Okay, so I’m not gonna lie…This post is a bit of an ass-kicking.
And if you really take the time to think it over, it’s probably going to leave your guts in a twist.
Or at least, it should…
Because that question in the title?
Sell your soul, or lose your love?
It’s a choice you have to make far more often than you realize.
And worse…
It’s a demand we continually make upon the people we love.
You, me, and everyone else.
Without even knowing that we’re doing it…
Intimacy & Awesomeness
A few articles back, I wrote about the paradox of community and connection.
About how as you grow, you get wiser and deeper and more and more awesome…
And you become more capable of connecting.
On lots of different levels.
But at the same time…
All that growth and awesomeness makes you different.
And you end up with fewer people that you can connect with.
You get deeper.
Your circle of friends gets smaller.
Now, ideally the friends you have are much much closer.
And you get to connect with them on a much deeper level.
And share some of that awesomeness that you worked so hard to create…
I mean, if you think about it, that’s why they’re your friends!
You can’t connect with everyone.
And so when you can connect…
Well, those are the people you keep!
But the most intimate connections are usually reserved for our spouses and significant others…
It’s our romantic relationships that go the deepest.
And again… barring babies, that’s usually why they become our partners…
Because we can share more of those deep aspects.
And sharing those parts is a very intimate thing.
The deeper the expression—the more intimate the connection.
The more intimate the connection—the more likely we are to love.
But even then, we can rarely share all of ourselves with a single person.
There are always points that don’t match up.
Different personalities… Different passions… Different interests…
We never match 100%.
Which is okay!
We don’t really expect to match perfectly on every little thing.
And that’s where things get dangerous…
Because we’ve just started laying the trap for that insidious question in the title.
But to understand why, we need to take a quick detour…
Expression & Need
We’re all familiar with the idea that we have needs that need to be met.
Which, some of that is just animal needs…
Food, shelter, safety and so on…
That stuff’s just basic biology.
But beyond that…
The deeper needs…
The ones Maslow threw under self-actualization…
Those all come down to expression and connection.
We don’t tend to think about it, but that’s what “self actualization” is…
We are driven to explore and grow and realize our true potential.
To become more and more awesome…
To become… something.
But in order to become something, we need to share what we’ve become.
We can’t just keep it bottled up inside.
If we do, it’s still just potential.
“Actualized” means shared…
It means expressed…
That’s what it means.
The whole idea implies connection.
So as we grow and change…
And discover all of those quirky, awesome, passionate and powerful parts of ourselves…
The things that make us who we are…
Make us… something…
We need to share them.
We need to.
Deny the animal food—and the animal withers.
Deny the self actualization—and the self withers just the same.
…and now the snare is nearly complete.
Connection & Commitment
We’ve all been confronted with situations where our needs aren’t being met.
In relationships, it’s the single biggest source of anxious conversation…
Every ominous, unfortunate interaction that begins with the words, “We need to talk…”
Unmet needs.
We need our needs met.
And we’ve all left relationships when our partner can’t (or won’t) meet them…
The big ones are the deal breakers.
Not enough love… Not enough sex… Not enough trust…
Not enough time.
The little ones we learn to live with…
We talked about that already.
Different personalities… Different passions… Different interests…
In a mature relationship, we expect and accept our differences.
The trap lies at the intersection, where connection meets commitment.
Unmet needs aside, the other big deal breaker in a relationship is betrayal.
Sometimes that simply means lying…
But usually it means connecting intimately with someone else…
Betraying our commitment with outside intimacy.
It’s a basic rule of our society that once you commit to someone, you aren’t allowed to be intimate with anyone else.
We even call it “cheating.”
Because it’s against the rules.
And we need rules…
We need some way to protect ourselves.
The deeper the connection, the more vulnerable I have to be to share it…
And the more damage I risk if I’m betrayed, and that connection is stripped away…
And if I’m going to risk that…
Risk that my self could finally be real—finally be something—that I could finally be loved…
Only to then be unmade back to nothing…
It’s worse than if I had never been real at all.
Potential is better than nothing.
So I need some sort of assurance…
A promise…
That if I express myself…
And expose myself…
And share with you who I really am…
That you’ll love me and accept me…
And promise not to hurt me…
And share back who you really are…
And we’ll keep each other safe…
And we’ll both grow further together…
Just please…
Please don’t betray me…
And the trap is sprung.
What does it mean, when growth means depth and difference?
When self-actualization requires intimacy and connection?
When we have to become, and share what we’ve become?
When vulnerability carries true risk?
When love helps us grow?
And our commitments keep us safe?
It means: Sell your soul. Or lose your love.
Because if you allow yourself to connect, you will grow.
And so will the one who loves you back…
You’ll both grow in ways that you never could have predicted.
And that growth will create new differences.
New points of potential, like budding leaves upon your soul.
The question now is: what will you do with the points that don’t match up?
Even if your relationship has grown beyond the superficial differences…
A few stray flowers left to fade…
What will you do with the deeper ones?
Points of expression are points of connection.
And we’re made to connect.
And that means that every part of yourself that you withhold—that you deny expression and connection—is a part of your self that’s left to wither.
A bit of your soul that’s left to die.
And the same is true for our partners…
If there’s a deep and important part of our partner that we can’t connect with… (It’s just one of those accepted differences.)
And if we don’t allow them the freedom to connect and share it with anyone else… (Hey wait a minute, that’s intimate and we’re supposed to be committed!)
Then we’ve just delivered an ultimatum.
An ultimatum that strikes to the very heart of who we are…
Life’s Shitty Choices
Have you ever felt confined in a relationship?
Like a root-bound plant? Nourished but unable to move?
Saturated, yet starving at the same time?
Where you know that you can’t be who you need to be?
But still, you stay there anyway?
Right up until you can’t?
This is why.
It’s the result of one of life’s shitty choices:
Sell your soul. Or lose your love?
And it’s not a simple choice!
The only reason that you’re root-bound is because the relationship helped you grow to that point in the first place.
New leaves upon your soul…
Spawned by love and expression.
And now demanding more of the same.
You can’t share all of them in a single relationship, because all of them don’t fit.
And so you have to make a choice…
You don’t want to lose what you have…
I mean, most of your deeper needs are already met!
It’s really just a few of them that aren’t…
Just a bit of new-sprouting potential and need…
(And a few insistent old ones, that have never, ever been met… But hey, you’ve lived without them this long…)
What’s cutting off a few limbs, in the face of complete annihilation?
If you never stay, you never grow.
And your commitments have carried you this far…
And so you stay.
The relationship continues to nourish the parts that fit…
Which continues to cause new growth.
Which you, in turn, deny.
Sell, sell, sell your soul away.
Until finally, you can’t contain your self anymore…
And your soul smashes the fucking pot! And cries out for release!
And you say fuck it, and opt to lose your love…
You cancel your commitment, and let the new leaves flourish.
(Maybe… Assuming you aren’t consumed with trying to reconnect roots in the intimate connections that you lost…)
You move on to a new life, and new relationships.
And start the process over…
You call it honoring your soul, and giving those starving parts of yourself a chance to connect and grow and love, before it’s all too late.
Everyone else calls it a mid-life crisis.
Potayto. Potahto.
The real gut punch comes when we own up to the fact that we’re responsible for those same choices in our partners…
Every time we refuse to connect…
Every time we can’t manage to show interest…
Every time we cop an attitude because they tried to share with someone else…
We may not get what they’re trying to express.
And they may not get it yet either!
Doesn’t matter.
The need is still there.
We have the luxury of indifference.
But they have a choice to make…
The True Meaning of Commitment
Now, I know this all sounds bleak.
And like there’s nothing we can do.
But I didn’t present the situation this way out of hopelessness.
I presented it this way because the process is natural and unavoidable.
And if we ever want to be freed from life’s shitty choices—or at least, this particular one—we need to be honest with ourselves.
Own our fear, and stop making ultimatums on the people that we love.
We need to own up to the true meaning of commitment.
But… this article’s already running long.
So we’ll pick it back up there next time…
Kim says
I’m only a few paragraphs into this and love it. Bingo! Nail on the head…now back to read on, just had to say how true it rings!
Denise Wallis says
Here we are then. My new-ish lover is trying to back out on me, sensing the connection and the threat and preferring the status-quo of his marriage. Hell he can’t even fuck properly because of it.
My head says let him go, and it’s probably what I should do even though I know the potential is there.
There is, after all, no going back to indifference.
So … any magic out there?
Denise Wallis says
Yes. And it gets hard when we try to have both! Try for a new relationship to actualise further while trying to hold on to the old commitment. Don’t bother. It doesn’t work. But why? Are we really, essentially, monogamous?
DeniseA