Disappointment in Relationships

Are people using separation as a tool or a vice?

A blistering sun, high humidity coupled with rising temperatures, and little to no rain: Summer is in full swing. Yes, it's hot - so hot that the ground is splitting, and unfortunately, many people are too. 

During a recent livestream, I was asked what to do when experiencing disappointment in a partner. This was my response:

Since that morning livestream and reviewing the responses to my insight,  I’ve been reflecting on relationships of all kinds and scales. I place them on a six-tier pyramid.

1. The relationship between people and their partner/companion

2. The relationships between people their family & friends

3. The relationships between people and their neighborhoods

4. The relationship between people and the land they live on

5. The relationship between people and nature

6. The relationship between people and their fellow humans in general (people unknown to us)

We may construct our pyramids differently from each other, but I am thinking about the tiers of connection we all have, and how they tie into each other; the micro and macro of bonding and separating in our lives.

How much time do we spend nurturing and building the understanding of the full pyramid of those relationships? How many of us focus on just one or two of the six? Each of us wants to be understood, respected, and supported, but how many of  us are working to understand, respect, and support those we share relationships with?

A part of life is to need, want, and desire, but we also have to remember to share, give, and nurture. Many relationships are failing because our needs, wants, and desires stack up, and outweigh our inclination to share, give, and nurture.

In a world with poor leadership, troubled economics and thousands of forms of entertainment, it's easy to misplace our compassion for others and focus solely on our needs, wants, and desires. We can get distracted from what’s in front of us because of what’s happening around us. It becomes easy to hold the weight of problems against our partner, for example, and forget to engage in sharing giving, and nurturing. It's just as likely they could do the same to us. In either case, quality communication can save a testy relationship. We can insert kindness, patience, and positivity into our relationship foster love, practice understanding, and search for solutions.

Sometimes separation will be the answer needed to fix a problem, but with the rising divorce rates, broken friendships, and outright tension between people, it seems that separation is increasingly seen as the only answer or fix. As a result, communities everywhere are putting less and less work into understanding one another.

This leaves me to ponder whether separation is being used as a tool or vice.

Using separation as a tool means we are thorough and deliberate in our choice to create the split; using it as a vice means we have stopped applying discipline to our choice to separate from others, and will quickly cut off those around us as soon as our relationships are challenged.

Of course there are times when separation is needed, such as when there is an unhealthy or violent relationship dynamic that leaves one or both parties with a compromised well-being. Using separation to protect ourselves from those who harm us is using separation as a tool.

Separation becomes a vice when we decide we are unwilling to attempt communicating with others (unless, again, doing so would compromise our well-being), we make judgements about their motivations, and do not give the relationship a chance to improve.

Have you locked anybody up - be it your partner, friend, neighbor, or fellow human - with judgements, and neglected to realize you’re the one holding the keys?

Separation is a powerful tool. We have to make sure it does not become a vice.