After my divorce from the father of my now 18-year old daughter, I hoped to find a relationship with someone who was willing to go the distance with me. I’d met people who claimed to be up for personal or spiritual growth, but when the rubber met the road and we entered the real birth canal of transformation, they’d bail. And I’d understand. I really would. Because facing both your glory and your shadow in the mirror of another person is no joke.
When you allow yourself to be truly seen and known at the deepest levels of intimacy, it can feel terrifying, especially for those for whom intimacy is both our greatest longing and our biggest fear.
Every person I tried to get involved with had their singular road block, the one traumatized area they just weren’t going to touch. And because those areas wound up impacting me, I’d inevitably get too intrusive, trying to bust down walls without adequate consent, which never goes well and really isn’t fair. I’d feel so lonely, bumping up against those walls, but until my current partnership, there was only cursory interest in going to therapy alongside me, to work through those walls- together.
My current partner has a superpower. Since his fiance in college died in a car crash and he went to therapy to process his grief, he’s been a relentless seeker, more devoted to the truth than to avoidance of pain. That seeking led him to attend Princeton seminary and then medical school, landing him at Cambridge Hospital as the chief psychiatry resident under the pioneering leadership of Judy Herman, the author of Trauma & Recovery. He got led astray by some New Age wanderings under the guidance of some questionable gurus but found his way back to the field of traumatology and his own healing path.
When we first met at a trauma conference we were both keynoting 5 ½ years ago, our first vulnerable conversation laid the foundation for the commitment to healing through relationship we now have. We started couples therapy before we ever became lovers, so we’ve had good support from some of the best relationship experts on the planet. But it has not been a cakewalk.
Our commitment has been, first and foremost, that we are allies in each other’s healing- without any agenda other than that. Our commitment is to healing through relationship, caring for each other’s wellbeing without throwing our own parts under the bus, rewiring neural pathways and breaking old patterns, whether the romantic partnership works out or not. Because of my partner’s severe trauma history (with an ACE score of 8 and nearly every developmental trauma one can have), the dance of intimacy has been painful.
I liken it to climbing Mt. Everest. For the first two years of our relationship, I felt like I was standing in Kathmandu, looking up at the great mountain, marveling at how tall it is, but also very aware of how risky and hard it would be to try to climb it.
I’d be saying, “We’re gonna need gear. We’ll need a sherpa. We’re gonna have to start training. We might not make it. We could die.”
My partner was minimizing the climb. “What a cute little hill! That’ll be fun to run up and take pictures!”
We’d make it a few hundred feet up the mountain, and then I felt like my partner kept pushing me down the hill. Three steps forward, two steps back. It took us the first three years to even make it to base camp on the mountain of genuine intimacy. Our commitment has been tested- through trust breaches and sloppy boundaries and testing each other in ways that have been hurtful to us both. I can have a sailor’s mouth when my consent is overridden and the words “Mother Fucker” have been used by me a few too many times.
But paradoxically, it’s also been incredibly rewarding. For the first time, I finally have a partner who initially resists hurdles, but doesn’t stop climbing. Every time we hit one of those hurdles, I have a part that’s afraid he’ll do what the others have done- quit.
And then he surprises me and sometimes even carries me a few yards up the mountain, when I’m too weary to keep climbing myself.
Things have gotten easier lately. He says it’s because he’s finally starting to trust me, after 5 ½ years of knowing me and seeing how I treat him- and others. The paranoia that casts me as the villain any time I try to get close to him seems to be easing off, replaced with something sweet and young and tender-hearted. I used to be able to set my watch by the rapidity with which my partner would throw a decoy to trip me up within 24 hours of something really good happening.
But lately, it’s not exactly smooth sailing, but we seem to be capable of really enjoying each other for extended periods of time, without me getting falsely accused of all kinds of nefarious motives.
I credit our wonderful couples therapist Erika Boissiere with a lot of our Mt. Everest progress. Her interventions marry Terry Real’s Relational Life Therapy with Sue Johnson’s Emotionally Focused Therapy and the work of the Gottmans. For six months, we tried Intimacy From The Inside Out (IFIO), which is the Internal Family Systems (IFS) version of couples therapy, and it honestly didn’t help us one bit. We both had individual IFS therapists at the time, and our couples therapy would help us identify wounded parts we were each assigned during our couples therapy sessions, but my partner’s resistance to touching his deepest pain was so great that he’d just change the subject whenever he saw his individual therapist. With no accountability, it was just too easy to skip the real healing work.
But Terry Real’s work is all about holding both partners accountable to doing the deeper dive. Erika has been instrumental as a sherpa on our Mt. Everest climb. And my partner has been a trooper, plodding away, every day, relentless in his pursuit of truth, love, intimacy, and healing. I have to give him a lot of credit. He’s so brave, badass, humble, and devoted to his healing path in ways I’ve never experienced before. I hope he’ll be an inspiration to others, especially to men who have achieved great professional success but struggled in personal relationships. There’s no shame in having to work hard to do something many male-identifying people aren’t typically conditioned to do well.
We’ve learned a few things along the way and are teaching a Zoom workshop together Healing Through Relationship January 4-5. We want to share with anyone else trying to climb Mt. Everest together some tools, practices, and insights we’ve learned that have helped us grow and deepen in our capacity for love and intimacy, with our own parts and with each other.
If you’re hoping to develop more intimate connection, safety, vulnerability, and growth in any of your relationships- with your partner, with your bestie, with your kids or your parents or siblings, if the pursuit of this kind of healing intimacy is your chosen spiritual path or personal growth quest, we welcome you to join us for HEALING THROUGH RELATIONSHIP.
Save $100 if you register before December 29th 2024
And if you’re trying to climb Mt. Everest- or maybe your relationship is more like running up a little hill, our hearts go out to you. It’s a noble quest, and we empathize with anyone struggling and triumphing and struggling and triumphing and failing and succeeding and continuing to get back up again!
May your holidays be joyful and real.
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