Relationships don’t only reveal who the other person is. They reveal us.
The closer someone gets, the more they can awaken parts of us that existed long before they arrived. Old stories, protective patterns, fears of abandonment or rejection, and sometimes reactions that belong as much to our past as to the person standing in front of us.
There is a profound difference between “I feel abandoned” and “you are abandoning me.” One describes what is happening inside me. The other turns my experience into a statement about you.
In this chapter of Collecting Maps, I explore what relationships reveal about us, how we can begin separating what is happening now from what happened then, and the difference between compromise and slowly disappearing inside a relationship.
Perhaps the question isn’t only whether a relationship makes us happy.
Who are we becoming inside it?
Referenced in this episode: John Bowlby & Mary Ainsworth: Attachment Theory Sue Johnson: Adult Attachment & Emotionally Focused Therapy Stephen Drigotas & Caryl Rusbult: The Michelangelo Phenomenon
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