Relationships: just wing it, or make a plan?

“In the past years, I’ve had three women tell me that they want clarity around where the relationship is going to. Well, how do I know?! I feel suffocated by the idea of having to box it. Can’t we just start somewhere and see how it goes?”

My friend, a dude, 45 years old, asked me this question the other day. He was not talking about early-stage dating, by the way; he was referring to long-term relationships.

I get his initial response.

He’s resisting rigidity. And that’s legit.

However, in his not wanting things to be written in stone, he forgets that the ‘winging it’ is the other extreme.

Yes, there’s a healthy middle road.

Ever heard of the phrase: if you don’t take a stand for something, you may fall for anything?

It’s something we always apply in our professional life; we have an intention, a vision, we set goals, we make budgets.

Even in our personal life, we have a vision, we set intentions and goals, we invest in ourselves.

Why would relationships be any different?

The thing is… a relationship without a vision okay when you’re 16 and just getting to know what it’s like to be romantically involved.

Yet, as adults, we’re presented with a tremendous opportunity for growth when we commit ourselves to another human being. Because, as you’ve read from me before, this in itself is super complex and will challenge the sh*t out of us.

If we don’t step up and lead our relationship consciously, we risk ending up on two very different paths, not being attuned to each other, and resenting each other for it.

Healthy relationships require leadership.

It means dreaming together.

What intention do we have for this relationship? Is it a partnership or a temporary connection?

What is it we hope to establish in the future?

When we’re at our deathbed, how would we like to look back at how we related to each other?

What kind of legacy do we want to leave our children with regards to healthy relating, so they can be inspired by it?

And which steps will we take, every year, every month, every day, to get there?

This doesn’t mean our vision is written in stone from day one. It’s not rigid.

On the contrary, we keep molding it.

I picture two (or more) doin’ pottery Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore-style.

(Music lovers, click here for the auditory experience with it)

They’re both sitting behind the potter’s wheel (their life that keeps spinning), and they have this lump of clay (the relationship) that they keep molding together. He holds her in his arms, keeps her safe, she guides him to create a beautiful pot (switch whatever pronouns wherever you see fit).

Sometimes they add water (attention, communication) to keep the clay moist and flexible enough. Sometimes they add clay (the building blocks, goals, outings and vacations, etc) to strengthen the creation. Sometimes they move up to soften the edges, sometimes they move down to strengthen the bottom.

In any case, they keep molding the relationship as time passes, taking into account the changes they all go through which may require something new at that very moment. Think: kids, illness, aging, menopause, loss, career changes, etc.

Needless to say, they also have their own pottery wheel where they shape their own life, career, friendships, inner growth, etc.

But what doesn’t change, is their commitment to being behind at the joined pottery wheel. The foundation is there. They devotion.

From a place of leadership, sitting behind the pottery wheel and refining the shape of your pot, is a constant process. Yet, it brings clarity, attunement.

The process of refinement can stir things up and can be scary. This is why you sit at the pottery wheel together, holding each other through it, hands joining together to move through the mud.

Rigidity may feel unsafe and create resistance.

Yet so does ‘winging it’ or just taking it as it comes.

But I bet that if you’d take a pottery class together, you might actually have fun ;-)