Relationship as a Spiritual Path
“The point of marriage is not to create a quick commonality by tearing down all boundaries; on the contrary, a good marriage is one in which each partner appoints the other to be the guardian of his solitude, and thus they show each other the greatest possible trust. A merging of two people is an impossibility, and where it seems to exist, it is a hemming-in, a mutual consent that robs one party or both parties of their fullest freedom and development. But once the realisation is accepted that even between the closest people infinite distances exist, a marvellous living side-by-side can grow up for them, if they succeed in loving the expanse between them, which gives them the possibility of always seeing each other as a whole and before an immense sky.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
There is a belief in our culture that we cannot be whole until we find our other half. This belief is imbedded within almost every fairy tale and story we’re told. It’s drummed into us by our parents, family, friends and culture. It is one of the key means by which we measure ourselves and others, and it is also one of the deepest sources of angst and depression in our lives.
Unfortunately, this belief is one of the deepest cultural fallacies of them all and it sets us upon an erroneous path that only leads us further and further away from the truth — that no wholeness can ever be found outside of oneself.
So, what happens if, instead of entering relationship in search of someone to complete us, we enter with the understanding that we are inherently whole in ourselves and that ‘the merging of two people is an impossibility’? What if, instead of seeking to hide our broken pieces in the brokenness of another, we enter relationship with the intention of helping each other to see these broken pieces and move through them into ever greater personal wholeness? What would happen if we approached relationship as if it were a spiritual path?
My experience in relationship over the years has been to fall deeply in love, only to watch as that love fizzled out as the projections (beliefs about who my partners were) began to wear off. Instead of them being my other half, I’d begin to see that my partner was actually just an-other half. After watching this pattern play out again and again, I began to realise something was wrong.
At first I thought something was wrong with me. I thought that I had commitment issues and that I could never be happy in relationship. But as I began to look closely at the relationships around me I saw that the problem wasn’t mine, but ours.
Almost everyone believes that other people are happier in relationship than they are. The truth is very few of us, if we are deeply honest, are completely happy and fulfilled in long term partnerships. It’s almost as if the most we can hope for is a delicate balancing act, where both parties agree, either consciously or unconsciously that — this is as good as it gets.
We are never really taught how to ‘do relationship’, only that we need one. But why do we need something that is so clearly a source of hardship and depression for so many? Must we walk blindly into the trap of relationship like our parents and their parents before them? Isn’t there another way?
Thankfully I believe there is. But it requires a complete reset of the reasoning and intentions for entering into relationship in the first place. The simplest and easiest means by which I can explain this shift is to approach — relationship as a spiritual path.
The first thing I would say here is this — as lovely as it may sound, relationship as a spiritual path is anything but easy. By definition, choosing the spiritual path is choosing to come face to face with all those pieces of ourselves we’d prefer to pretend didn’t exist. Those pieces of ourselves we find so disgusting that we feel if we showed them to someone else, anyone else, we’d be exposed as the horrid, unworthy and unlovable beings we are.
Essentially, we must come face to face with our core abandonment wounds — and believe me, we all have them. Usually, relationship is the place we seek to hide these wounds. We sign unwritten and unacknowledged agreements — I will agree to love you even though I see your wounds, if you agree to love me, even though you see mine.
Choosing relationship as a spiritual path is an invitation to do exactly the opposite. It’s about making an agreement from the start that says — I am a whole being on my journey into living as that wholeness. This journey is, and must always be my priority, just as your commitment to your journey must be yours. I agree to be a mirror for you on your spiritual path. I will love and honour you for who you are, not who I want you to be. And I will endeavour to take on board the emotional triggers that come up, turning inwardly to see what unconscious patterns in me are being affected and to take responsibility for them, rather than blaming them on you.
This agreement places the focus on the individuals in the relationship rather than the relationship itself, thereby allowing space for continual growth and expansion. With this agreement as a starting point we can be sure that our truth is not only welcome but demanded. Nothing is off the table. We continually choose the relationship, not out of some promise made in days barely remembered, but daily, moment to moment, growing and evolving side by side as we journey through life.
Ask yourself, would you really want it any other way?
Often these types of relationships define themselves as ‘open’, if simply because by definition — they must be. But there is an important difference in how I would define this openness. Rather than defining it as simply being open to other sexual and romantic connections (as is normally the case in ‘open relationships’) I would instead define it as being — open to the personal truths of the individuals in the relationship. It’s easy to focus on the romantic side of this as it is certainly the most complex and triggering aspect of ‘open relating’, but at it’s core it comes down to one simple commitment to each other — your truth, no matter how hurtful I might find it, is always welcome.
Let’s not pretend here that truth is some shiny bolt of lightning that strikes with clear precision, never shifting or ‘grey’. The reality is that truth itself is often unclear and caught up in many human emotions. What’s true one day might not be true the next, so caution and compassion here is key. This path is more about staying whole in ourselves by knowing that our truth is always welcome. The more we experience this the more we begin to learn what our truths actually are.
And the sexual aspect of ‘open relating’ is very important, mainly because our sexuality is one of the most repressed areas of our lives. The truth for some individuals might very well be that they never actually choose to engage sexually with anyone other than their partner. What’s important here isn’t the truth itself, but merely the willingness for it to be honoured.
Relationship as a spiritual path creates a space in which the truth of our sexual nature can be explored openly and lovingly, always with an understanding of the delicate humanness that it brings up.
One day our personal truth may be for example — I met someone really interesting whilst sitting in the park today, I was drawn to her but as we spoke I felt my truth was that I don’t have the space for another connection right now, I’m feeling so nourished and met by you and this journey we’re on together. It was beautiful to feel that and I enjoyed the flirting, mostly I am just grateful to be able to share this experience with you and know it’s welcome.
Another day our truth might be — I met someone whilst sitting in the park today, I was drawn to her and after talking for a while I felt to ask for her number. She gave it to me and said she’d be interested in meeting sometime for a coffee. I spoke a lot about you and our relationship and she seemed intrigued and not at all put off. How does this feel for you?
Can you imagine the level of honesty and transparency that is needed for a couple to have this discussion? But perhaps more importantly, try to imagine what happens in most relationships when a situation like this occurs?
So many different scenarios could play out. I might feel the attraction but deny it in myself — thereby cutting off the flow of eros (life force) in my own body. I might feel the attraction but not tell my partner, thereby creating a subtle distance between us and perhaps feeling shame for having had these feelings. I might even give my number and agree to meet up again, never telling my partner as I fear how she might respond. And so on…
You start to see how the words — until death do us part — are actually a recipe for the stagnation and decay of love. Love is nothing if not truth. The minute we start holding back our truth from those we love, we are betraying that love.
To truly honour love we need to enter into relating with a knowing that love is movement. It cannot be contained nor held onto. It’s a dance, and the minute we begin to feel like we know the steps, the tempo changes and an entirely new dance is required.
We cannot put our relationships before our own personal growth. To do so is to forget ourselves and those we love. It is like continuing to dance with our hands over our ears, pretending the music hasn’t changed. It is, as Rilke puts it — “a hemming-in, a mutual consent that robs one party or both parties of their fullest freedom and development”.
Relationship as a spiritual path is a hard path, but it is also the only path I’m personally interested in walking. If I have learnt one thing in my deep enquiries into to love it’s this — love and truth are inseparable. For love to grow and evolve between individuals there must always be space for truth. Anything less is a betrayal of love and a movement towards its end.
One of the biggest barriers we face is in finding the way, this such a new path there are very few signposts to guide us along. We are literally creating a new paradigm for relating. But this is exactly why it’s so exciting! A commitment to relationship as a spiritual path is a commitment into deepening personal truth and thereby, deeper love and connection with ourselves, others and the world around us.
And one thing I’ve learnt in this enquiry is that community is key. It’s so much easier to navigate the slippery slopes of ‘open relating’ with a group of likeminded friends around us. My intention is to help create spaces and communities where we can explore these questions more deeply together. If this interests you get in touch.
