Polarity

My orientation in relationships has long been sameness. If my partner and I think the same, want the same things, like the same things and do the same things, I feel safe and secure. To my young parts (this is Internal Family Systems speak for those who don’t know it), differences mean unpredictability, instability and overall danger. It has meant not letting myself relax into partnership for fear of the unknown creeping up on me just when I let my guard down enough to enjoy life. I push for sameness as much as possible in an effort to combat against each potential threat of change. More often than not, I find the sameness I am looking for, and it finally gives me the night off so I can bathe in my illusion of safety once again.

When I got into relationship with my partner, Mike, we shared many interests and similar backgrounds. Two east coasters who love the deep dives of self-development and the exotic countries we love to explore. I felt resonance with him immediately in our mutuality and it created an ease in both of us that has continued to bond us throughout our relationship.

But we are also very different. I embody the quintessential feminine, focused on our partnership as the primary “we” in my life that gives me joy, pleasure and purpose. Togetherness, outside of my childhood wounding’s need for safety, lights me and offers me a sense of belonging that I’ve always yearned for. I love being partner, lover, best friend and confidant. Having the opportunity to be a well-rounded, supportive partner opens my heart wide to envelop my own well-being as well as Mike’s. Partnership is an honor that I take seriously and bring devotion to (almost) every day and on (almost) every step of the sometimes-challenging way.

Mike, on the other hand, embodies many of the qualities of the quintessential masculine. His orientation is towards freedom, with a side platter of solitude. He’s a self-proclaimed lone warrior who derives his purpose from his success on the battlefield rather than solely on the quality of his most important relationships at home. Providing, protecting and purposeful action are what drives his life force. He believes that remaining energetically solo gives him the flexibility to honor his life’s path with ease. To him, relationships are a part of life but not at all the reason for life.

Our differences have always been a hard pill for me to swallow. I’ve asked myself if I would be better off finding a relationship in which our orientation towards partnership is the same. I’ve longed for more man-led romantic nights, more heart-felt words of affirmation and more permission to look to a future that is still unclear that we’ll ever have. In our society, having a partner who wants the same things is touted as necessary. How are we, after all, to get what we want, if what we each want is different? It seems that without sameness, the only response to that question has ‘not possible’ in the answer.

But I’d also be lying to myself if I didn’t feel some level of excitement in my differences with Mike. I am beholden, at times, to a little girl within me who wants to be the special girl who changes Mike’s mind to want what she wants. She arrogantly believes that he doesn’t know what he wants, and therefore, she is completely comfortable “innocently” pointing him in the self-focused direction of her desires. It’s an immature tactic that so many women have fallen ill to. We think we can change our partners to be the blow-up doll boyfriends we always wanted. The bad-boys typically remain bad-boy and we’re left with battle wounds we naively thought we’re immune to. The outcome is usually a lose-lose that leaves two people exactly where they started in a relationship that was, theoretically, meant for growth and expansion.

I listened to a self-help seminar many years ago where the facilitator leading it said that women mistake their male partners for hairy woman. And do we! Yet when I really observe Mike, and not just what I want him to be; he thinks, feels and behaves entirely differently than I do. He doesn’t look at the sunset in Santorini as the magical soul immersion experience that I do. But he’s willing to take 300 pictures to capture the moment before a beautiful dinner overlooking the cliff. He doesn’t flinch at how many years we’ve been together and take it as a sign of our bonded, made-in-the-stars union. But he’ll admit proudly any day that we’ve grown into one of the most emotionally mature couples that we know. He’s often ignorant to my stylish outfit choices and how much the beauty of the world means to me. But he will dive with me into the depths of my emotional pain with the most genuine and heartfelt grace I’ve ever known in a man. We’re different. I’m a woman, and he’s a man, and as it’s turning out, we’re not at all the same.

When I tease out what society has long told me partnership needs to look like, I can begin to look at our differences as exciting rather than scary. I know far more about topics that I’d never in my life know about if Mike wasn’t into biohacking, making his own chemistry concoctions in our kitchen, and sourcing the best coffee he can find. Likely, I wouldn’t know the experience of being with a mature, layered, deeply introspective man who works hard to continue moving in the direction of his truths. And to that end, I wouldn’t have the rare opportunity to figure out how to make life a win-win for two people who are different and yet both seemingly want to win being together none-the-less.

Our dance of differences is common amongst many men and women. At its core, the feminine essence desires togetherness while its masculine counterpart yearns for freedom. What I’ve come to understand from being with Mike, is that he doesn’t always equate freedom with freedom FROM me or his children, but freedom TO satisfy his life’s mission with us as his supportive nest and sense of belonging to which we can always land.  My proclivity for togetherness is actually the natural container women crave to relax into so we can be the creative, life-creating beings that we are. It’s Taoist yin-yang in human form. Each of our differences are the very tool from which we help the other one grow into the energies we’re to embody. My little girl’s specialness has the opportunity to mature into a womanhood in which it is my job to ignite and make space for Mike’s fires of passion and purpose to grow. His job is to honor the sacredness of our “we” so that I can surrender into creation energy itself — emotive, wild and spontaneous at its core.

I’ve had a sense that this is what partnership is meant for all along. Where we not only co-exist but make one another better in the company of the other and where no one has to give up anything vital to each of our dreams coming true. This is the type of union that makes our dreams possible in a way that solo-ing it through life could never really offer.

I’ve had a sense of knowing since I was a little girl that has long felt what is possible in the human experience here on earth. It’s a knowing that I carry with confidence, humility and total trust. I envision the future by sensing what I know to be true in the now. Not everything may come to pass as I see it, but it has the possibility to. This kind of expansive, neutral, yet powerful knowing can sense possibility without certain realities being “real” right now. This is a hugely feminine quality that many women, in particular, possess. It’s our access point to creating heaven here on earth, and the anchor that makes life’s challenges more palatable to endure.

Since the early days of our relationship, I’ve been able to see what is possible for Mike and I. I saw divine union, and not just the fairy woo-hoo kind but the here-on-earth kind when two people’s togetherness transcends companionship, friendship and commitment. The kind of togetherness where adventure, growth and transcendence are center. The experience of going, because each of us thrives when seeing what we haven’t yet seen, and of coming, because nothing compares to coming home to the one we love. It’s a different world than the one we live in now that is sometimes saddled with old patterns, monotonous routines and wishes for something far more spacious than most people ever dream of, let alone experience. This is the version of us where freedom and togetherness aren’t even two sides of the same coin, they’re a sphere in which they dance harmoniously within the energies of one another.

Because of our differences, Mike can’t see this vision as I do. He holds his own visions for the future in which I’m sometimes a part of and sometimes not at all. As painful as that is, I hold the pole of knowing for both of us, when he can’t see what I can — when I trust my vision for what is possible beyond his own preferred set of perspectives. If I wait for him to know what I know, I may wait for a long time. But I know without needing him to. I trust in our differences as a strength and not a weakness. I wear my crystal-clear glasses that see a future bright with all the things we both want, just as I always have, even long before we got together. Every now and then, he tries them on and sees the rose-colored sunset through my eyes and says, “it’s okay.” And we laugh, because we are swimming in the same waters for a brief moment, knowing it’s so much better than just okay.