Relationships in Sickness and Health
By Mary Cook, M.A., R.A.S.
Our adult relationships contain energies of unhealed wounds from childhood. Sometimes we lack safe, trustworthy caretakers to adequately meet our physical and psychological needs in infancy and early childhood. These unhealed experiences make us vulnerable to express infantile needs, and chronic fear and anger in our adult intimate relationships. Furthermore in early childhood, our experiences with others are absorbed into our beginning concept of self. And our early caretakers represent a God-like force that influences our later relationship with a Higher Power. Thus as adults with this history, we are likely to feel imprisoned in painful experiences with ourselves, our partner and our Higher Power. We do not experience ourselves as separate, whole, unique beings, and we do not consciously experience genuine closeness and connection with others or God, and yet we have desperate feelings of neediness. Domestic violence relationships typically reflect these dynamics.
When middle to late childhood is fraught with difficulties in establishing a sense of autonomy and creativity, we can have adult relationships that are enmeshed, distant and superficial, or ones in which there is chronic conflict between one partner asking for greater closeness and the other wanting more distance. The latter can be expressed in hurtful actions toward the partner, which result in distance, rather than honest dialog. These relationships lack spontaneous joy, playfulness, humor and imagination. There is concern about losing a part of oneself in the relationship, because autonomy is not stable. This means that our sense of self is fragmented or weak, and we are attempting to artificially strengthen it through defense mechanisms, or by aligning with someone who seems to be a stronger partner. Spiritual beliefs are also immature and characterized by ambiguity, or are superficially determined through affiliation with a person or group that has dogmatic beliefs.
If we had significant problems in our teenage years, then we did not likely pursue an honest, soul-searching relationship with ourselves. Healthy adolescents undertake a deep, thorough self-examination process, and try out different beliefs and behaviors to determine what feels most right, healthy and comfortable to them. Values, priorities, goals, and core beliefs about philosophy, psychology, politics and spirituality ideally form in this period. If we are sufficiently healthy teens, we perceive our strengths, weaknesses, and talents, and begin to have a deeper understanding of emotions and their healthy expression. We learn to take responsibility for ourselves and our well-being, which prepares us for self-sufficiency and interdependence. We set internal and external boundaries between our own impulses and what we know is right for us, and between others who attempt to pressure us to agree or act on what feels uncomfortable and unhealthy to us.
If this period of development is disrupted, our immature teenage energies affect our adult relationships. This results in chronic power struggles with our partners, internal conflicts, and attempts to manipulate the God of our understanding. We want significant others to conform to our ideas of how they should be, and/or we allow friends to over-control us. Teenage rebellion, arrogance, willfulness, and vulnerability to peer pressure are precursors to the deep work of reflection. When this work is completed, the aforementioned character defects dissipate. Without this thorough period of reflection, identification and integration, spiritual principles are not generally well understood nor practiced with any consistency.
What is required for healthy adult relationships begins with the ability to provide for our physical and psychological well-being, and personal growth. We must be honest, trustworthy and have good discernment regarding the trustworthiness of others. We need to know and deeply understand ourselves as whole, unique beings. We must accept responsibility to create health, happiness and fulfillment in our lives, meet challenges and resolve problems as they occur. Once we have these components, we can work productively and proactively on internal and relationship conflicts that interfere with personal growth and intimate relatedness. In relationships we make and follow through with commitments with integrity. We choose partners with whom we have sufficient mental, emotional, physical, spiritual and functional compatibility, especially regarding important values, morals and priorities. We place our relationship with our Higher Power, our soul, and any dependent children above our relationship with an adult partner.
We typically vacillate between human and divine will, as we develop our spiritual practice. Our abilities to demonstrate honesty, open-mindedness, respect, consideration, cooperation, humility, compassion, patience, forgiveness, gratitude, joy and laughter increase the depth of our love. Adult relationships reflect where we need healing. Allowing ourselves to therapeutically discuss and release past painful and negative energies and experience emotionally corrective experiences, paves the way to a healthy relationship with our Higher Power and principled living. This then means that all of our relationships will be healthy.
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Mary Cook has an M.A. degree in psychology, and is a registered addiction specialist with 33 years of clinical practice and 29 years of University teaching experience. She has a private practice in San Pedro, CA and is available for phone and office counseling, consulting, guided meditation, speaking engagements and in-service training. She is a national speaker and a writer. Her first book “Grace Lost and Found” will be published early spring 2010. She is currently writing another book which is a parable for enlightenment. Visit her website for articles, free audio clips, a flash movie and additional information.
