Surviving Rough Relationship Issues
Relationship requires constant vigilance.
Let your guard down and start coasting, and you’re very liable to find yourself in sudden trouble.
It’s like driving in that way. Or playing with cobras. Or walking a tightrope.
So here’s the big question that we’ve had to contend with across the course of our journey toward conscious loving: how do you actually apply the lessons when things get tough?
It’s all well and good to practice solid positive relationship principles when things are good and easy. When the honeymoon’s full and shining, when the love is flowing and glowing, when our sails are full of life’s good graces–when relationship feels effortless, you almost don’t need to worry about telling the microscopic truth or holding strong to your commitment or pruning out unhelpful beliefs.
It’s when things get hard that we’re brought face to face with our biggest areas in need of improvement.
And it’s when things are hard that we most need to pull on the wisdom of what works to help us through those tough moments.
I’m writing this, now, because I know that we all go through the full roller coaster that relationships open up in our lives.
I’ve never met a single person whose relationships were always exactly the same.
Human beings are complex, and when you put two human beings together, you get exponential complexity.
That’s exponential moodiness, exponential drama, exponential possibility.
And trying to craft a healthy, positive, passionate relationship can be very, very hard.
We know that difficult things make us stronger–look at your life and tell me the story of how all the hardships you’ve endured have softened your heart and enhanced your muscles. Tell me the tale of your accumulated wisdom and I’ll hear the tale of all the troubles you’ve transcended.
So, what do we do when things are hard in our relationships?
Are there any teachings or perspectives that can help us withstand the difficulties that crop up in relationships and actually come out closer than we were when we started?
I don’t have all the answers. But I have been experimenting in the intense space of intimate relationship long enough to have picked up some good pointers for what works and what doesn’t.
And here is the single most important tactic I’ve discovered for weathering the stormy intensities that sometimes engulf our relationships:
Race for Responsibility
When things start going South, it’s time for you to step up and admit that, somehow, someway, you’ve created This. Whatever this is, no matter how much it feels like it’s THEM.
If you are anything like me, then it will take you a long time and many missteps before you even begin to make immediate, total responsibility your usual MO.
The alternative to taking responsibility is to engage in blame.
Blame is what most folks around the world do when things go wrong.
Surely I don’t need to list off examples of blaming from our public world of politics and history.
When a misunderstanding, disagreement or full-blown argument breaks out in your relationship, how would the turbulence appear if you adopted the position of hunting around to see how you helped to create the experience? Race to take responsibility rather than racing towards the ‘victim’ position.
The next time you find yourself in a disagreement with a loved one, what if, instead of basically thinking that it was all their fault for acting totally crazy, you instead stopped, took a deep breath and owned up to the fact that somehow, someway, you created this. You did it. You invited it either through something you did or something you didn’t do.
Taking responsibility seems simple (and threatening), but it’s taking me a long time to figure it out and apply it consistently.
I fail repeatedly.
My thoughts veer toward blaming Claudia for something difficult that we’re going through.
And the only way out, I’m increasingly realizing, is to take responsibility for exactly my 100% of the experience we’re undergoing.
Invulneresponsibility
One of the major reasons we don’t naturally assume responsibility for 100% of our side of whatever difficult experience we’ve created in our lives is the fear that we’ll be somehow hurt by assuming responsibility.
Nobody wants to be judged or mistreated. And the idea is that if you take responsibility for the difficult things that occur in your relationship, you’ll be stuck holding the hot potato of guilt.
So I’m here to give you a little reassurance–it doesn’t work that way.
Sometimes, taking responsibility may make your life more complicated and, yes, painful.
Steadily, however, taking on the responsibility for creating the experiences–difficult and easy–that occur in your life will attract to you a quality of person who can hold their side of the responsibility equation right there with you.
You’ll leave behind the blamers who dodge any form of owning their side of things, and you’ll find yourself enjoying the quality of relationships that come with people who race to take responsibility for the things that happen in the relationship–particularly the difficult things.
The Magic of Responsibility
I recently read David Deida’s The Way of the Superior Man.
In his book, author Deida presents a pretty intense vision of manhood in which the male must show up and love his woman through anything and everything difficult that arises.
In fact, Deida takes it so far as to push the man to take full responsibility for loving his woman especially when she is revealing her wrathful side, which is a direct response to his weakness and failure to love her fully, deeply, totally.
I’m, of course, still very much working on applying the lessons presented by this book.
But I can see that I have a long way to go to really master the fine art of cutting through whatever difficulties my partner presents to me in order to bring her back to feeling loved and appreciated no matter the difficulties we encounter.
Get Over Wishing Things Were Easy
Ultimately, how we navigate the tough times in our relationships comes down to our orientation toward the Tough that we encounter in life.
Do you resent difficulty and challenge? Do you wish it away?
Somehow, our job here on Earth is to learn to say Yes to whatever Is.
Say yes to it. And then, go one better–invite it. Welcome whatever Is and thank it for the lessons it has to teach.
ESPECIALLY the difficult moments and challenging lessons.
Taking responsibility is what saying yes looks like. It is standing up to the blasts of fear and pain and allowing them to wash over you without hiding.
And it is, as far as I can tell, the only point of entry that will allow you to actually begin making headway in releasing yourself from the chains of your past traumas and negative conditioning.
I dream of a world in which taking responsibility comes as naturally and easily as breathing, drinking and eating.
I invite you to join me in this wild terrifying adventure of being vulnerable and exposed as we stand tall and own our roles in whatever we’re experiencing personally, in our relationships and in the world of global humanity.
Next time you’re engulfed in a tough moment, say yes to it by taking responsibility for your role in creating it and see what sorts of new pathways open up thanks to your willingness to own what you’re experiencing.
Thank you for sharing your time with us. Why not drop us a line in one of the comments, say hi to us on Twitter or subscribe to our RSS feed?
2 Responses to “Surviving Rough Relationship Issues”
Care to comment?
Hi Matt & Claudia!
This is an incredibly beautiful post – wow! In particular, this jumped out at me: “Race to take responsibility rather than racing towards the ‘victim’ position.”
I’ve been learning how to do this recently in my relationship – and it’s certainly not easy, especially after racing toward the victim position for so long! I’ve found myself in difficult conversations, a difficult situation, and am becoming aware of how much I tend to blame my partner, or blame circumstances – ANYTHING to point the blame away from myself.
So I’ve been practicing this. Being aware of my tendency to play the victim, and instead telling myself that this is my responsibility, I did this, and I can choose to learn from it and grow, instead of being a victim.
Thanks for this article!
Hey Jess–thanks for stopping by.
Thanks for your comments and for sharing how you’re learning from the process of taking responsibility.
It is shockingly hard sometimes…and it helps to have support knowing that we’re not the only ones finding it challenging–but worth it!