Is It Possible to Really Be Yourself in a Relationship Insights April 2005

Any kind of relationship, whether it be a co-worker, a friend, or a partner, always requires some compromise. If you go to a movie with someone, their interests will probably affect the film you end up seeing. If you decide to eat lunch with a co-worker, it may affect the choice of restaurant.

Another person may influence what you choose to say, especially about sensitive issues. Everyone understands the concept of polite conversation - the shallow chat that we use to interact with people we don't know well and don't trust with our true selves. In an intimate relationship, sometimes conversation will skirt issues that have might provoke an argument, or resurrect a conflict. Every partnership or marriage has its sore spots.

Sometimes there are a lot of sore spots - so many that real conversation becomes difficult. When wounds haunt a relationship, and it becomes a habit to tiptoe around those bruises, sometimes it's easier to resort to shallow conversation. Reporting the events of your day, comparing notes on schedules, or chatting about the state of hockey. You may find that you have more intimate, meaningful conversation with a friend than you do with your spouse.

You become room mates. And it hurts. But you aren't sure how to deal with that hurt without causing more problems, so you learn to suppress things to maintain the status quo. Sometimes emotions erupt and an argument or conflict issues, which just creates more tension and wariness. A state of stress exists in your home, masquerading as a busy life.

Most people do their best to ignore the situation unless a crisis occurs and forces it to be addressed. Others are more proactive and seek counseling, which feels stilted and awkward and provokes the fear that this really can't be resolved. Sometimes that fear is enough to stymie any possible progress.

And in the midst of it all is this quiet, unacknowledged awareness that somehow you've lost yourself. You've lost your ability to communicate with your partner, your ability to have any fun, your ability to enjoy your days, to be spontaneous, to live. Somehow you've crammed yourself into an existence that isn't working, it's maintaining an unhappy state.

Often, in this situation, a crisis does occur. An affair, or a health problem, or a serious conflict may bring things to a head. Otherwise, people quietly endure years of pretending everything is fine, smiling at the right moments, and complaining about the lack of quality television because they're unable to complain about what's really bothering them. Enduring because they have no idea how to emerge from a mess that took years to create, no idea how to change a situation that they didn't intend to happen, and no idea how to make it better without risking breaking it. Sometimes people get so frustrated that they take the breaking it route, because they can't see any other way out.

It's natural to compromise in any relationship, but what do you do if you've compromised who you are to the point of losing yourself? Somehow you have to start the process of reclaiming your identity.
One good first step in healing it to recognize the need for boundaries, and to learn how to create them. Theoretically we establish boundaries about the same time we learn to walk, because that's when we figure out that we are actually an individual separate from our mothers. Boundaries are like layers in a person's energy field.

If you think of the outermost layer as interacting with the world, then it's the part of our energy field that touches everything and everyone. But it's not appropriate for everyone we encounter to penetrate our personal energy, just as it's not appropriate for everyone we encounter to penetrate our bodies - that's why we have skin. That outer layer is like skin, and the world should not penetrate beyond it.

We have various relationships in our lives, and therefore we have many layers in our energy. A co-worker might penetrate our energy further than someone we pass on the street, but not much further. A good friend will penetrate more just as they know us better, and we feel safer with them. And theoretically, an intimate relationship would be the deepest interaction of all.

But wait - this is important. If there are layers, there must be a center. The center of your energy is your core self. It is your identity, your sacred self, it is who you are. Nothing should penetrate that core. Nothing. Nobody, no matter how much they love you or you love them, should have the right or the ability to influence your core self by touching that energy. You are the only one who has a right to change who you are. Certainly, interaction with someone might invoke your decision to make a change, but only you should actually affect that core energy and change it. Nothing should penetrate there - it is inviolate. It is sacred.

Even a soul mate will honor your right to be who you are. The question is, can you honor your right to be yourself, to be true to yourself, and to know what that is? Unfortunately, most people don't develop natural, healthy boundaries as they learn to walk. Most people grow up trying to be a person who will please others, who will be liked, in a quest for happiness - only to discover that this is not a happy state.

Obviously, we don't want to be an obnoxious, selfish, uncaring person. But having healthy boundaries doesn't mean you'll morph into someone obnoxious. It means that you get to decide who you are, and how you behave. At this point in your life, you've probably figured out how to get along with people. You still get to decide how you behave. The key is to keep your core self inviolate so that you are true to yourself, and deciding from that truth how you wish to behave. The alternative is that you are being what you hope will keep everyone happy, at the price of your own happiness.

So how do you put these healthy boundaries in place? Start with the basics: with the image of layers of energy, think about how many layers you need and who gets into those deeper layers. You can have as many layers as you like. It may help to draw a picture of the layers, like a set of concentric circles, and write names in the layers. Remember that you are the owner of your boundaries, so you can always change the permissions you give.

Then, visualize those rings of energy around your body. As you visualize the rings, decide that there is no penetration between the rings, except as you allow. Use your own imagery: it may look like glass walls, or a force field, or different colors in each layer. Apply all the accesses you have decided to provide to inner layers, but no access to the center. Put a special layer in place to protect your core self.

It isn't obvious how this work can help change a relationship mired in bruises and the resulting adaptation (whether that is irritable sniping at each other or cold co-habiting) but remember, what you're doing is not working for you. It is maintaining the status quo, but that's a status quo that is not making you happy. What have you got to lose? Try establishing your personal boundaries, and see what happens. You might surprise yourself.

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