Advocate For You in Your Relationship.

By Mali McAnarney Masters of Counselling, in conversation with Kellie Ward Director and Founder of Foundational Care.

At the crux of every relationship is what led us to begin it in the first place. That shimmer of attraction, the promise of safety, the companionship you had always been seeking. Sitting down with relationship counselling expert Kellie Ward, she explains often you are meeting your partner on a similar ground, you might have come together because you had similar interests, you were doing something together that facilitated the space to connect. When we think about the platform that has become dating with the introduction of online dating platforms and their increasing popularity, that same concept is still applied. At some level you gravitated towards that person because you felt a connection, there was something similar or something that sparked your interest, maybe it was one of those promising principles; attraction, safety or companionship?

Wherever or however you met, what you did when you decided to enter into a relationship is that you both stepped onto the same step and started your journey together.

But we don’t stay the same and this is where it can become murky.

How many times have you heard someone say ‘oh I thought they would change’ or ‘I tried so hard to get them to change’ but see the thing is, you can’t make someone change. Someone will only truly change if they really believe that the driving principle behind the change is something that they undeniably want or value. And our values are deeply personal, rooted in our inner beings. Values don’t have to be the same, but they have to align, they have to complement each other. If they don’t then suddenly that step that you started that relationship on together, you are one or two steps away from each other.

Let’s take safety as an example. Say the original reason that you entered into a relationship was because it felt safe. You felt that this person offered a sense of security, that they would never leave. Together you started on the safe step both feeling safe in one another’s company. However, you both started to realise that the sense of safety was not enough to keep you tied to one another. Slowly that sense of safety that was once attractive to you becomes not enough and you are longing for companionship but realise you don’t have anything in common.

“I like to have my clients look at their relationship as a set of stairs” explains Kellie, “where they started on the same step but there are stairs going up and stairs going down. Sometimes what can happen in relationships is one partner begins to grow, they start finding their voice, they start making choices that champion them.” Kellie explains that this is a completely natural occurrence and is not inherently bad. Let’s face it we all grow, we all change, our interactions with the world around us makes it impossible not to do so. What can then happen is the other partner can start to feel a sense of their security in the relationship being shifted. It’s a slow burn but eventually if there has not been an embracement in change and growth you suddenly realise you are both on very different steps.

“The steps are like a V, you can sometimes grow upwards but then there ends up being two sets of stairs” says Kellie. Essentially, you then have to navigate how to build the platform to join the stairs, so you are on the same team again. It doesn’t mean it’s not possible, it just might take some rebuilding and some hard work.

If we go back to the example where one partner starts to show up for themselves, starts to advocate for what they want and the other partner starts to feel left behind sometimes there needs to be some form of enticement to show the other partner that they can still be deeply in love and that the shift in the wind doesn’t have to cause a cyclone. Enticement might be activating more deliberate acts of connection; go on date nights, make time for each other or increase the physical connection. Be careful, though, these should not be applied as an act of ‘trickery’; they need to be deeply honest, they need to show the other person that there can still be ‘us’ even though the breeze has changed slightly in direction. If it goes the other way and one partner retreats down the stairs, each stair they go down can add a weight onto the other partner who will either sacrifice their own voice and self-value and fall down the stairs at the weight or they will drop them into the void and move upwards on their own. This is the leaving zone. Which can be the pinnacle in some relationships: ‘Should I stay or should I go now?’

The thing about advocating for yourself in your own relationship is that it can be undeniably sexy. Yes, confidence can be attractive. Now, confidence does not necessarily mean you go around the house like a martyr, placing your overly confident demands on the household. No, sexy confidence is when you express your needs because it aligns with your deeply personal and well-entrenched values. Suddenly, you are showing someone that you believe in you. When your partner can show you that they believe in themselves too, as mentioned earlier your values don’t necessarily have to be the same, but they do have to compliment each other, then that pandoras box you’ve been waiting to open, that one where you keep climbing those stairs together, well welcome to the start.

So, advocate for you in your relationship, not at each other’s expense, but with the goal that you can take those steps together.