— So why stay in this relationship at all?

— Weeell… I’m used to it, and she seems to be hesitating about whether to separate.

— To stay in a relationship, you need a space between you that is filled with shared meanings.

— We have a flat together and three children.

— I don’t only mean what already exists at this moment, as if in a finished form. That attitude is more likely to lead to working out who invested more and who is “more of a father” or “more of a mother”. I mean noticing what is shared in the present: how your “I” and your partner’s “I” meet, how you get acquainted again and again, how you keep on discovering each other as separate people rather than only as people in the context of parenthood, home, money and so on. Not rivalry over who is better, but curiosity about who the other person is.

— Hmmm… But you’re talking about separateness, outside our commitments! And before that you were talking about what is shared… So we need to have both what is shared and what is separate at the same time?

— Yes!

— But that means that we, being so different, will have to negotiate: where we agree and where we don’t, to find compromise solutions, each of us to have our own personal space for developing our individuality and a shared space for developing our closeness.

— But that’s difficult. And not everything can be negotiated. What do we do where negotiating doesn’t work, where anger arises and the wish to suppress?

— There it would be good to live through the “it doesn’t work” just as it is. We can’t reach an agreement — that is helplessness. Live through the helplessness together.

— But how?! I don’t want to admit helplessness, it’s weakness!

— Yes, helplessness can be experienced as weakness, but you are not alone in it, there are two of you — share it.

— I’m thinking… So far I can’t see how that could look for us…

— I’m sure it can somehow exist between you. Helplessness can be shared between you, and it can be left unshared and avoided. Helplessness is often accompanied by a sense of weakness and sadness. When weakness arises, it is good to rest and gather strength; when sadness appears, to grieve.

— So helplessness is only a part of the relationship?

— Yes. And it can be shared, or it can be run away from, but in the end there is a price to pay for any decision.

— And are you familiar with helplessness and with the way it lives in closeness with another person?

Author

Kostiantyn Karpan