A partner for your whole life
Last night while I was thinking about the Affective Dependence workshop and the work with the Women's Circle in Madrid, I received this article by Clarissa Pinkola Estés, the author of the famous book 'Women who run with wolves', which talks about 'choosing a partner for life' and which I share with you today in this post.
The theme of love as a couple and idealized relationships is something that haunts my mind, and resonates with each of the people I accompany.
My feeling is that we have been sold a "model" of love quite unhealthy, in which he should not only be the prince, but also the strong and resilient; and we the princesses, with the various connotations of being a princess, and even a porcelain woman, as I heard recently on a television program.
In order to recover the sense of healthy love, of feminine awakening and awareness in the relationships we establish, it is important to SEE and FEEL with the heart and with the head the type of partner with whom we want to walk,](https://alejandraleon.com/2018/02/07/como-pedirle-una-pareja-al-universo/) whether for a short or long walk.
Enjoy it!
Hand holding magnifying glass isolated on white background](/img/keys-to-find-partner.webp)
**1- Choose someone as if you were blind.
Close your eyes and see what you can feel from that person, from their gentleness, their loyalty, their understanding, their devotion, their ability to take care of you, their ability to take care of themselves as an independent being. In our culture we rely a lot on what we see with our external eyes. But when we look at the subject of our love, it is much more important what we see with our eyes closed.
**2- Choose someone who has the ability to learn.
If there is one thing that truly makes the difference between a lifelong lover and a fleeting one, it is a person who has the ability to learn. The saying goes "the ignorant have little tolerance". Those who cannot learn new things, see things in the light of the new, be curious about the world and how things or people work, often shut down and say. "No, this has to be this way, this way" and for a lifelong relationship it is better to be with someone who is open and closed learning and evolving.
**3 - Choose someone who wants to be like you, strong and sensitive at the same time.
In order not to confuse the meaning of these words, do not relate them to rigidity and fragility. Strength in the sense that it is strong like a tree: strong winds can blow but it will hold up because it is flexible and will move back and forth with the wind. And when it comes to sensitivity, I'm talking about seeing, being alert to things that are around you. Some people may need a little help in this, but often somewhere deep in their mind, or in their heart, they are already awake and alert to all these things, even if they don't know how to articulate them. And that's why point number 2 is so important: the ability to learn. You can have all the possibilities, all the potentialities in the world to be kind, loving, devoted, good and the best known lover of mankind but if you can't learn how to develop that potential. Then it's no use!
**4- Choose someone who, when you hurt him, feels pain and shows it to you.
And vice versa...choose someone who when you hurt them, sees your pain and records it. This is very important. There are many ways people show pain. Sometimes claiming is one of the things that the most extroverted people do. They complain, they go crazy...but it's their own expression of pain. The worst is when you do something to your partner that is unkind, or unthinkable and he shows no reaction. As if he won't allow himself to show himself truly human in your presence.
We go through many relationships, or a few, before we find someone we would want to spend our life with. We felt the wounds in so many relationships that started with high hopes but ended with failures and accidents. On the other hand, you are going to meet someone else who is not intact, who is also wounded in some way. As a result of this is that your partner's ability to show their pain is as important as their ability to perceive your pain. It's very important! Because by nature of relationships there are moments of tension where we pushed or did something that hurt the other and this can't be completely avoided, but it shouldn't be the same hurt over and over again. People have to learn every time.
Someone may have accumulated anger and suffering, wounds from previous lovers, and thus acquired the ability to hurt the new lover and even be overwhelmed by the desire to hurt him or her](https://alejandraleon.com/2015/11/24/eliges-siempre-el-mismo-tipo-de-pareja/). Then he must be able to stop, to stop when he sees the pain in the other person.
**5- Choose a person who has an inner life.
Working, drawing, writing, through meditation, religion, something he loves. Choose a person who is on a journey and sees you as a companion on the way, a fellow traveler. The ability to be completely with each other and at the same time entirely separate is very important. Relationships are cyclical and there are times to be very close to each other and other times to pull away.
**6- Choose someone who has similar passions in life as you do **.
A relationship builds a memory. These memories, the shared, are the "glue" that binds the relationship together. For the pleasure it is to remember good times together, but also the hard times. If there is nothing you truly enjoy together, it is very difficult to spend these times with each other. Even though each may be very different from the other and do very different things, there has to be something, something as simple as lounging together in the bathtub or drying your hair together in the sun, or walking around the block together every night, or any of these very simple things... I know what you're thinking, brushing your teeth together in the morning.... Yeah, little more than that.
**7- Choose someone who has similar values.
Regarding having children, the birth of children, family, roles of men and women and ideas about money and religion. Maybe all of these things together are the ideal and you can't find them all especially at the beginning of the relationship, but you can keep this in mind. Choosing someone who has similar values has to do with decreasing friction in the relationship and these things must be in tune if there is true commitment. This attunement must also happen on a pragmatic level and when it happens on these practical levels it is easier for it to happen on other more subtle levels.
**Choose someone compassionate, someone who is able to listen, someone who will give you time.
Particularly if you are an impulsive person, by having a partner who is not as impulsive as you are, you will eventually find a certain slowness that will be good for you. Also someone who is a little bit slow, by being with a partner who is quite different will speed up a little bit. And after a while they will be able to find their own rhythm in the relationship. Sometimes people have to spend eight or nine years to have this rhythm fully developed. It takes time to build a miracle... not a miracle because you are together, but because of the strength that is at the core of a relationship, because of the deep guidance of love.
**9- Choose someone who can laugh at himself or herself.
Being able to make a joke and laugh at the situation and at yourself is very important. But suppose you don't have a very funny partner, choose someone who can stop an argument and learn to laugh at the situation (go back to point 2, someone who has the ability to learn).
**10- Choose someone whose faults and characteristics you can tolerate.
In times of stress and fatigue, the things that would attract you most in a partner, the most charming things, would be the things that would drive you crazy afterwards.... So don't think that you could live with someone who has things that really bother other people and that to you are not important because he or she is doing them and he or she is your lover. There are some things that are intolerable in any relationship intolerable in any relationship be it marriage or partnerships and business. Such as alcoholism, sexual abuse, gambling, criminal activities. A person who does not tell the truth, a person who cannot look you in the face, a person you could not vouch for, a person who can do anything to cover up his mistakes. All that would be building a relationship on unsafe ground.
**11- Be friends and not-just lovers.
And it's not just you saying "if I know what that means, it means I like him and love him" It means more than that and one way to judge that is to think. Would you do for your partner what you are willing to do for your best friend? Are you willing to listen to him, are you willing to talk about the things he feels like talking about, to pay attention to the details of what he says or feels like doing? This doesn't mean that you have to be looking out for each other always and forever, but on certain bases and in certain details you certainly should. Then when you think about what you would do for your best friend and what you would do for your lover, things will become clearer for you.
**12- Choose someone who will make your life bigger and not smaller.
This is perhaps the most important point of all.
Clarissa Pinkola Estés
Image: Sonia Koch
Remember: You are living a process of change and you need a guide, a helping hand to help you improve your life as a couple, well-being and emotional health, do not hesitate to contact us.
Thank you for reading and sharing.
Next: Imagine a woman
Previous: Does your back hurt?