There are two things in life that are certain and from which we cannot escape – death and relationships! Even a life-long hermit would have had a relationship however brief, with their mother and will have a life-long relationship with themselves. Most people have a myriad of different relationships as they move through the different stages of their lives – with parents, step parents, grand parents, close family members, siblings, baby sitters, friends, teachers, lovers, partners, work colleagues, shop keepers, service providers, etc., not to mention with pets and even in some cases with inanimate objects!
Each relationship comes with a set of expectations – learned ideals and beliefs about what the relationship entails – and garbs us in a role we are expected to perform depending on which relationship we are in at the time. We can become very identified with the different roles we take on, such as our work identity, motherhood or fatherhood, what it means to be a wife or husband, what it means to be divorced, or a single man or woman, and we can lose ourselves in the process. Is there another way to be in relationships, which are respectful for self and others and which allows us to retain the essential ‘me’?
Each relationship comes with a set of expectations – learned ideals and beliefs about what the relationship entails – and garbs us in a role we are expected to perform depending on which relationship we are in at the time. We can become very identified with the different roles we take on, such as our work identity, motherhood or fatherhood, what it means to be a wife or husband, what it means to be divorced, or a single man or woman, and we can lose ourselves in the process. Is there another way to be in relationships, which are respectful for self and others and which allows us to retain the essential ‘me’?
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