Ebbs and flows in your relationship part 2

If you caught my blog post a couple of weeks ago, you’ll remember the analogy I proposed around the tide changes within our relationships. Sometimes, the tide is in and we feel close, sometimes it’s out and we feel more distant.

Before you read any further, please do a brief check in with yourself and your relationship:

Is the tide in? Are you feeling connected with your partner?

Or is the tide out? Are you feeling more lonely and disconnected?

Take note of this and for bonus points, go back to the notes you took after my last email (around August 7th) and see if there’s been any noticeable change in the tides.

And of course, notice how you feel about the tides and/or the changes. Is it difficult for you to be distant or close? Is one more comfortable than the other?

Now, let’s take it a step further -

There's a dynamic used in couples therapy called the pursuer and distancer dynamic. Basically, one partner is running after their partner while that partner runs from them. I see this dynamic as a way both partners are resisting the rhythm of the relationship, or in other words, the changing tide.

A friend told me about how she took space from her partner, which resulted in him pulling even further away. This scared her and caused her to question if she should have taken space.

I brought in the pursuer-distancer dynamic and I encouraged her, instead of running after him and sending tons of texts, to just sit back and wait for the tide to come in, to watch the dynamic. Sure enough, during our chat, the tide came back in and her partner reached out to invite her to join him. If she'd tried to pull the tide in, she would have exhausted herself and might likely not have gotten reconnected as quickly.

Most of us get scared when the tide goes out. We always want to feel happy and in love and when we don't feel that way we get scared and judge our partners and ourselves as problematic in some way. When we resist the tide being out in our relationship, the disconnection lasts longer.

So your invitation today is to practice nonresistance with the tides of your relationship. What would it be like to be ok with the distance and trust, that like the ocean, the waves always wash back up to shore.