Like many of us I’ve wanted real, lasting, love. Like many of us, I hadn’t found these three simple words—real, lasting, love—easy to attain especially when I was single. If same-sex marriage had been legal thirty years ago, my partner (at the time) and I would have married in our twenties. Being young and in love, we were sure that our relationship would last a lifetime.Well, that relationship lasted 1 1/2 years. I fell in love eight more times, but those relationships were also short lived.
Before giving it another try I promised myself that I’d commit to understanding what it really means to have a relationship that lasts a lifetime.
I learned a lot, fell in love again and got married. With some degree of certainty, I am hopeful that our marriage will last a lifetime. My wife said, “she agrees.”
In my fifties, I am joyfully married now. We’ve had our ups and downs like all couples, but we are continuously learning the skills to keep the love flowing and remove the blocks when they occur. We’ve learned several key practices for achieving Real, Lasting, Love.
Many of us have learned to settle for a love that is lasting, but not real. We stay together because we are afraid to leave, even if the life-force has drained out of the relationship. Some of us run from one relationship to the next, feeling the excitement of new love, but we long for a relationship that will last through time.
It would be great if life were simple enough that knowing “one thing” would insure our life-long happiness. I tell clients learning about real, lasting, love is the PH.D level of life. So, it’s not a surprise there are several elements, and not just one.
- 1. One thing at the foundation of a passionate, life-giving, joyful, long-lasting, relationship is trust.
- 2. One thing that can poison No. 1 is betrayal.
- 3. One salve for the poison of betrayal is to heal the emotional wounds from childhood.
Like love, trust seems to be a fragile, but crucial factor in having a lasting relationship. Trust can also be described clearly and assessed accurately by asking key questions like, “Do we show that we are each others’ priority? If we’re lonely, do we soothe and comfort each other? Are we willing to listen to each others’ deepest concerns and feelings?”
Betrayal is like acid that burns up trust. I’m not just speaking about sexual betrayal. I had a client say, “There are affairs of the heart, mind and emotion.” Betrayal involves anything that undermines our trust, like judgments, and criticism; when we don’t keep commitments; dishonesty, even when we tell ourselves it’s to protect our partner, withdrawing emotionally … are all betrayals.
I’ve learned that it’s so easy to fall into betrayal when we are triggered by hurts and fears from the past. These feelings are often unconscious, and we may not even be aware they are happening. For example, I came home last night and Yael was on her phone. I blew her a kiss and she faintly acknowledged my presence. My mood changed immediately from feeling loving and warm to feeling slightly dismissed. Before I got angry and felt shame, I realized this was a trigger from my past when my caregiver dismissed my presence and gave me the silent treatment just because I was there.
We all have experienced small and large betrayals in our families of origin. I’ve found through IMAGO that one of the hidden reasons we come together with the partners we do, is for the purpose of healing old wounds.
It’s as though our unconscious mind says, “You’ll find a mate who will trigger the same emotional wounds you experienced as a kid, but this time as an adult, you’ll be able to learn the skills to develop the trust to heal the betrayals.” This way we heal our past and have joyful relationships in the present.
In addition to coaching clients via talk methods, I’ve been using a powerful tool for accessing the unconscious called Hypnosis Rewind Technique.
Healing old wounds is a huge task that our unconscious mind wants us to address in order free ourselves. But when we want real, lasting, love we have to do some serious work to get it. Hypnosis Rewind Technique is a simple, yet powerful tool for healing.
I can tell you that working for love is the best kind of work we can do. Let me know what you think and feel.
Paula M. Smith, M.Div., MFT
Certified Imago Therapist
Couples Coach
imagopaula@gmail.com
