THE PERFECT TRAP OF THE ‘PERFECT RELATIONSHIP’
Mike Myers as Dr. Evil
What image comes to mind when you think of ‘the perfect relationship’?
Mine involves a tropical beach house, tanned and fit bodies (one of them is mine, one is my partner’s) and I’m dressed in white linen trousers and shirt.
And in this vision I’m calm, successful (this is a top-notch beach house I’ll have you know). The vibe is both easy and, frankly, sterile. Basically I’m in a stock photo from a travel brochure.
The Perfect Relationship. Conflict-free, forever attuned, always romantic. Easy peasy.
If the stock photo version of Perfection is our goal, then anything that doesn’t match it or contribute to it must therefore be imperfect.
That’s a narrow f*cking bullseye.
No margin for error. I’m feeling the tightness in my body just thinking about this.
The perfect double-trap here is that if the relationship is perfect, then you and I have to be perfect too.
So, y’know, shape the fuck up.
When I think of two people showing up as their ‘best self’, the relationship starts to feel strained and fragile.
I’m negatively judging characteristics in myself (I’m certainly not tanned and fit right now) and you that aren’t perfect. I’m judging‘bad’ habits, compulsions, how you chew your food, my COVID bod, why I’m watching YouTube videos at 1am, the thing you said to me yesterday that felt demeaning.
If the perfect relationship is my goal, then my energy is going towards curating myself to show up as my idea of perfect (or what I think your idea of the perfect me is), and judging everything about you and me and us that isn’t that.
As a guy I’m going to do my best to bury or distract from the shit that makes me look weak or vulnerable, that might shake your image of me as the strong, decisive, capable, successful, steadfast man of action I hope you see me as.
Last weekend I brought some solid gold imperfection into my relationship with my partner, Carina. I’m telling you this was some top-notch fear-based kerfuffle. It was gnarly and knotty. Real human being stuff that gets left out of stock photos.
I was in her grace as she listened to understand. Together we untangled it. We talked it through, worked it over. I listened to understand the impact of what I’d done, what needed to happen to make it right, and what I could learn about myself and us.
Afterwards we unwound with a walk, there was talking and mischief and laughter.
I could feel the tension ease from my body replaced with warmth and joy.
And that felt like I was in the perfect relationship.
Our space is one where our imperfections are assumed, where we take responsibility for our imperfect actions, where we make room for our fuller messy selves, where we don’t hold our human-ness against each other, except y’know ; )
It’s drastically uncomfortable sometimes, being called out for something that caused an upset, or stepping up and calling myself or her out. It can feel mucky and snotty and achy but most of the time as we work through something there’s deep listening, true expression, compassion, and often laughter.
The newest part for me, and it literally fills me with wonder, is how quickly and fully we’re able to work through bumps and upsets.
We have a deepening trust of this space, and of ourselves and each other, that whatever we bring will be heard and held and worked through.
Along with this trust is a new, quiet and confident voice in my head that says ‘we know how to deal with this situation, things are going to feel wonderful again soon’.
I’ll take the full dimensionality of our human messiness over the two dimensional stock photo.