A magic elixir for your relationship?
Lets talk about autonomy. We chose to focus on autonomy today because we have received a number of questions over the past two weeks, all of which this concept of autonomy can either directly or indirectly address. Autonomy is a magic elixir in intimate relationships if understood and utilized properly. Unfortunately, it is also one of the first things that gets thrown out the window in modern relationships and the consequences of its absence can not be understated.
To begin, let's define what we mean by “autonomy.” Autonomy, in the way we define it, is the understanding that each individual in an intimate relationship is the lead character in their own respective lives and that each respective life began many years before the birth of your relationship. Sexual experiences, personal history, trauma’s, powerful incidents that shape a person's belief system, perhaps spiritual experiences and revelations, all or many of which preceded the start of your intimate relationship and don’t just end because of it. Autonomy is the understanding that while yes, you may be a couple now, and yes, the relationship needs to take precedence over the needs of each individual if it’s to be a healthy one in the long term, but the needs of each individual can’t be overlooked and must be tended to as well within that relationship in order for the relationship to have a chance of surviving.
Autonomy is usually one of the first things to go in modern relationships. The reasons being that first and foremost, our expectations around love are higher than ever and so we need and expect our partners to be intertwined in far more areas of our lives than ever before. Best friends, confidants, passionate lovers, roommates, even business partners (like us!) mean that our individual lives can get easily lost in the crosshairs of commingling in so many different ways. We also, can all fall into the trap of buying into a romantic ideal which basically says that we should want to spend all or most of our time together if we are really in love or with “the one.” Additionally, more people work from home now than ever before so going to work and not seeing your partner for 9 hours is becoming a thing of the past for more and more americans. And for those of us who still do leave home for work and don’t see our partners, now, they are just a quick text message away, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Technology for all of its benefits has been slowly stripping away our feelings of autonomy for decades, at least in how it plays a crucial role in our intimate relationships.
Think of a lack of autonomy in relationships like a small leak in a boat, at first you don’t notice it, but over time, it can sink the entire ship. Some common side effects of lack of healthy autonomy are feeling a need for secret keeping, feeling a lack of romance or motivation to be romantic towards one another, a lack of sexual desire towards one another, boredom, resentment, infidelity or other forms of betrayal, sexual dissatisfaction or dysfunction, feelings of depression or hopelessness in the relationship or in either individual within that relationship. Think for a moment about how common all these issues are in modern relationships. Now think for a moment about how addressing the issue of autotomy could either directly or indirectly help bring healing to any of these issues.
What does healthy autonomy look like in a thriving relationship? On a macro level it looks like honoring that both members of the relationship also have individual lives that have nothing to do with the relationship, or at least are not centered around it. On a micro level it looks like things as simple and benign as regular alone time structured into each person's life or having space in the relationship to pursue personal interests and hobbies separately from each other – all the way to the more extreme or complex side of the spectrum like autonomy to flirt with or relate with others. You chose what you need from that scale. How healthy autonomy in a thriving relationship looks like will be unique to the individual needs of each person as well as where they fall on the spectrum of needs around novelty, adventure and pursuit of purpose outside of family. The main point to remember though is that healthy autonomy ultimately allows for both people to feel fulfilled as the lead character in their own lives, not just a co-star of shared life as a couple.
