There are some common themes that I point out to people who are in a relationship (married/living together/long-term committed) that they sometimes over look. One is that a relationship is a bit like walking. If someone is really moving forward in their life, being challenged, growing, having personal issues, then the other isn’t. Not that their not affected, but if one foot is off the ground and moving forward, the other stays planted until the first one is down and then it lifts and moves forward. If both are in movement it’s either a really great dance or it’s a leap that could very much end disastrously. The healthy relationship walks with one person in movement while the other is the grounded counterbalance keeping things even and steady.
Another thing is that there is a deep connection between the two partners. Not just emotional (plus or minus depending on the state of the relationship) but in all aspects. Where this can be very confusing is when the spiritual or people’s paths are involved. We’ve been taught to think that dramatic/traumatic events are meant to teach us something. Our automatic response is to look for the lesson in what is happening, to learn from it and not have to repeat it. Perhaps we can even speed things up or abort the worst case scenario if we catch on fast enough. But those in relationship are somewhat like couples in a two-legged race. They are bound together and so what happens to one causes things to happen to the other. If one trips, they both go down. If one decides to turn left and head somewhere new, the other has to follow or damage occurs. So is that a lesson for the person who is having to react? Not really. Will they learn from it? Hopefully. Regardless of the intent, life teaches us and we become.
So are all events lessons for us? Nope. Sometimes they are lessons and issues and struggles for our loved one. This effects, sometimes really intimately, but that doesn’t mean the experience is meant for us, that there’s some lesson for us to learn or some blockage we need to deal with. It means we’re in partnership. And vice versa. What is a lesson or growth experience for us (a loss of job or being evicted or family of origin issues or a job offer in another country, an injury/accident…) may not be a lesson for them. They may not have planned for such a thing at all. But if they are in relationship they can’t avoid having to take on the logistics of the situation, react to the change in circumstances, make choices on what to do next. Which means that if you’re searching for a big lesson in all this, something you have missed or need to figure out and you can’t find anything, it may mean that there’s nothing there to find. This is part of that “for better or worse stuff” that is included in relationship. Just remember, one foot moves forward….