Real specializes in gender issues, power and trauma; his Relational work has been described as dismantling the patriarchy, one couple at a time. Us, his new book, shows how the individualism that many of us have internalized is toxic to our relationships as well as society, and provides ways to tap into our interconnectedness. Here are five of his best tips.
One issue that RLT pays particular attention to is helping people get over their grandiosity, which you call in the book a “seductive poison.”
Grandiosity is the sense of being above other people, and contemptuous of the rules. Love demands democracy. One thing I say in the book is that you cannot love from above or below. You can either be powerful or you can be connected, but you can’t be both at the same time. I tell grandiose men in particular that entitled privilege is like a knife that’s all blade—it cuts the hand that wields it.
In the book, you compare relationships to a biosphere.
Yes. Our relationships are our emotional biosphere. We’re not outside of them. We live inside of them and we depend upon them. And it is in your enlightened self-interest to keep that biosphere healthy.
You can indulge yourself and have a temper tantrum over here and pollute your biosphere, but you’ll breathe in that pollution in your partner’s distance or withdrawal over there. There is no escape. You are intimately connected.
You wrote that people waste time and energy arguing over what is the true version of events in their relationship, when there is no true version.
The Relational answer to the question “who’s right here, and who’s wrong” is “who gives a damn?” There’s no place for objective reality in personal relationships. You’re never going to land on the one true reality—only two subjective realities.
Being preoccupied with ferreting out which point of view is “valid,” and also what is “fair,” is a trap in relationships.
When you think relationally, you don’t give a damn what’s fair, and you don’t give a damn about what’s true. What matters is, how are we going to resolve this issue in a way that’s going work for both of us? Relational empowerment is “This is what I need from you. What can I do to help you give it to me? Let’s work together to make this happen.” Stop keeping score, stop thinking like an individual, and remember that you’re a team.
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