can be thought of as existing in three separate but overlapping realms. Each one is important on it’s own but ultimately all three are necessary for a healthy relationship. The first and most obvious form of connection is physical connection. This does not just mean sex but sex is a part of it. This connection is achieved through hugs and cuddles and backrubs and sometimes just sitting beside each other on the couch or touching toes while lying in bed. When we are touched by another person, our brains produce a very pleasant cocktail of neurotransmitters and hormones that make us feel good and help us bond, which is just another word for connect. So, being physically close to your partner, of course in appropriate ways, not only feels good for you both but is also really good for your relationship because it builds connection. Now, there are times when being physically close isn’t a realistic option. Maybe you are in separate locations or maybe there’s been some type of violation that has made one or both people not feel comfortable with physical closeness. If there’s commitment to repair, or at least attempt repair, then people in these types of situations would want to focus more on one of other two types of connection. 

When there’s been a violation especially, but really any time physical connection just isn’t where you’re at, working to connect with your partner emotionally will offer a lot of opportunities to repair and/or strengthen your relationship. As humans, we are scanning our environment something like 4 times a second to determine whether or not we feel safe. Safety is not just our physical safety but also our emotional safety. Providing a safe space for our partner to discuss any issues that are occurring is vital to the health of the relationship. If every time I share my feelings or frustrations, my partner bites my head off or minimizes, deflects, or otherwise disrespects my feelings, I will determine I’m not emotionally safe in that relationship. As you can imagine, feeling emotionally unsafe, or creating an environment where your partner feels emotionally unsafe will seriously interfere with having a healthy relationship. 

So, to improve emotional connection, talk openly and honestly, and most importantly, not defensively, about the hard things. The fears, the feelings, the frustrations. Don’t shut your partner down. Get to know your partner, maybe for the first time. Many of us fall in love because the idea of love has been so mystified and glorified for us our entire lives and we find ourselves attracted to someone who seems to see the best in us, but even if we spend long hours having deep conversations, there’s just no way to learn all that a person is in a few months, or even a few years. Early in relationships, there is often so much self monitoring and maximization of one’s positive qualities with a minimization of one’s negative qualities, that most of us really only know what our partners want us to know, and only see our partners how we want to see them, and both of these things are greatly influenced by our past experiences in relationships and both of these things will change over time. People are way too complex and the dating and mating process is often fueled more by attraction than by a true understanding of who a person is. That true understanding only becomes possible over the course of years and lots and lots of experiences. So, come at your attempts at emotional connection from the place of curiosity, joy and wonder, about who your partner really is. Declare them your major and learn everything you can about them, while also allowing them to know you in ways that maybe make you feel vulnerable. Use the absence of physical closeness as an opportunity to form or improve your emotional bond with your partner, and you can breathe new life into your relationship and get things moving in the right direction. 

When both physical and emotional connections are not available, or just a as a part of completing the triad of connections in a healthy way, connecting with your partner on a spiritual level can be one of the most meaningful aspects of being in relationship. This does not necessarily mean adhering to the same religious principles, although religious differences and disagreements can be major sources of conflict, connecting spiritually means allowing space for your partner to express their feelings about spirituality without being told they are wrong. It means engaging in conversations and activities that encourage connection with self and environment in spiritual ways. This can look like going to church together or walking in the woods together or sitting on your back patio talking about the meaning of life, or what you think God is, or what you think happens when we die. Spiritual connection has the power to save a relationship that is struggling with the other types of connection. It has the power to hold the relationship in place while healing occurs in other areas. 

So think of connection as the force that holds relationships together. Know that if for whatever reason, one form of connection is not available, at least one form usually is. Remember that connection is never stagnant, it’s always getting better or getting worse, so find ways to connect with your partner whether you are trying to strengthen your relationship or save it from ending unnecessarily. 

And that’s really been the purpose of this session and the last session on relationships. To keep relationships from ending unnecessarily. For many of us, our romantic relationships contribute significantly to both our highest highs and lowest lows. We are relational creatures and the patterns we experience in our earliest relationships shape how we experience our adult relationships. For something that is so central to so many, we spend so little time educating our kids about how to be in healthy relationships, and if we’re honest, that’s because so few of us were properly educated ourselves. We’ve grown up with the, “figure it out as you go approach” to relationships and that’s pretty much how it’s always been. Glad we don’t do that with driving, can you imagine? If you’re ready for a more proactive approach, start to think about your relationship as that living entity that is always getting stronger or weaker based on how much lifeforce is flowing through it’s veins. And of course, remember that that lifeforce is connection. If your relationship is struggling, focus on connection. If your relationship is strong, focus on connection. 

As we all know, these two sessions have only begun to touch on this most central and significant aspect of life. I will revisit romantic relationships in the future as different directions present themselves. I also invite you to reach out about your relationship. Has there been damage? Has there been repair? Are you in the midst of a crisis? A dilemma? Whatever it is, you can influence the direction of these sessions by reaching out to me at bhellercounseling@gmail.com. 

Thank you for joining me for another session of Almost Therapy at the B Spot. I hope that something I’ve said sometime has been helpful to you, and that maybe your perspective has shifted slightly in some area of your life. If you think any of these sessions would be helpful to others, please pass them along and help spread the message that being human isn’t all that bad, especially when you realize that you are not just the main character in the story, you are the author. Until our next session, be well.