“I think it is better to lose your pride with someone you love, rather than to lose that someone you love with useless pride.” ~John Ruskin
When reflecting back, I have seen how often I evoked painful emotions as I sought comfort and solitude in the strange reward of self satisfaction and selfishness, born out of being better, doing better, feeling better, winning, having more, competing with a … friend, enemy, partner, colleague, neighbor or …whomever. Whew. Long sentence!
Even more sad is the evolution of pride in marriages and relationships. Unfortunately, we see it happening all the time. However, I have known a willing few who want to grow and want to accept this notion, because it’s easier to blame, be cynical or settle rather than commit wholeheartedly to the journey of Real Love.
In my experience both personally and professionally, the journey to Real Love includes putting aside pridefulness, a skill that must be learned, a skill that we are still working on. “It’s a day at a time proposition,” as my surrogate father Reggie would say.
According to Imago relationship theory, when a relationship starts we pick our partner because they in “parallel and in opposition” exhibit character traits that we need to re-claim, re-connect, re-solve, heal our childhood damage.
We are exhilarated and happy with our beloved in the beginning of that relationship because they have what we want. We don’t pick folks whom we are ashamed of, hate or think nothing of debasing.
But over time, when the power struggle stage kick in, which it inevitably will, pride rears its ugly head. I think for some of us this is obvious, but it wasn’t for me. Pride can be blinded by itself.
During the power struggle, we say and do things that make our partner feel put down, less than and criticized in a strange mockery of love where we are hoping and trying to recreate the Romantic feelings we had in the beginning. Nonetheless, our pride is exhibited by shaming, blaming, competition, threatening and running away because we lack the ability to set clear, healthy emotional boundaries. Without an ability to set boundaries, pride takes over.
The relational tactics we use during the power struggle stage of relationships are wide and varied, but I suppose if you have been or have come out of a relationship, you don’t have to look too far to see how pride can sabotage a current relationship or with an Ex.
There are tremendous lessons to be gained in relationships. For example, learning to recognize how pride plays out in interpersonal dynamics. Understanding and recognizing how to set healthy emotional boundaries and respond to someone’s emotional boundaries. And last, watch out for the sneaky childhood tentacles and hopefully grow as the result of these relational steps.
Final thought … I wouldn’t get caught up in thinking that pride is a man or woman’s issues. Pride is a human issue.
Loving Dialogically,
Paula
