Solving the Puzzle of Painful Relationships

I’m working with a client right now who is totally transforming her Marriage.

But she’s coming back from a big descent.

See, last Christmas, she found out her husband was having an affair.

They’ve been together over two decades, run businesses together and have three children.

She was understandably devastated.

And angry.

AND this experience has also helped her get honest about the ways she was participating in, perpetuating and endorsing really unhealthy patterns in their dynamic, plus all the ways that she wasn’t being the wife she really wanted to be.

We met earlier in the year and her courage and determination to continue to lean in, uncover and feel everything she needs to has been astounding.

25 years ago, my client – we’ll call her J – did what we ALL do when choosing a partner.

She chose a relationship that was a reflection of her unconscious beliefs about herself and life.

When you choose a partner – and really choose them, entering into committed relationship with them, you are always choosing a matching piece. They fit you like a puzzle.

If they didn’t fit you like a puzzle piece and there wasn’t resonance, the relationship would end soon after it started.

This isn’t only a ‘bad’ thing.

On the surface, we will choose partners with matching values, senses of humour, outlooks on life or hobbies.

And deeper (unconsciously), we’ll choose partners that are the perfect ‘shape’ that we can play out our early wounding and trauma with them and (hopefully) re-pattern those experiences and grow into healthier and more whole versions of ourselves.

This is the evolutionary function of partnership. It’s powerful and inescapable.

In my client’s case, abandoning her needs, keeping the peace by holding back her truth and caring for everyone else before herself were natural to J.

So when her heart wasn’t cared for, she wasn’t considered and listened to and was otherwise belittled and bullied, this ‘fit’ with her (deep down) view of herself and who/how she was meant to be.

Without the skill to navigate this dynamic in any healthy way, J spent years pointing at her husband’s ‘puzzle pieces’ (his behaviour, attitudes and ways of being) in an attempt to convince him to change.

Complaining. Criticising. Judging. Nagging. Shaming. Filled with contempt.

Their arguments, as you can imagine, were volatile.

She did everything she could to try to convince him that he was wrong.

Neither of them were happy.

And it wasn’t working.

And, it never would have.

Because J was focused on the wrong thing.

Like so many of us innocently do in relationship.

Pointing to the puzzle piece that is our partner, telling them that they’re wrong and need to change because something in the dynamic between us is causing us pain…

It wasn’t until J began to look at HER puzzle piece that things began to shift.

When she learned to meet and hold her own inner little girl who had never been seen and heard.

When she learned to hold the sensation of saying ‘No’. Or cleanly asking for what she wanted, rather than complaining about not getting it.

When she really started to practice pouring her love into herself through her attention and actions.

She stopped participating in their familiar arguments.

She caught herself about to criticise or try to control, and could choose something more constructive.

She began practicing appreciating her husband and seeing the ways he DID love and provide for her and the family.

She began sharing her vulnerable heart, her soft underbelly, her genuine hurt and when necessary, her fierce ‘No’.

And slowly, slowly…

The terrain of her marriage is shifting to reflect the new puzzle piece she is becoming.

Because she’s no longer a match for what they were doing before. It no longer fits for her.

🌹

If you want genuine change in the landscape of your relationship, you must look at what you’re currently a match for.

What are you participating in and consenting to?

And how is that IN YOU?

Too many women who are dissatisfied in partnership don’t realise they’re a match for what they’re living inside of, and until you change your own puzzle piece, no amount of trying to change the dynamic or the other person will be successful.

Never underestimate the power of your past. Because it’s not in the past. It’s here in this living moment with you – woven into your responses, choices and perceptions; baked into your nervous system and psyche through and reinforcement and repetition.

That doesn’t mean your past has to define you, not at all.

Though, you’re lying to yourself if you say ‘its in the past’, yet have done no work to clear the ripples of that past from your system to create space for something new.

Yesterday, in a session with my coach, I went ‘back in time’ to the end of 2020, when I went through an experience that was somewhat challenging for me.

Here is a sublime example

Despite acknowledging the challenge at the time, I realised looking back that I hadn’t fully resolved or digested what happened there.

Part of me stayed frozen in that experience, and on the subtlest of levels, I have gotten in my own way unconsciously ever since.

That past experience was with me in every moment. It informed my capacity and energy levels, choices and perceptions.

And this is how the past shapes us – you have experiences that your system ‘learns’ from, and you then – often completely unconsciously – adjust accordingly to avoid repeating painful or difficult events.

We are such clever adaptive creatures.

But, those ‘adaptations’ will inadvertently shape your behaviour, attitudes, thoughts and feelings in a way that can begin to inhibit your ability to fully show up for your business or career, relationships, and life in general.

If you bring the process of ‘learning’ from these past experiences into consciousness, you gift yourself the chance to mine the gold from the past, get the learnings and gifts link example: and then move forward with your life.

„ QUOTE DESIGN: I CALL THIS PROCESS ‘DIGESTING’ YOUR PAST EXPERIENCES, AND HAVE SPECIFIC PRACTICES I TEACH TO SUPPORT YOU TO DO THIS.“

I call this process ‘digesting’ your past experiences, and have specific practices I teach to support you to do this.

The challenges of the past – and your adaptations – can become like a cage you find yourself living in if you’re not aware, but this digestion process ensures your continued liberation…

Which past experiences do you need to free yourself from?

We are such clever adaptive creatures.

If you bring the process of ‘learning’ from these past experiences into consciousness, you gift yourself the chance to mine the gold from the past, get the learnings.