Self-healing in a relationship is a lot like saying that you’re “self-made” even though you may be the one putting in a lot of effort and intention, it is more than likely that you’ve had a lot of help along the way. When we’re in a relationship our partners become like mirrors and it’s not always easy to discern between what is real and what is a projection.
Romantic relationships require strength through vulnerability, allowing ourselves to be seen not just naked but letting someone feel, see and influence our energy. These are people that we allow into our core, they get to know us in ways that many other people often do not and they can hurt us when we expose our wounds to them. Allowing them to get to know us can also bring an immense amount of love and joy into our lives, the more that we can be vulnerable and simultaneously safe with their energy the more we heal our beliefs about how we are worthy of being treated.
I used to think that being strong as a wife and partner meant that I had to pretend like I didn’t live with mental illness. I had come to believe that if I allowed my husband to see all parts of me that he too would reject me and I would break my family apart. In truth however, what I was feeling was fear of abandonment and that fear caused me to project onto him for many years. The projections I placed on him kept me from loving myself because I could not taken ownership for what I felt and it kept him at a distance so that when he left (because I was convinced that everybody leaves) I wouldn’t have to fully feel that pain because I was expecting it. I had carried in my emotional baggage into our marriage and he was then responding according to his own programming. We mirrored each others wounds and programming for nearly seven years of our marriage before we began to communicate openly and began healing together.
Prior to this marriage, I had been in several relationships where I had been gaslit repeatedly and didn’t even realize I was being taken advantage of. I wasn’t perfect either, I developed my own pattern of lies and cheating because owning up to the truth of how I felt was not something I could even begin to learn how to do. I suppose that’s why we take ourselves through repeated life experiences if that is what we need to get through to ourselves and create change. Accepting the truth that I deserved to be treated well and loved was something I had a very difficult time getting to know. I went into my marriage with not only baggage but an extraordinary amount of fear because I was also pregnant and I didn’t want to “mess things up” for our daughter, I tried to hide the parts of me that needed healing and that is what was causing problems.
Yet, getting into a space where you feel safe enough to be vulnerable with someone is not something that happens overnight. There is definitely this sense that we have to bring our ego representatives in first to scope things out, check for warning signs and then proceed with extreme caution. Or is there? Is sending in that ego mask first what causes us to feel disappointment and leads to misunderstandings?
I think that what it comes down to is that we really can only love someone as much as we love ourselves. Ideally, we learn to love ourselves before we decide to enter in a relationship with someone but it doesn’t always happen that way. It certainly did not happen that way for my husband and I and if I am being 100% honest we have made it here through grace because healing while you are in a relationship expands you much further than you could think possible. It creates doors for communication where there were once only walls, it floods you with love in ways that you had lost hope could ever exist and it also holds your hand while you recognize and face fears, triggers and illusions about who you are on a fundamental level.
The difference is all in whether you are with a partner who holds up a mirror in order for you to better yourself see yourself with eyes filled with love. Or does your partner hold the mirror and exploit your wounds for their benefit? We don’t always know right away what the difference is because there will be relationships when we have thought that something toxic was good for us. But the signs are always there and they create patterns, as you become more self-aware your partner will reflect that growth and your connection will also flourish.
