"I am feeling unfulfilled, and unsupported in my partnership"
Hello Ayal,
I recently have come to an awareness about my partner in our marriage. This is that he is not the partner whom I had hoped would develop in time. When I let go of the 'expectation' it also feels like it's time to let go of the relationship. I realize when I made the commitment I was choosing someone with similar characteristics as my father and mother. I recognize the emotional and physical unavailability that was present when I was a child replaid itself again in this relationship. My heart feels torn in two because I don't want to adjust my environment from the external to make me feel better inside or about myself and at the same time I recognize the energy of creativity and God within. This part of me wants to express itself in a relationship where it is received AND given.
I am finding it more and more difficult to relate to my current partner when there is a wall of unresolved grief and pain that surrounds him and prevents us from experiencing intimacy at the level my soul reaches out to. I know my healing is not complete by any means but I have focused on healing many aspects of myself and continue to inner track my hurts, pains and discomforts. I am feeling unfulfilled, and unsupported in the partnership. We have been in counseling off and on. Its beginning to feel like he is "forcing" himself to change in ways that are not conducive to 'his' own process. I really feel like there is a huge turning point at the soul level within myself. My question is - I would like to know more about my 'contract' with my current partner.
Thank You.
Hi - well, as with any partnership or intimate, intense relationship, there is a lot going on that two people come in to learn from one another. 2 things are showing up for you right away that you are learning via this partnership:
- To develop clear insight which allows you to integrate all differences.
- To love and accept yourself at every age - to know that each moment in life is perfect. This has a lot to do with social beliefs and old thinking - that where a person is at isn't ok - that one should do or be "better", that life isn't safe in the moment, etc. So this has to do with your own fear of being your true self.... and rejecting the NOW.
You said earlier in your letter that: " he is not the partner whom I had hoped would develop in time." Well, that means that you began the relationship from a place of non acceptance to start with - seeing him as not ok where he was and wanting him to be something else - like always wanting the moment that is to be different. So, how perfect is it that having this issue is perfect for you, because that is what your soul has chosen to explore in this life?
It's perfect also that you are where you are with it, in this very moment. Right? If you can see it this way, then that is being in the Now - being at Peace and seeing the perfection in all that is... and this seems to be the main issue you came in to develop in yourself: acceptance. You are about at 30% in terms of developing this quality in yourself. That may be why you are experiencing distress. If you have not yet developed a high level of being able to accept the moment as the perfection it is, you will be stressed out, discontent, and not at peace within yourself. It's like putting on "Nothing is ok and it's all WRONG" glasses, and then looking out at the world through them. You know how that feels, right? Like you're standing on quicksand. But what you're really feeling deep inside is that YOU are "wrong" or not OK, and what happens then is that you will project that sense of things "being wrong' onto everything and everyone else. Right?
What would it feel like to put on glasses that saw all the beauty and perfection in the world - that saw the infinite journey we are all on? What would it feel like if you saw with infinite eyes that knew that it's all about taking the wisdom and richness out of every experience, every moment you have, and integrating that knowledge into your being, like squeezing a delicious drop of sparkling dew from a plant leaf into your mouth and savoring it. How would THAT feel? And then you move on to the next moment to do the same thing with it. If you can see life this way, from infinite abundance rather than from lack, from the richness of every moment you are in, no matter what it is, WITHOUT MAKING IT WRONG OR HAVING AN EXPECTATION OF WHAT IT 'SHOULD' BE - then every time you look at your partner, you would see the incredible journey his soul is on - you'd see what he is doing that is purely miraculous as he goes about living his life. Even if his journey looks different from your own. Life is made up of an infinite variety of things and moments - and life embraces them all - all of it makes life what it is. Nothing is rejected, true? Life isn't made to just feel or look one way - everyone's journey is a unique, amazing thing, with its own timing and choices and synchronicities and connectedness to life. See #1 above: the ability to develop clear insight which allows you to integrate all differences. There it is. Then you embrace life - and yourself - in all its infinite bigness and many different, conflicting things to be integrated and digested, and you embrace the journey along the way that does all of that.
Right now you are needing your partner to be a certain way to fill up YOUR life and give you the feelings and experiences YOU value and like to feel. It's not up to him to do that. It's up to YOU to value those things and give them to yourself, to experience them and love them and claim them as your own, to connect to them and manifest them in the world. Then you HAVE them, you ARE yourself, filled up with yourself and what you love, and no one else has to try to give it to you. If you don't believe that you can have that kind of affinity and loveliness and harmony, then YOU will create your life not having what you desire. You must first have that harmony within yourself to have it manifest for you in your external life and relationships. You must let go of any part of you that sees yourself as lacking or not able to feel or experience or have what feels good to you: which means accepting yourself and your beauty and what you desire- accepting it as being 100% good and wonderful. You have to be like a tree standing in the rain with branches and leaves open wide to accept the bounty of life, and then use that bounty to grow more branches and more beautiful leaves - and then just delight in that beauty being a part of the world for all to enjoy.
All that you can do is do what feels right to you, and live your own journey with gusto and passion and delight and not let anyone else dictate to you what your journey or desires or path "should" be. If you let others do that, chances are that YOU do that to others as well - i.e., your partner - wanting him to change, not accepting him, wanting him to be what you are actually wanting YOURSELF to be. If you see him as sorrowful and dislike that, then that is not healed within yourself, and you see it in him and are uncomfortable - wanting him to "GET OUT OF IT!" But, it's your own pain you are uncomfortable with. Embrace it. Be patient and kind to yourself. Let it be what it is. Just observe it without judgment, and it will pass, as all things do, in its own time. Claim that energy back for yourself - claim your belief in your own abundant and infinite self - and don't worry about his journey. Just do your own.
If you're worrying about his journey and him not "being what feels good to you or what you think he should be," that really is a mirror for you that YOU'RE not living YOUR life the way you want to and being all that YOU can be. He's not stopping you. Something inside yourself is stopping you. Clear up what that is, and then watch your life change dramatically. All of life changes - it is inherently encoded in the very fiber of everything - in our cells - in the transformation of a caterpillar to a butterfly (look at the miracle of life force energy in THAT change!) or in a tadpole turning into a frog, or a child growing into an adult, or a sapling or seed or sprout turning into a huge tree - do you have to do anything to make those changes happen? No. It's already there, isn't it? So, it is made to all work out, isn't it? All you have to do is trust that amazing life force energy - call it what you will - All you have to do is tune into and claim and accept that incredible life force within yourself - knowing that it abides within you just as it does in every amazing aspect of life - and when you claim it for yourself - AS YOURSELF - there can be no sense of you lacking in anything or needing to get anywhere or change anything - and the same is true then when you gaze out at the rest of life, including your partner. Then you can just enjoy and delight in what you see. It's all about how YOU choose to view things.
If a person is meant to continue on your journey with you, when you make a dramatic change, that person will as well. If they don't, then the flow of life will naturally end your travels together because you won't be vibrating along similar patterns and the roads you both naturally take will separate. Each soul will take the road that matches their vibration. If you put out that intention and thought to the Universe, that whatever is in the Highest Good is the only thing that CAN happen - if you trust in the perfection of the process - and focus on YOUR OWN transformation, it will all be perfect, as it only can be. Right? Right. Don't think you have to use force or push the process. Or worry it. Or judge it. All you need to do is ALLOW your own transformation and embrace yourself and your journey with wide, open arms and an exuberant, trusting heart. Like a tree in the rain.
Blessings, Ayal
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