Your Unifier Allies

My parents had a strong chemistry, but their relationship was fraught with tension and conflict. My father constantly complained about being trapped. When he went out at night, my mother would bombard him with intrusive questions and throw fits when he wouldn’t fess up to his latest extramarital escapade. Usually he’d go off in a huff, removing himself from family activities. But instead of sharing how excluded he felt, the whole fiasco would repeat itself.

Throughout my childhood, my parents kept so many secrets and never came clean with their hurts. I was a deep, shy and introverted teen. Unlike my siblings, I could never figure out how to interact with the opposite sex. It all seemed so messy. So I stayed home while my siblings dated, and felt excluded like my mother. Even when they invited me along, or tried to set me up, I was convinced they just pitied me and didn’t want me there, so I refused.

As I got older, I developed friendships with men, but was never attracted to the nice ones. When with someone I felt attracted to, usually a bad boy, I’d feel a surge of mistrust and shut down. Until I met a man I couldn’t resist. Our sexual chemistry was so powerful it felt spiritual. For the first time, I fantasized about marriage and children.

He wasn’t a bad man, and I sincerely believe he cared about me. But I couldn’t control my fears, or their control over me. To avoid losing him, I hid aspects of who I was and played games to keep him interested. I often doubted why he wanted to be with me, so I excluded myself from his social life, and then felt rejected. Or, when I felt him slipping away, I’d try to prevent him from having a social life. When he called me controlling, jealous and dishonest, I broke up with him.

It took me a long time to grieve the loss of that relationship, and to feel the terror beneath the sadness and anger that I’d been carrying with me since childhood. That was the beginning of a long journey towards radical honesty with myself, and in my relationships. Today, my beloved partner and I counsel couples, helping them own their fears, share their truth, open their ears and their hearts to each other, without pulling or pushing away. Intimacy is my greatest teacher, and my spiritual path.