If you want to have a good relationship with your partner over a long period of time, it can be helpful to have the ability to put on your relationship blinders. Relationship blinders suggest that you have the ability to focus on your relationship uninterrupted by anything that is going on outside the relationship.
In life, there are many things vying for your attention. Life presents us with so many distractions, it’s a wonder you can remember you’re in a relationship at all. But you are. You and your partner are two different people bonded together in relationship.
Among the relationship coaching community there is agreement that within each relationship there are at least three entities in a relationship; there is you, your partner, and the relationship (many relationship experts agree there are many more, but all agree on these three). The relationship, the combination of you and your partner creates a third entity and this entity needs just as much care and attention as each of the participants in the relationship.
The happiest and most successful love relationships treat this third entity (the relationship) as a sacred endeavor worthy of your best efforts and focused attention. The kind of focus and attention that you might exert for something profoundly important.
Let’s look at some examples, if you’re studying for a final exam, you might lock yourself in your room with your textbook to intensely focus on the material in preparation for the test. If your business or organization is going through a significant change or facing challenges in the marketplace, you grab your most important managerial staff or board members, schedule an intensive retreat to brainstorm possible solutions in a sacred vacuum.
Isn’t your relationship worth the same level of intense focus?
As important as your studies, business, or organization might be, your relationship is worthy of even more focus and attention.
Nonetheless, there are two people in the relationship, which could be looked at like an incorporation, or corporation, a third entity. Still, each of the principals (both presidents, as in the best romantic relationships, there is not a president and vice-president) have lives outside of the relationship.
Life outside demands effort and attention which has no regard for your relationship. It’s easy to get distracted having to exert great deals of energy just to get through each day. After a long day of putting out fires, it can be unimaginable to consider that you might have enough strength and ability to focus intently on your relationship.
In this day and age, it is acceptable, if not encouraged to not view your relationship as this sacred union between two people. Besides, there are lots of other people that you could partner with, each bringing to a potential union other gifts and abilities, as the grass always looks so inviting on the other side of the fence. Plus, huge legal, governmental, and social organizations thrive on relationship breakdown. If every relationship were solid, long-lasting, and able to handle whatever challenges might come its way, these structures would disintegrate for there would be no need for them any longer.
But it takes more than just our best intentions; it takes commitment and inspired action to put forth the effort and put blinders on to honor your sacred relationship.
It means creating separation between your life outside the relationship and your union at home. Feel comfortable enough to talk about your day with your partner, but don’t let negative emotional impact of your day overflow into your relationship. It can help to take time for climatizing, allowing you, your mind, your emotions, your body and spirit to acclimate to your relationship environment.
Maybe take some time to listen to your favorite music, take a relaxing bath, read a chapter of an uplifting book, make and take some time to transition from your life outside your relationship to attune your vibration to effectively match this other part of you, the third entity of your relationship.
Your relationship deserves, at the very least, the same level of commitment you offer your life outside the relationship. Just as you wouldn’t let a difficulty at home affect your life and interaction with others outside the relationship, you need to protect your relationship from the affect of other people, circumstances, and potentially negative energy from outside.
Being able to put on relationship blinders enables you to keep anything from distracting you from honoring your most intimate and meaningful relationship. It means when you or your partner have had a hard day, or are not on your best game, the other one is there to hold you in his or her arms in loving embrace and assure you with, “Everything will be okay.”
And when you feel like things might not be going as well as you thought they might at home, your attentions don’t look outside your relationship for a sense of wellbeing, support or intimacy because you have your relationship blinders on, and you know your highest and best relationship is waiting for you at home. You know this is a signal and a sign to look for something new that you can bring home to make things even better.
Blinders are good, and they help maintain focus on your sacred relationship.