Where are you operating from and how to make it work for you…
Getting into a ‘relationship’, whether it is a marriage, or an intimate partnership doesn’t mean it becomes static. Even if it feels like it.
As we often say, relationships are a force of nature, and as such, they’re always changing.
One way to understand where you might be at in your relationship is to look at it this way. Through the idea of evolving stages of Soulmate, Getmate, Rolemate and Wholemate.
These different stages not only give a broader possibility than happy ever after to ponder. They can also show you where you might be operating from underneath the surface. And give you a clearer understanding of your behaviour, how your partner might be responding to it, and vice versa.
The first stage of relationship is the effervescent Soulmate phase.
This is where you see everything about your new partner as perfect for you.
You have so much in common, can talk for hours and easily delight in each other. Your partner seems to know just what you’re thinking, wanting and needing and seems to think, want and need the same. This heart opening, romantic time is known as the limerence phase and lasts anywhere from 3 months to 2 years. Limerence is the phase you hope will last forever but never does.
The next phase is what we call the Getmate phase.
This is where you start to get a little more real in the relationship. Your individual self starts to push back against this constant state of togetherness, no matter how blissful. You start to regain your own individual wants, needs and desires, and are less automatically accommodating of your partners. You start to look at what you’re getting and not getting from the relationship. It’s a bit scary to be here because it feels like the magic is gone. Your partner is no longer making you their first priority, beginning to build hurt and resentment. Your relationship no longer feels ‘perfect’ because your ego is more at play.
Because the important thing to know is that this stage is completely normal.
Once you’ve bonded deeply in the limerence phase there should be enough resilience in the relationship to survive this shift. You realise that of course, it’s not possible for your partner to be there for you 24/7. As you can’t be there for them. That would be like expecting to recreate a parent/child relationship, and you don’t want to be a child forever. Though until you realise this, this stage can feel very painful and frustrating! This s where you start to need some relationship building skills!
rom Soulmate to Getmate
One of the ways your mind tries to deal with the disappointment of the Getmate phase is to step you into the Rolemate phase. This is where your mind unconsciously starts to assign your partner a role, or possibly several different roles. By giving them a role, your mind sees your partner as more one dimensional, which makes them more predictable. And less vulnerable making to deal with.
An obvious role your mind might assign is that of wife, or husband. This happens even if you are living together and not married, as these roles are so entrenched in our psyches. The role could also be that of partner, lover, friend, mate, helper, provider, housekeeper, carer, mother/father. A role could even include things like financial director, entertainment co-ordinator, emotional safe place or even sexual initiator!
Roles bring with them a whole lot of expectations.
A role is predetermined in your mind from your past experiences, your social conditioning, culture and family upbringing. Your mind will tell you ‘this is what a wife, husband etc ‘should’ act like’. It predicts what to expect, giving your mind what it likes best- certainty and familiarity.
In your mind a:
- wife might always does the cooking and help soothe difficult emotions
- a provider brings home the income no matter what
- mate is always there to hang out with a
- sexual instigator always initiates
- entertainment director has a fun idea for every weekend.
Providing your partner fulfils enough of this/these role(s) to make it fit your mind’s ideal, your world feels at ease. At least more ease than in the Getmate phase.
We can also unknowingly impose these roles onto ourselves and try to fit into them. This is how a modern couple can find themselves each relating from the mindset of a 1950’s traditional couple!
Try it for yourself!
If you don’t believe you’re operating from a role simply try and change one of your habitual relationship behaviours. And see what happens. The more deeply ingrained in a role you are, the bigger the impact when you try to change it.
The problem with roles is that they’re limiting. It denies the individual the full complexity of who they are. You don’t really see all of your partner, and you’re not giving yourself full permission to be you. Over time this becomes constricting for them, and boring for you.
Your relationship won’t fully thrive until you step into the last relationship phase, that of Wholemate.
When you become a Wholemate you’ve developed a range of relationship skills and understandings:
- You’re comfortable enough in who you are to allow your partner to be authentic in their own right.
- They can have their own ideas and disagree at times, without you feeling threatened.
- They can have their own needs and you are willing not to always give up your own just to accommodate theirs.
- You remember that you can find other ways to get your own needs met without laying them all on your partner.
- You can recognize where you might see your partner as playing the role of father, for example. Yet you can also let it go enough to see them in the role of lover as well.
- You are comfortable to be unique, individual and yet able to acknowledge
In other words, as a Wholemate, you are able to embrace the full spectrum of what relationship with another can offer.
You can find too, that you will move in and out of the different stages or relationship at different times.
One of you might lose their job, making it hard for them to attend to their partner’s financial needs as usual. You might see them as an inadequate Getmate and fall out of romantic love for a while, feeling in the role of provider yourself and resenting it. Until you both step into the Wholemate phase. Where the one not working becomes the home parent and the other finds a new, better paid job. Easing the family finances and binging the sexy back into the relationship.
Relationship becomes fascinating, not boring
Once you see the different relationship stages your relationship becomes endlessly fascinating. You can understand more clearly where you and your partner are operating from. And what needs to happen to move you into the Wholemate stage.
And see the previously longed for Soulmate stage just one of many, rather than the ultimate ideal.
If you would like to learn some more relationship skills to become Wholemates, talk to us today on 1800 923 262 or email us here
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