The Passionate Partnership
A passionate partnership not only needs the nourishment
sexual energy provides, it also needs maintenance. Conscious
maintenance. We believe that as much care, thoughtfulness,
and attention should be paid to a relationship as to a career,
a family, or a cause. Unfortunately, this is not a popular
concept.
More popular, but less realistic, is the theory that love,
having visited itself upon us, is here to stay; that a relationship,
once established, will operate on automatic, will be self-sustaining,
and will not interfere with the partners getting on with
their individual lives. Furthermore, couples expect
their relationship to augment and complement each other
professionally, creatively, socially, and economically.
That's a lot to ask of coupledom; but in fact a loving
relationship can provide nourishment in all areas of life.
It can generate energy enough not only for itself but also
for work, family, friends, hobbies. But this doesn't
happen by magic. A relationship is like a garden. If it's
not watered, weeded, pruned, fertilized -- cared for --
its yield suffers. If it's untended it goes to seed.
One of the main reasons relationships deteriorate is that
the partners neglect them.
Another reason is that partners don't communicate
their needs to one another. Many people are too shy or too
afraid to say what they need in order to feel loved, or whole,
or just happy. Some people don't know the words, or
they are afraid of having their needs rejected or of being
thought less of for being needy, or they are ashamed of their
needs. So they sometimes hold back what's in their
hearts or on their minds, and when they finally do express
themselves having stewed too long in silence, the communication
comes out a little too sharp, or too flat. We need to learn
how to communicate with one another as lovers and as partners,
and we need to find a different form of communication from
the ones we use elsewhere in life.
In addition to neglect and lack of communication, preconceptions
about what the relationship should be can also cause problems.
These preconceptions are often deep-rooted: they are
based on what we observed of our parents' relationship
while we were growing up; on how church, society, and the
media promoted relationships then, and on what is acceptable
now; and on our own experiences in relating to people --
family, friends, lovers -- and how these people have related
to us. Our personal histories and past experiences are
part of who we are, and so of course they have an influence
on our partnerships. But when we become a couple our new
relationship should have no history, only a present and
a potential future. Part of what we do in living the relationship,
in fact, is to create a history for it together.
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