Our Relationship Is Holding on by a Thread...
What I was really avoiding when I didn't want to cut ties.
Him & I were desperately hoping the final thread of our connection didn’t snap - and then I cut it….
It was September 2020, and for the first time, I broke things off with someone I had really, really wanted it to work with. Who I was madly, deliciously in love with.
Every other time I had pulled the plug, I had nothing left to give, and almost nothing left to feel.
But this time, when I got the phone call just as my friend parked us in the driveway of a home she was house sitting to find out his life was imploding, it devastated me -
But I didn’t even try to contort myself around the thin thread that was keeping us together.
I pulled myself safely back into my relational intelligence.
The weight of not pretending our relationship could survive in a healthy way beyond this point snapped the thread.
(meaning: I ended our romantic relationship)
And I grieved, wailed, even laughed deliriously in my anguish for the next 30 hours, sometimes with my friend in the hot tub of that stranger’s home, sometimes on the phone with him under a comforter on the couch at 3 am, sometimes in a sunbeam on the floor in my little duplex living room with eyes closed and tears drying as they rolled down under my chin.
Now I know this is what we are out-waiting when we contort to hold on to a relationship that is wanting, willing, needing to snap.
Why we stay until we feel close to nothing - except numbly indifferent:
We stay to avoid the discomfort in ourselves that would arise by actually exercising our power to protect ourselves from people we still dearly and deliriously love.
In all the other relationships, I would make myself into the thread-keeper, and become less of a person.
I would try to force change - on them & myself.
I would beg for things to continue.
I would avoid and deny the tangible red flags we were exhibiting.
I would become less needy, or more supportive, or try harder.
In my previous relationships, I had lost my personhood to avoid the torment I would experience if I was the one to cut the thread that was already fraying, ready to take us both under -
and this time I saved MYSELF… instead of the person I loved.
After 5 years single, much support from coaches & mentors, my own self healing and shadow work, and the relational care of friends and family… my personhood was stable, bigger, fiercer in being the leader of my own life.
And so I made the wretched decision to separate us.
(and in some miracle of nature, a new thread began to weave a stronger web for us, and we ended up deeper in love, more healthy and affectionately excited to be in this life and tethered to one another - but that’s a story for another time).
This is mirrored in my clients as well, for many of them who seek me out for private mentorship, or my group program (which is enrolling right now until September 26th) finally made the raw yet discerning decision to invest in my support because they, too, had relationship(s) (or situationships!) hanging by a thread.
The husband who has become like a dependent.
The friend who makes everything about her, never considering you.
The new lover who keeps reaching out but never follows through.
The mother who always has a guilting word, rarely a loving one
The boss who just keeps piling more on to your plate, never listening to your concerns.
Just like me, with integral support and devotion to their own self observation and healing, my clients transform from thread-holder to whole, intact person.
By having a loving, secure - and sometimes compassionately challenging space to be in the rawness of your experience and not turn away, you grow the ability to actually “Let It” / “Let Them” / Let the relationship reorganize into its most honest place in your life.
And when you stop rescuing the connection, you finally get to be in the connection - as a WHOLE person.
Now, I see that if the relationship thread strengthens, it will be because both people get to be whole. Get to stay centered in their reality. And are willing to be emotionally raked over the coals in the name of their own long-term well being (unfortune, I know).
And it will snap because of this, too - but..
You can learn to be willing to choose to cut the thread AND be with the way you feel from choosing that.
If your relationships feel like they are hanging by a thread - and you want to be deeply held and expanded to not contort yourself into saving it at the cost of your personhood, I created a mentorship that begins October 1st, just for you:
RELATIONALLY CENTERED (which, yes, was formerly known as “Commune” up until I woke up at 3 am last night and thought: that name isn’t very clear to the outcome, is it?) is a group mentorship for codependents ready to transform their relational patterns, from the inside out.
It is 7 transformative months designed to guide you back to your own inner wisdom, help you uncover the patterns in your relational blind-spots, and reform a new practice of what it means to love & relate… so you can build a life and relational landscape that meets the most honest version of you.
In this space, we’re not just sitting around telling each other everyone else is toxic and to just leave them —we’re living into our most centered & secure relational selves, supported to navigate relationships and the life we choose to be in.
The results: (though of course, different for each person) usually include becoming more deeply grounded, wildly authentic, emboldened by self-trust, courageously self expressive, peacefully able to enjoy when things are good (and they are good!), relationally free to choose how they want to show up, and finally experiencing love & support that feels as good as it should.
If this sounds like what you’ve been reaching for - don’t make yourself keep going it alone.
Learn more & Sign up to join the group here.
Remember - you are more than just a thread that is fraying, trying to keep a relationship together. You're a whole person, existing at just one end of the relational connection.
Stay in your personhood - and I'll see you inside Relationally Centered come October (I hope?)!
In gratitude,
Jenna