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Just a note: gifts for being a subscriber!

There’s a link on the e-mail ver­sion of this post. You can use it to down­load my most pop­u­lar book, This End­less Moment.

Rea­sons for Hope is a great col­lec­tion of “hope­ful sto­ries,” col­lected by my buddy Boo­gie Jack Gaskill. I con­tributed one of the sto­ries. Right click on the link and save the pdf file.

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Hol­i­day Sched­ule
There will be two more arti­cles in December—this one,

and a “year end” post on Decem­ber 21.
We’ll resume pub­lish­ing Jan­u­ary 4^th.

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This arti­cle and the pre­vi­ous one are the “Read­ers’ Digest Ver­sion” of a longer piece I just wrote. I think the final prod­uct will become an e-book in the New Year!

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A quick descrip­tion of Hier­ar­chy vs. Circles.

A lin­ear rela­tion­ship model is also hier­ar­chi­cal. It’s like a lad­der on it’s side. Each “step” is con­sid­ered higher and more advanced that the one before. So, for exam­ple, a Com­mit­ted Rela­tion­ship is con­sid­ered more impor­tant than a friend­ship, or a FWB relationship.

Most peo­ple think hier­ar­chi­cally. You hear it in the lan­guage: They want to keep “advanc­ing the rela­tion­ship.” Thus, no stage is good enough, and one’s part­ner is end­lessly scru­ti­nized. Rather than accep­tance, rela­tion­ship time is all about look­ing for flaws, reluc­tan­cies, or ways to “move the rela­tion­ship along.”

The other odd­ity of any hier­ar­chy is com­part­men­tal­iza­tion. Peo­ple are pigeon­holed into roles. A mis­tress is a mis­tress, and can’t be a wife. A friend is a friend and not a spouse. This is because no one can occupy more than one place or rung on the lad­der. The prob­lem, of course, is that the energy and activ­ity of each “slot” is sup­planted (and thus “lost,”) the fur­ther along you go.

In the cir­cu­lar model, a rela­tion­ship is how it is, until it isn’t.

In a cir­cu­lar view, (see the dia­gram at top) things sim­ply exist on a “sphere of influ­ence,” so to speak. Each point in the cir­cle relates to the other points, but not hierarchically—one is not bet­ter or higher than another. In trhis model, a Com­mit­ted Rela­tion­ship and a FWB rela­tion­ship are sim­ply two “ways of relating.”

In the cir­cu­lar model, one per­son can occupy many locations—so, one’s part­ner is friend, play­mate, lover, soul mate and “spouse.”

Each per­son is pure poten­tial, and can step into any iden­tity, while remain­ing whole.

In hier­ar­chy, a per­son is a fixed, locked, and known quantity.

In a cir­cu­lar, dynamic rela­tion­ship, the per­son is whole at all times, and is “seen” wear­ing dif­fer­ent out­fits, depend­ing on role.

Dynamic Rela­tion­ships

The key to a dynamic rela­tion­ship is its flex­i­bil­ity. While it might, super­fi­cially, develop through the lin­ear stages of friend­ship to FWB to Com­mit­ment to some­thing else, (includ­ing times when play­ing the “spousal role” suits the social con­di­tion,) each stage is sim­ply another build­ing block or aspect of the relationship.

In other words, the play­ful­ness of friend­ship is there, all the time. The free­dom of just bonk­ing (FWB) is avail­able, and allows for the full expres­sion of sex­ual charge. The com­mit­ment aspect is the trans­for­ma­tive stage, as it is not the com­mit­ment of exclu­siv­ity, but rather the com­mit­ment to curios­ity, per­sonal devel­op­ment, shar­ing, car­ing, com­pas­sion and concern.

In other words, the com­mit­ment is not to a role and to some odd ver­sion of sex­ual exclu­siv­ity. It is a com­mit­ment to end­less self know­ing, cou­pled with a deep com­mit­ment to being present for one’s partner’s exploration.

That this is not the norm should be obvious.

As to the Lover / Affair pole, the part­ner is both. The part­ner, in addi­tion to pos­sess­ing a sex­ual charge, (FWB,) is also the per­son with whom sex­u­al­ity becomes sacred, and depth and inti­macy become tools for learning.

The dynamic part of the rela­tion­ship means that the rela­tion­ship is con­stantly shift­ing between posi­tions, depend­ing on the mood, needs, and desires of the part­ners. The solid core is expressed in IIR.

Inti­mate, Inte­grated Relating

It is inti­mate, in that every­thing is out in the open, above board, and hon­estly dis­cussed. It is all about truth­ful­ness, a relax­ation of bound­aries, clar­ity, and focus. It is vul­ner­a­ble, as all feel­ings are fully felt and shared, with­out judge­ment, with­out try­ing to get the part­ner to behave some other way.

Rela­tional Challenges

A friend, Dar and I were talk­ing about the List of 50 (the basis for find­ing the per­son she mar­ried) and how she had a 72 item list. She said, “My hus­band was a match for 70 of them. The only thing we ever fight over, are the two I set­tled for.”

We went on to talk about that at length. We came to the con­clu­sion that any time we com­pro­mise, “set­tle for less,” of fall out of our own belief sys­tem or val­ues, there will be a dis­con­nect, and an issue will flare up.

In other words, rela­tional integrity is chal­lenged every time I do not respect, fully, my own values.

Typ­i­cally, this hap­pens when we are not totally clear on our moti­va­tions. Which is why we stress total hon­esty, while rec­og­niz­ing that it’s dif­fi­cult. Often, we think we are being hon­est about what we want, and later, as some­thing flares up, we rec­og­nize that we were not exactly speak­ing our truth. Most likely, one or both of us was try­ing to soft ped­dle some­thing, or to say it so as to dis­guise our real intent.

By the way, there is noth­ing wrong about, as my friend did, “set­tling” for one or two things in a rela­tion­ship. The impor­tant piece to remem­ber, how­ever, is that this dif­fer­ence of opin­ion over “what­ever” will occur and re-occur over the course of the rela­tion­ship. The dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive will emerge, and in a sense you get to debate it and look at it, again and again.

And, in our world, agree to dis­agree, with­out assign­ing blame, with­out try­ing to declare a winner.

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Make Con­tact!

So, how does this week’s arti­cle sit with you? What ques­tions do you have? Go to the top of this arti­cle, click on the title, and leave a com­ment or question!

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Work­shops, Retreats!

Dar­bella and I can help you to find a new, vibrant, rich path. We offer day-long and week­end events —just you and us—and we will work with you, to be the change you want to see.

Read about it here:

Day-long Inten­sives
Week­end Residentials

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Related posts:

1. Mind­ful Relating
2. Focused, present relat­ing takes practice.
3. Real Relat­ing
4. 3 Riffs on Relating

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Tagged with: blaming

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