Relationships Rooted in the Not-Self are Prisons

Would you be in that relationship if you didn't feel like you needed it? Would you be in it if you felt like you had the freedom to leave?

Maybe it's the 1/3 in me, but I see so much wrong with modern-day dating/relationships/marriage.

How people claim to belong to one another or that the other person is their better half.

People putting down themselves while praising their partner because, deep down, they are trying to gaslight themselves into thinking this is what they deserve. And they stay because they think they either can't do better or won't.

Or how about how people regularly self abandon and remain unhappy for moments of affection or happiness that dwindle more and more over time.

Relationships have normalized codependency and self-abandonment to the point that people enter a relationship not even realizing they're building themselves a prison.

The program doesn't like individuality. It likes sameness, and so society says we must all have one lifelong partner, or we must only have sex with one person, or sex with yourself is tedious instead of empowering.

All to make us think we need to trap ourselves into marriages and mortgages, thinking if we're forced to stay, then we won't leave, which sure, can feel so safe and cozy. It can also feel suffocating.

But what if you don't need it?

What if you don't need another person to have an amazing orgasm?

What if you don't need a relationship to feel safe and grounded?

What if you don't need another person's income, energy, or authority?

What if you have other relationships that are so nourishing and you fill your own cup, so you don't need to settle for breadcrumbs in a romantic relationship?

What if you don't have to feel like you're compromising parts of yourself for someone else?

What if you could live a life where the baseline isn't disappointment, anger, bitterness, or frustration?

I think relationships are a huge common denominator in unhappy people, and it's because we don't know how whole we already are, so we go looking for another broken person, and we settle.

And we know we're settling, but we do it anyway because we're told this is what we need to do, this is what everyone does.

But I'm saying...

What if you don't have to settle for unhappiness because you can give yourself everything you need?

Would you stay in the relationship if you didn't feel like you needed that person for some reason? Whether it's for the kids, stability, pleasure, companionship, or shared history?

Because to me, that's what feels like the prison, needing another person to give you something you feel you cannot give to yourself. That's where the self-abandonment and the making yourself small begin.

Compromising should never have to require self-abandonment. Either it flows, or you're forcing it, and you're trapping yourself if you're forcing it.

In EMDR therapy, I've been working through a trigger of feeling ostracized and rejected. During a session, I kept imagining this medieval-style wall (my therapist has the same birthday as me, and ironically when she did EMDR, she also saw a medieval wall when she encountered a block [I have gate 13, so people tell me their stories]). At first, I felt emotional that I was shut out, and I so wanted to just see what was behind the wall because I thought it might feel good or at least safe.

But during the next session, I realized all this time I was fighting, begging to go inside someone's wall to be saved from this assumingely scary world, yet most walls I've been inside felt so claustrophobic I wanted to peel my skin off and run away.

So, why was my mind looking for another prison when my body just wants to be where it's invited, and I can be myself?

When I saw the medieval wall during my next session, I imagined myself walking away and feeling so excited that instead of forcing myself to fit where I don't belong, I could experience a life full of limitless experiences where I'm actually invited.

I used to think the world was this big scary place that I needed to be shielded from, but there's so much excitement, pleasure, and magic out there too. There's so much worth tasting and experiencing.

I'll never truly know what the future holds for me, but I do know that whatever happens, it will be what is for me.

And I'm not saying leave and burn everything down. I'm just saying maybe better for you could exist.