 How often have you gotten to a place in your life with someone you think you know, as well as anyone can, just to find that they continue to surprise you? The surprise might be a pleasant one such as learning about something really amazing they have done in their lives that you had no idea about. Or the surprise might lead to a disappointment in a behaviour that you didn't know they were capable of. What does this mean? The truth is that you can spend a whole lifetime with a person and not really know who they are at all. As is the whole planet we live on, we are constantly changing and adapting to our environment. You are, today, simply a product of all your life's experiences and your responses to them. How you think, feel and behave is a consequence of all that has happened to you before this time. And how you will be tomorrow will be a product of all that has happened in the past in addition to what you experience today and the decisions you make about yourself and others as a consequence of that experience. I was speaking with a client today; let's call her Susan, (not her real name) who met a serviceman a few months ago. Both of them have been busy with their lives and so have not spent a lot of time together before he was ordered back into service. He was not told of his mission before leaving and therefore was not able to let Susan know where he was going to be or when he would be back. Five weeks have now passed without any communication and Susan is wondering where he is. Has he gone into a war-zone where he is unable to communicate with her, or worse still has he come to some foul play, or is he deliberately avoiding her. Her confusion about this stems simply from her not really knowing him well enough to know what might be the truth. As I said to her; every couple needs exclusive time together to really get to know each other at the beginning of a relationship otherwise insecurities will naturally creep in. Now, while I have said that you are constantly changing and this should require you to be constantly open to discovering who your partners are anew, there is also value in finding out where your partners have come from; their early life experiences as well as the experiences of their siblings and parents. All this information will help you determine what might be the core values of this possible partner particularly in reference to you as a couple. So what might be some of the things that might be valuable for you to learn about your partner? The questions are actually endless and could include how they acquired their name, their family history, their favorite things, how their parents resolve conflicts, how they resolve conflicts, what their relationship was like with their siblings growing up and what their hopes are for their future. Don't ever stop learning about your partner because the more you know about him or her the more sure you can be about why they do the things they do. A word of warning Be careful not to assume too much however because as the adage goes: to assume too much can make an ass out of u and me. Instead stay curious and let them also surprise you from time to time or check out that what you think they're meaning is in actual fact real for today. |
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