Welcome to
the part of this site all about
Relationships!
But where
do we start?
Let's
face it, relationships are hard work. But as human beings we need to be in
relationship: we have an inbuilt biological drive to be in contact with
other human beings.
As
children we grow up in a complex matrix of relationships which to a large
degree will shape who we become as adults. Later, we dream about romantic
relationships; as teenagers we get excited about our first attempts at
adult sexual relationships. These first sexual encounters are an important
rite of passage into adulthood. As adults we long for relationships, and
most of us envisage happiness as being part of a relationship (whatever
that may look like).
What
no-one ever tells us is that relationships are hard work. You could
compare a relationship to a dance between two partners (or in some less
orthodox cases more than two) where each partner is listening to a
different tune and rhythm and they are dancing according to a different
set of steps. To make the endeavor workable, possibly even graceful and
good fun, a lot of resilience, trust, negotiation, willingness to
compromise, skill and humor is needed. Again, this isn't really stuff that
is taught to us beforehand, and we often believe that a relationship is
supposed to save us from all our problems, rather than throw all our
failings into greater relief.
So
where does that leave us? Probably with a lot to learn, but also with a
great opportunity for personal growth and shared happiness. The bottom
line for me is that when relationships do work they are fun and a source
of great pleasure and security, but when they don't they can make one
rather miserable. On the whole, though, they do work - or at least can be
made to work - with the right skills, and in co-operation with your
partner. And, to me, not a lot of things in life seem to be as worthwhile
as investing in as one's relationship.
Let's
just start somewhere....
Relationship
skills are a vast topic. I will group them into 6 different clusters.
Please follow the link to those pages which seem to be most appropriate or
useful to you at the moment. I hope to keep enough cross-references in the
text so that you will be alerted to how different aspects of relationships
interact.
1 Good
relationships: what to expect, what they are made of and how to get one.
2
Problems in relationships: a bottomless pit.
3 The
psychology of relationships: what you need to know to make it work.
4 Sex
and relationships: why the two go together and what that means.
5 No
relationship: what's going on if you aren't in one, can't get into one, or
don't want to be in one.
6
Variations on the theme: what about unusual relationship patterns?
Some
wise words on the way
This is
a poem by Adrienne Rich, who captures so much of our human struggle and
need to be in relationship:
On
Love
An
honorable human relationship - that is one in which two people have the
right to use the word "love" is a process,
Delicate,
violent, often terrifying to both persons involved, a process of refining
the truths they can tell each other.
It is
important to do this because it breaks down human self-delusion and
isolation.
It is
important to do this because in doing so we do justice to our own
complexity.
It is
important to do this because we can count on so few people to go that hard
way with us.
Adrienne
Rich
Written by Anna,
January 2006
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