Intimate partners who want to spend a lifetime together usually profess unconditional love.
They long for it too – wanting certainty and affirmative answers to questions like:
- Are you in?
- Can I count on you?
- Will you be there for me when I need you?
Problem is, certainty is binary and requires 100%.
Open / Closed
Up / Down
On / Off
In / Out
Not so easy in human relationships where ‘maybe’ sends shudders up the spine.
‘No’ can be a deal breaker.
‘Yes’ clears the path.
In intimate relationships, it’s actually the rarely spoken statements behind the questions that matter most;
You are important to me and I want to know that I matter and come first with you.
And then Life happens. (Yes, Life with a capital L!) People make mistakes, forget, have conflicting commitments, get tired, distracted or prideful….
That is when things go a bit off and some couples get stuck in an endless negative loop.
Love is a dance and requires our attention day by day, sometimes moment by moment as partners move toward each other and then apart.
Constantly tuning in, connecting, missing AND misreading cues, disconnecting, finding ways to repair, and then taking the deep dive to find each other again.
Simple but not easy.
Let me pull back the curtain. It can be raw and takes courage. Yet the best stuff comes from taking the risk and doing it anyway.
