14 years ago an ex told me on the day we fell in love:

"I don't want a relationship with you, but I want to relate to you!"

Unfortunately, we weren't ready yet. It turned out to be a classic, romantic - and at some point anything but romantic partnership.

This man also told me:

"You are LOVE yourself, the other one just reminds you of that!"

I was blown away! And then the game took its course. And after him, the next one began.

As we know, there is no doubt that in so-called modern societies, the landscape of romantic relationships has become much more liberal in the last century.

Divorces became the rule; lifelong partnerships became rare, celebrated but at the same time doubted rarities.

A great achievement in terms of freedom on the one hand. And a sad testimony of poverty on the other.

Had all these separations really been necessary, would the man-made and conditioned definition of "relationship" have been a truly liberal one?

Does the definition per se, whatever it may be, not automatically tie mutual attraction into a corset? A corset that the lovestruck person - programmed by the Walt Disney Company, the Brothers Grimm & Hollywood - usually loves to put on voluntarily at the beginning of a relationship, but which he perceives as limiting with his creeping awareness?

Could some of the budding conflicts, discussions, disputes, so-called "infidelity scenarios" up to “wars of the roses” not have been at the expense of this corset?

Reasons for separations are of course manifold. But how often does the understanding of loyalty divide two people?

Two people who may have inspired, encouraged, challenged, supported and strengthened each other. Who have connected an incredible amount; from shared passions to children. Who have proven often enough that they want to be there for each other even in difficult times.

But have they also allowed themselves their god-given freedom? Their passion for experience with whomever? Or did possessive thinking and some kind of claim attitude creep into the relationship? To contaminate innocent love, it is enough if only one of the two allows too much room for the budding fear.

How do we still form our relationships and above all what do we hope to get out of them?

Is it more about what we can draw from the relationship or what we can feel through it?

Is it more about what it should spare us or what it is allowed to show us?

Is it more about our fears or the training and/or restoration of our ability to love?

Do we abuse the sacred connection or do we cherish it?

What can we really expect from the other person? From ourselves we can at least expect to take personal responsibility for our limits and to leave the relationship, as long as we no longer see a learning factor in suffering. But mostly it is not only the self-evident limits such as "physical integrity", but rather those á la: "Don’t you touch my painbody!” 

And if there hadn't been a successful collective programming machine at work for thousands of years, building on our primal fears and creating collectively synchronized pain bodies, the reality of our partnerships would certainly look very different from what we still find today.

The profiteers of these vicious circles are always trying to keep the programs going. See only advertisement. We are omnipresently exposed to the feeding of these imprints. But we are not completely at the mercy of them!

Although our society really doesn't leave anything out to wash our brains with confusing nonsense in this regard.

There is, for example, the psychological term "inability to bond" or "fear of bonding". In my opinion a perfectly logical, healthy and natural alarm signal of the soul, considering the social context. However, the supposedly affected persons should question what is wrong with them and develop feelings of guilt by being branded as neurotic.

Although the booming spirituality tries to provide us with the antidotesby some serious currents to draw attention to the nature of true lived love, still hardly anyone succeeds in freeing themselves from the fetters of the partnership definitions with their appendages like concepts of guilt and classical male-female programming.

Although most of the polyamorous relationships I have witnessed, are drifting in a freer, more human direction, they are still not completely free of the constricting definitional burden with other rules. Nevertheless, as I find, a step in a more spacious direction, since the persons do not have to face the temptation of the forbidden and are always aware of the fact that he/she can live completely voluntarily in concentration on only one partner, if the phase wants it that way.

With a few exceptions, almost everyone will have to admit that they themselves have been, or still are, players in these entanglements. Victim of his own pain body. Always addicted to romantic wishful thinking.

In pure friendships, it is easier for us to act with selfless clarity and without manipulation. Friends who have too high expectations of us are sorted out mercilessly. "What do I have to do? I don't have to do anything!"

But in romantic relationships... deals creep in more easily. At first unspoken, later bluntly blotted out in accusations. Non-violent communication? Not in this room of two! From subtly quiet to offensively aggressive. We master the spectrum of bonding games as if they were in our cradle.

The ego does not want to be alone. So it can more easily prove to itself every day that it exists.

We are also able to compensate for the missing relationship to ourselves through the other. Or even better: to find God through the other. In the fusion, thinking is able to rest. What short-term salvation! What expansion of the self. What cosmic pleasure. Tantra! Only God can be involved here. He is. But everywhere else too 

Therefore the beloved one should not extend his experiences to other people. The loss would be too great. “Besides, after all we have already gone through, we really deserve a caring, all-encompassing, devoted, self-esteem-building partner! Someone who once and for all puts a soft focus on the brutal reality.”

At least our epoch is slowly beginning to understand what interpersonal relationships are really all about. Besides the reproductive urge of course.

Kahlil Gibran's text "On Love" captures it in excerpts with these poetic words:

"Even if the voice of love can shatter your dreams (...)

For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth

So is he for your pruning. Even as he ascends to your height and

caresses your tenderest branches that quiver In the sun,

So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.

Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.

He threshes you to make you naked.

He sifts you to free you from your husks.

He grinds you to whiteness.

He kneads you until you are pliant;

And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for

God's sacred feast. (…)”

I also call it the “final boss principle”. If you have managed to transcend the pain bodies with the help of the person you think you love/need most through reconciliation, you can take on anyone. The inner peace is coming!

Are we able to let go of the object of our cleansing before we have at least become almost God's holy meal? Is the blindness within romantic attraction, even a necessary component, without which our whole power of love could hardly find development?

Would the mirror effect within a relationship be effective to that extent, in a free relationship? 

Or is it an unnecessary detour that the coming generations would have to endure in a weaker way if they grew up less disturbed and misguided on the subject? If they were less restricted and blocked in their ability to love than our and the generations before our time?

One can probably find love through suffering and find love through love.

But what about the innumerable who, compared to Hollywood's happy endings, without ever having seen through the meaning of the set of rules, are left behind in frustration, grief and depression? Are they the victims of false propaganda? Eaten by capitalist markets?

Evolution of consciousness is progressing anyway. But what we can definitely do is to consciously participate in shaping it. Also its speed. We have to start again with ourselves and ask ourselves how many detours we personally still need until we have the courage to really live our spiritual wisdom by giving it to others and to ourselves?!!

How long do we manage to enjoy moments with people in gratitude without labeling them? Without putting on shackles? To leave it at being tied up with each other?

We have all more or less experienced what our egos are able to create from the most sacred. Namely hell. Projection fires and false victim-perpetrator identities.

If children are in the game and one of the parents pulls himself out, well... Then the game takes on a new dimension. And from my own experience I know how hard it is to be carried by sublime equanimity and to always find the meaning behind the unequal distribution of responsibility and work. Unfortunately, we don't live in a time when our tribe compensates for missing parents.

If the tribe still existed, a true community, would concentration and expectation on a single person - the relationship partner - even degenerate into such a fixation? Probably our existential fear would be less triggered if we were embedded in a more solidary system.

Unfortunately, very few people are able to handle family and the relationship with the ex-partner or partner in a way that is detached from each other. The levels are constantly mixing and harming the next generation. They live the dramas of the wrong relationship models.

When will we finally stop this?

When do we stop fooling ourselves?

When do we get out? When do we have the courage to communicate directly when we get to know each other, how we look at things and what we no longer want to risk landing in?

When are we content with what is voluntarily given and dedicated to us and thank life daily that someone reminds us that we are love? Is that not enough?

Isabel Ambrosia Rössle

 www.rebel-buddha-coaching.com