Week 6: Post 1

Using the lenses of rigid role relations, I have found each of my “serious” intimate partner relationships have modeled the three patterns I have been prompted to consider in this post. What I found fascinating, as I read this chapter (and this particular section), is how the perspective-taking, for me, hadn’t been an active process until I was completely disassociated from the relationships. Not until my most recent, healthy relationship, did I ever recognize patterns of dominance, submission, abuse, and strain in my former partnerships. And, another plug for the audacious and insightful Rebecca Walker, author of _One Big Happy Family: 18 Writers Talk About Polyamory, Open Adoption, Mixed Marriage, Househusbandry, Single Motherhood, and Other Realities of Truly Modern Love_ whose recent investigation of courageously creative families and relationships depicts how their structures progress beyond Trenholm’s (2008) perspective that “each must decide whether he or she feels more comfortable plays a dominant part …. or a more submissive part” (p. 148). And, similar to the lyrics in Eminem’s new song, featuring Rihanna, “Love the Way You Lie,” the most damaging to a relationship is competitive symmetry:
Now I know we said things
Did things
That we didn't mean
And we fall back
Into the same patterns
Same routine
But your temper's just as bad
As mine is
You're the same as me
But when it comes to love
You're just as blinded
Baby please come back
It wasn't you
Baby it was me
Maybe our relationship
Isn't as crazy as it seems
Maybe that's what happens
When a tornado meets a volcano
For me, each of these patterns can develop into a cycle of violence for the relationship. Once one person has power and control over another it becomes increasingly difficult for either person to change. Often, not until an “incident” occurs so threatening to one person (or both) does the relationship begin to transform.