We have a genuine need for relationships of all types:
to be part of a community, to work with others; to be a parent; to be intimate
as well as a need to be alone. Relationships are also important because
others serve as mirrors, reflecting our suppressed qualities and stimulating
growth.
In our society, we have developed a special compulsiveness
about one specific kind of relationship: romantic love. We search for a
partner; we hunger for intimate relationship, but satisfaction often remains
elusive. Can this need ever be realistically fulfilled?
When we are compulsive in relationships, we prevent
a relationship with integrity from developing. We become dependent on the
relationship, even when it is not living up to what we expected from it,
and the dependency results in stress and the likelihood of the relationship
failing. Because we are not fully enlightened yet, it is probably safe to
assume that most of our relationships will be of a dependent nature, in
spite of our best intentions. However, there is no problem in this, if only
we can accept the pain that dependency brings.
Pain is felt whenever what you are addicted to in
the relationship is threatened or absent; this is the simplest method of
identifying addictions. You may respond to the pain by arguing that your
needs are legitimate or that your partner is being unfair. You may rationalize
your needs endlessly, but in the end, it comes down to being addicted and
dependent. Moreover, you attract the kind of person who acts exactly to
trigger your insecurities. Such is the precision of Karma. You will be with
someone who will make you conscious of your addictions; that is why you
chose them.
Use your relationship
as a vehicle for growth
Whenever you feel pain in any type of relationship,
whether insecurity, sexual frustration, rejection, anger, hurt, invalidation,
or loneliness, you must remember that you are responsible for the pain because
it is caused by your suppressed energies that are surfacing. These energies
surface when you are denied those qualities or behavior in your partner
to which you are addicted and which enable you to continue to suppress your
pain. If you can remember this and not blame the other, you make it possible
to maintain the relationship. The relationship can be used to help identify
what you are addicted to, and it becomes a powerful vehicle for growth.
However, if you blame the other, growth does not occur, and the relationship
collapses.
Relationship addiction can tie into any level of being,
such as Security, where we depend on the other for material support; Sexual,
where we are compulsive and using; Power, where we control the other because
we gain energy from them; or Heart, where we seek to escape from loneliness.
