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Why does Love always turn into a power struggle? |
Remember when you met your Lover? Remember the excitement, those tingling feelings that got you all tongue tied? Remember too the feeling like you'd known this person for ever, perhaps you'd even had past lives together? Remember when this Soul Mate seemed to be able to finish your sentences for you and read your thoughts and how then these things felt comforting to you? Well, what happened? Why are the same things that endeared them to us now driving us crazy?
For most of human history romantic relationships never lead to marriage. The only 'marriages' were arranged by families to keep the wealth secure within the clans. The idea of marrying for love, didn't exist. Marrying for love would have been considered foolish, everyone knew 'love' didn't last. It was generally considered acceptable to have serial lovers for romantic interludes, and the arranged marriage for the propogation of the wealth and the family. For romance, the male (sometimes the female) 'took' a lover and promptly ended the relationship as soon as it became power struggley.
The power struggle really came into play when the much more modern idea of marrying for love became the accepted norm. We have come to know that the power struggle stage is a powerful and necessary stage in loving relationships, with a purpose never before realized.
All Love relationships have three necessary stages, the romantic love stage, the power struggle stage and ultimately Real Love. Most couples never get past the power struggle. We either avoid the power struggle stage by leaving the relationship, or lead parallel lives within the relationship. Some couples power struggle with each other for the rest of their lives. So why does Love have to look so unlike Itself ? Because embarking on a committed Love relationship is just like embarking on any Spiritual Path. Anything unhealed in our lives is calling to us for acknowledgement and healing. Committed relationships are a Path to Freedom. (Now there's a twist for those commitment shy Ones.) A conscious relationship is one where the couple realizes that there are stages on the journey and that the power struggle stage is an opportunity to heal dominator wounding inflicted on us in childhood. We are all wounded by an authoritarian society. Out of our wounding we wound and re-wound each other, often without even knowing it. Out of our own childhood wounding we inadvertently wound our children and especially wound and re-wound our Life partners.
Why?
In infant hood we were initially perceived as innocent and lovable. We can call this the romantic stage. It is important to say that even perfect partnership parents will wound their children to some degree because it is not humanly possible to meet all of a child's (or anyone's) needs all of the time, unless we reach Pure Love, then we do our Job which is purely to Love. As we began to speak our words in early childhood and exercise our individuality, questioning the ways and workings of the household, we were often perceived as a cause of disturbance in the family. As we grew we were sometimes labeled Trouble Makers, Difficult, Inappropriate, Selfish, Stupid, and/or Bad. We were told don't look like that, don't speak like that, don't think like that, don't Be like that! So begins the power struggle with our parents and other authoritarian figures like school teachers, clergy, you name it. The character adaptations that result from power struggling with our parents and other authority figures prevent us from experiencing the full expression of our Selves. We decide to hide, and eventually to loose the parts of ourselves that were judged to be inappropriate, out of fear of being misunderstood and rejected for ever. What we suppress on the emotional level lives on as disturbing habitual behavior, too often inflicting on our loved ones the same dominator wounding behavior that wounded us.
We continue on our journey through life seeking to fill the hole left by 'the lost ' parts of our selves as we go about searching for Wholeness, for Real Love. As we mature into adulthood, Nature supports us in finding a partner with just the right dovetailing character adaptations and childhood wounding we need to re-visit and heal our childhood wounds. During the romantic stage of adult love relationship the couple feels whole, safe and alive, because they embody the missing, hidden and lost parts of each other. The dovetailing effect of embodying each others missing parts, which is so comforting in the beginning stages becomes a source of fear and struggle later in the relationship. Our coping behaviors for our wounding dovetail also. The resulting pain of this dovetailing is the source of much of the power struggle. Example Pack rat/Clean freak.
The attraction of romance bonds the partners into relationship in order to do the real work of love relationships which is to finish childhood. The 'wounded selves' sense in each Other the qualities needed to heal the wounds left over from childhood, so that together the couple can journey from an unconscious relationship to a conscious relationship, so that they can consciously journey through the power struggle to Real Love. The power struggle intensifies as soon as the couple settles into commitment. This stage of relationship feels threatening because what we need in order to Be Whole is exactly what we were denied in childhood, and what we need most is what our partners are least able to give. For most of us in the power struggle it looks and feels like our partner is deliberately trying to hurt us. What looks and feels like an attack is in fact our partner's coping behavior in response to their childhood wounding, dovetailing with our own coping behavior.
Daring to trust that our partner will give us the nurturing and unconditional love our care givers were unable to give, leaves us feeling vulnerable and afraid that we will be abandoned, rejected, disregarded, abused or whatever the original wounding was, all over, again and again. The power struggle will show up in every committed love relationship, so it makes sense to work through the one you are in. It is possible to grow without being in relationship, but in order to heal the cycle of wounding inflicted on our freedom as children we need our partner who has the dovetailing wounding. During the power struggle stage of adult relationship the wounds left over from childhood flare up and hinder us and our partners from experiencing the relaxation of Real Love. We begin to see our beloved as the antagonist! The good news is, conflict is healing wanting to happen! It is important to note that the very character adaptations that served to protect us while growing up are now being called upon to Let Go! They no longer serve to protect. Letting go requires stretching. Stretching can feel very threatening to the inner wounded child.
Realizing that the purpose of the power struggle stage is to heal the wounds so many of us sustained while growing up, and understanding the need for the dovetailing effects of each persons childhood wounding, opens a space for real communication, real empathy, real safety, real healing on the journey to Real Love. As we heal the childhood wounds inflicted upon us by the dominator paradigm, we can effect world change and accelerate the shift into a Partnership Paradigm
The power struggle is a necessary stage on the journey to Real Love. It cares not what the sexual orientation of the Lovers is.
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