Here’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while: I perceive a core difference between unhealthy relating and healthy relating. Whatever the particular dynamics (as in Tolstoy’s great opening line, “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”), unhealthy relating comes down to dynamics of control, while healthy relating comes down to dynamics of respect.
The control dynamics of unhealthy relating have to do with entangled enmeshment, like two hands trying to function while the fingers are entwined and pulling different ways.
By contrast, the respect dynamics of healthy relating have to do with secure individuation, like two hands functioning together but separately.
Here’s a visual I drew up a few weeks ago:
Again, whatever the particular outward manifestations, one way is about entangled control—trying to get the other to do what you want—and the other is about individuated respect—recognizing the other’s autonomy and separateness.
To simplify: it’s a difference between control-based relating and consent-based relating.
I think we’re all pretty familiar with the various dynamics of control-based relating, but perhaps less so with those of consent-based relating, so I want to say more about what it looks like.
Healthy relating, based on consent, respect, and recognition of the other’s separate autonomy, involves:
- taking responsibility for your own feelings and needs
- asking clearly for what you want
- accepting “no” as an answer
- not pressuring others, but protecting and even celebrating their autonomy, along with your own
- valuing others’ authenticity and wellbeing, along with your own
It’s like an open hand extended, reaching out but waiting calmly for response, compared to a hand that is grabbing, clutching, and grasping.
I’m not sitting here shaking my finger at anyone about unhealthy relating; I have plenty of it in my own life still, and I think most of us will always be on a journey toward healthier relating.
Besides, it’s not like we just woke up and said, “I think I’ll choose unhealthy relating today.” Those patterns of relating are wired into us from childhood, when we learned from our parents and our culture that we had to resort to various control tactics in order to survive, in a world of not getting the separate-but-secure connection that we needed.
I’m just trying to sort all this out to help myself along in my journey of healing my own patterns of relating. I want relationships of side-by-side journeying with mutual respect and wellbeing, not icky entanglements of fear and confusion.
River Roundup
Section posts since last time
🖋️Writer’s Waters
“Here’s one thing that has helped: rebranding my writing sessions so that the goal is not ‘to write,’ but ‘to do a try.’”
🌀Divergence Deeps
I am just now figuring this out…
🪷Serenity Splashes
a poem for my friend
You see yourself the way they treated you-- bothersome, worthless as dust, perverse-- but you shine far above them in my view-- a unique light in this dark universe. You had to drink their disgust. Now they can eat your stardust.
an ode
Downtime--when the toil halts-- I need it like a song needs a downbeat. All the day's assaults otherwise will flatten me. (I lived like that, just flat, so long, not knowing how to rest so I could rise.) Return to home, my song-- recover and reset my mind.
I'm creaky like an old door, croaky like a frog; my energy's down on the floor; my brain is filled with fog. Here I'll be with my tea till my wind blows again.
on the disturbance of unmasking
I always tried intensely to seem on top of things and able to take care of others, so they'd be at ease-- and I truly did care about them, and I still do-- but now I'm coming down to earth where I have needs, too. Who am I if I'm not the one who's competent and stout? What happens if I'm just...me? I don't know...but let's find out.
reflections on anxiety as self-fulfilling prophecy
We can't know the future, but my worry-shaped brain keeps bracing for trouble-- and keeps me in pain. We can't know the future, so it might be great-- if I don't let anxiety curse my fate.
(or like a doormat, for others to wipe their feelings on)
I flattened myself like a tray, balancing with skill other's fragile cups of feelings, so they wouldn't spill. The strain of that life broke me. Now I'm trying to realign my pieces as a sturdy mug for feelings that are mine.