Nurturing Your Relationship Through Change
Over the last few weeks we discussed different needs: personal space, friendships, money, and blended relationships including children. But what about the needs you discover as part of your personal development?
Some people think that developmental growth ends in your 20s. It doesn’t. Your brain continues wiring and rewiring, and your mind will continue to bring up unconscious material to integrate and make conscious. This can look like new perspectives on how you're seeing the world, or new experiences you're innately drawn to making.
Relationships are a major source of growth. As the two of you navigate the joys as well as challenges of life, you learn about yourself personally and about your partner. Remember the Johari Window? The boxes about what you know about yourself and what others know grow over time.
Let Your Partner Support You
When you relate to each other with honesty and respect, you will grow closer. You are also going to be happier within yourself. A loving partner’s support gives you the opportunity to become comfortable with all the parts of yourself you may have previously rejected. Your support of your partner does the same for them.
You learn to trust yourself and be comfortable with who you are. When the one you love is continually supporting you, self-doubt diminishes.
You challenge each other to be a better person. Your good habits will call on each other to be your best self.
You learn to be dependable. Because you each depend upon each other, you strengthen your ability to be dependable.
You learn more about yourself. You learn to navigate situations with skills and talents you didn’t know you had.
As your needs and wants change over time, it's common to expect your partner to come along and change with you. This isn't always the case. Over time, you can start feeling disconnected and thinking "she doesn't understand me," or "he just doesn't get me anymore." If you feel misunderstood or like you're drifting apart, you may be alienating yourself. Resist the urge to do your own thing, and start connecting with your partner more. Talk to them. Because guess what?
You Are Both Changing
Healthy people grow and change. Their understanding of themselves, the world, and their relationships change as they themselves gain a deeper understanding and knowledge of themselves. Jung called this the individuation process, where we grow into the person we were always meant to be. This means both of you are growing, and therefore changing some of the paradigms that first brought you together.
Yes, it’s possible for you and your partner to grow in different directions. This isn’t a reason for concern as long as your relationship is based upon trust, honesty, and consistent and respectful communication. One of the beautiful things of a lasting relationship is having a witness, supporter, and cheerleader to your life's process. You have always been two people.
Your growth can be emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. These changes affect the core of who you are and your perception of how you want to live in the world, including in your relationship.
Internal growth, like experiencing an individuation process, can be confusing for you and your partner. It may be difficult to put words to feelings and experiences, especially if they are contrary to how you used to feel. As you explore what happens for yourself, try and verbalize it to share with each other what is happening.
Consider these suggestions:
Be clear about how you’re feeling and what these internal changes mean. For example, if the job you used to love no longer makes you happy, talk about your underlying fears, concerns, and desires.
Discuss the kind of emotional and financial support you need on this part of your journey. Take your responsibilities and family's needs into account.
When your partner is coming to you with their requests for change, it is natural to feel scared about how it will affect the relationship and family dynamics. You are a team, and both your concerns are valid. If you're having a hard time finding future common ground, consider talking to a professional.
Change can be both exciting and scary. But for as long as you’re alive, internal growth will keep your lives exciting and fun. Your mutual growth will keep your relationship fresh and alive. Sharing with each other your feelings as you grow produces an ever-growing intimacy you probably dreamed of when you first got together.
No matter how old you are, remain open to change. It's going to happen whether you want to or not, so you might as well meet it with consideration and optimism. Processing and verbalizing this growth, and navigating it together, will deepen your relationship and commitment.
Reflection
Have you considered the possibility that you or your partner can change in significant ways, such as interests, spiritual desires, professions, wanting to move, and more? What feelings or questions come up in your mind when you consider this?
How well do you handle change? What would you need if your partner said they wanted to significantly change something in their life which would also affect you and the family?
Write a few sentences about how you’ve changed from the time you were in high school to now. From what you’ve written, imagine areas in which you might continue to change and grow.
