Loving Her Without Losing Yourself: Power Struggles and Boundaries

Loving Her Without Losing Yourself: Navigating Identity, Boundaries and Power Struggles in Lesbian Relationships

A relationship is an investment that requires us to know ourselves well. If we don’t have a clear understanding of who we are, what we need, and where we want to go in life, we risk losing our sense of identity in the relationship and losing yourself. However, when we invest wisely, a relationship can be a source of strength and support that allows us to grow and thrive without losing yourself.

One of the biggest challenges in a relationship is the power struggle, which can make it difficult to navigate this stage while maintaining our independence and personal integrity without losing yourself.

In an outstanding relationship, both partners work to ensure that their needs are met without sacrificing the needs of the relationship or losing yourself. This requires us to evaluate the requests made of us by our partners and determine whether they are in our best interests or not.

Sometimes, we confuse our highest high with our highest good. Our highest high is what feels good in the moment, while our highest good is what moves us closer to being the person we want to be without losing yourself. It’s important to distinguish between these two things and prioritize our highest good over our highest high in order to maintain our sense of self and avoid losing yourself.

If your partner has made a request of you recently, take a moment to consider whether it aligns with your highest good and whether you can accommodate their request without losing yourself. If it does, then you should consider making changes to accommodate their request. If it doesn’t, then you need to communicate your boundaries and work with your partner to find a compromise that works for both of you without losing yourself.

Your challenge is to identify the top three requests that you commonly hear from your partner. Then, choose one thing from that list that you can start doing differently today without losing yourself. By prioritizing your highest good and communicating your boundaries, you can create a stronger and more fulfilling relationship without losing yourself.

Self-Protection or Authentic Connection

Explore the dynamics of self-protection versus responsibility in relationships. Learn how vulnerability, empathy, and personal accountability foster healing, connection, and growth, transforming self-protective behaviors into empowered and supportive partnerships.

The Lesbian Drama Triangle (Karpman)

Discover the Lesbian Drama Triangle and its impact on relationships in our latest blog post. Explore the roles of Victim, Persecutor, and Rescuer, and learn how these patterns perpetuate conflict and hinder personal growth. Gain insights into breaking free from the toxic dynamics, fostering healthier communication, and building more balanced relationships.

Hurtful Words | 3 Types of Comments That Weaken Your Relationship

Hurtful Words | 3 Types of Comments That Weaken Your RelationshipHave you ever experienced the situation where you say something, thinking it is...

Praise and Blame

The wisdom that can be gleaned from trees and their ability to simply be in the midst of changing circumstances. Drawing inspiration from a Buddha quote and insights from researcher Brene Brown, the author encourages readers to let go of blame and instead allow both joy and pain to flow through them like the wind. By adopting a tree-like mindset, the author suggests that individuals can cultivate greater happiness and acceptance in the face of life’s ups and downs.

Loving Her Without Losing Yourself: Power Struggles and Boundaries

Struggling to balance pleasing your partner while maintaining your own sense of self? This article explores the challenges of navigating the power struggle in relationships and offers practical tips for investing in your partnership without losing your identity. Learn how to distinguish between your highest good and highest high, communicate your boundaries, and create a fulfilling relationship that works for both you and your partner.

Happy Lesbian 101 Workshop

The Happy Lesbian 101 workshop is an introduction to the most important ingredient of healthy relationships: self-awareness and self-expression. This is also known as communication.

Join us for this intensive one-day skill-building experience to develop healthier habits for better relationships.

10 Reasons We Need Lesbian Couple Friends

10 Reasons We Need

Lesbian Couple Friends

On the first Saturday of each month, my wife Kristen and I go to the same breakfast spot near the courthouse where we were married. We have a standing date with our friends at 8:00 am. The first couple to arrive grabs our usual table. After big hugs and hellos, we spend the next hour, sometimes two, sharing stories over breakfast. We cover it all the funny, serious, touching, frustrating, problematic, or sad experiences we’ve had in the last month.

Like strands of sturdy fiber that weave in and out of our day-to-day experiences, lesbian couple friends add color, support, texture, and depth to the tapestry of our lives.

Sometimes, our friendships lose momentum, or life moves us in different directions, and we grow apart. Other times, important people weave in and out of the pages of our life. Like the spine of a book, our friends hold the stories of who we were, who we are, and who we are becoming.

When we partner or marry, our spouse becomes our person, our best friend. For many lesbians, our relationship replaces our friendships altogether. When this happens, we rely on our spouse/partner to be everything. We are best friends, lovers, companions, supporters, playmates, hobby-mates, workout buddies, companions, a two-person-book club, housekeepers, co-parents, co-workers, co-people, and so on.

The weight of this pressure to be everything to one another is difficult to sustain, and it’s one of many reasons we need good lesbian couple friends.

Research tells us that friends improve not only our life satisfaction but also our marriages. There are many reasons for this, and I’ve listed ten below.

Lesbian Couple Friends:

offset the impact of societal, work or family rejection and social isolation;
offer fun, warmth, enjoyment and camaraderie;
cheer our success and support us in times of need;
bear witnesses to, and keep safe the stories of our life;
encourage accountability and provide unconditional acceptance, relatability, and a sense of belonging;
give us new insight into the dynamic of our relationship, allowing us a different view of ourselves and each other;
let us see our partner independent of our relationship as we observe her interacting with others, appreciating her as an individual;
offer us a more comfortable and validating experience where we feel safe to drop our guard, feel less isolated, marginalized, and “different”;
illuminate our personalities by giving us the opportunity to tap into and bring to life different aspects of our personality in response to our unique interaction’s with lesbian couple friends
friends bear witness our importance to one another, which validates our unity and belongingness to one another

Number ten is extra important.

Without friends, some couples live in secrecy. Visibility as a same-sex couple in public spaces can feel unsafe, awkward, or uncomfortable instead of comforting, validating, or a source of pride.

Despite the legalization of marriage, many lesbians continue to conceal their relationship from public view. Grabbing her hand in public or greeting her with a hug and a kiss in a public venue can be an act of bravery. This is not a natural occurrence like it is for our heterosexual peers.

One thing (there are many) Kristen and I love about our Lesbian Adventures in Love Retreats are the friendships that develop. One of our Portland couples traveled with their two children to visit retreat-mates and new friends in Utah. A couple from Washington State signed up for a bike race in Iowa where they will be joining their retreat-mates and new friends from Illinois. Two couples from our Utah retreat enjoyed dinner together in their home state, Texas. These stories of friendship light our fire! 🔥

As we continue to grow this beautiful tribe of lesbian couples, we are discovering more and more about the healing power of lesbian couple friendship and the positive impact they have on our life satisfaction and relationship success. If you are interested in growing your relationship, expanding your circle of friendship and support, and having a vacation you will never forget – we’d love to have you join us in a Adventures in Love retreat.

To join us for a live Q&A session about our next retreat, reach out to us or join us on zoom for a casual, live Q&A session. (click here for that schedule).

In the words of Matthew Kelly,

“The people we surround ourselves with either raise or lower our standards. They either help us to become the best version of ourselves or encourage us to become lesser versions of ourselves.”

This is true for your relationship, too. If you want to cultivate the best version of your relationship, spend time with us.

We know some fantastic couples you’ll be happy to call friends

36 Questions To Fall in Love went viral, but does it work?

By now you have probably heard that there are 36 questions to fall in love with anyone. This idea was given a public platform January 9, 2015, in a New York Times article titled, To Fall in Love with Anyone, Do This, by Mandy Len Catron. This idea went viral. It’s not surprising in our culture of quick fixes and fast solutions, that a 36-Question guarantee to fall in love would spread like wildfire. Who wouldn’t want to have that sort of love potion, with ingredients accessible to every last one of us…by simply asking 36 questions to fall in love, or make someone fall in love with us.

If you missed the original article by Mandy Len Catron, here’s a brief backstory that will help put this in perspective. In the article, Catron explained that she would occasionally run into a “university acquaintance” while at the climbing gym. In one of her random encounters with the climbing-gym-aquaintance, the two struck up a conversation. To her readers, she confessed to having had a pre-existing curiosity about him, saying she wondered, “what if?” after having “a glimpse into his days on Instagram.”

Wittingly, Catron found a way to weave into her conversation with this fellow-climber, a story about a research study she had read by Dr. Arthur Aron. The study, she explained to him, “tried making people fall in love” by having research participants ask and answer 36 questions. This study was published in 1997, and it is the original home of the 36 Questions to Fall in Love. Next she explained to fellow-climber, “I’ve always wanted to try it.” Now, I don’t know about you, but I consider this some pretty advanced-level flirting. I’m impressed.

Predictably, fellow-climber-guy took the bait, and responded by suggesting that they try the questions together. They met at a local bar over drinks. With iPhone in hand, Mandy cued up the 36 questions, and they passed the phone back and forth, taking turns answering each one. By design, the questions progress from less revealing to more and more personal. Clearly, doing this experiment over drinks at a bar, with someone you have an existing curiosity about, is significantly different than the lab research by Dr. Aron. However, the spirit of the research is kept alive, as Catron observes, “We all have a narrative of ourselves that we offer up to strangers and acquaintances, but Dr. Aron’s questions make it impossible to rely on that narrative.” She alludes to how the questions forced her out of her safe zone where she could manage how she was being perceived, and took her into territories that required greater vulnerability. As the questions intensify, the road ahead becomes less familiar, and this 36 questions adventure invites more and more self-disclosure.

Taking much longer than the 45 minutes allotted for Dr. Aron’s research participants, Catron and her climber-guy decide to do a suggested activity involving 4 silent minutes of eye contact with one another at the conclusion of asking and answering all 36 questions. Preferring more privacy than the bar allowed, they decide to walk to a nearby bridge, stand on the highest point, and exchange four minutes of silent eye contact. As Catron brings her story to a close, she reveals that she and climber-guy started dating after that night, and as of last report, they are still dating.

While it’s a more fun to think Cupid’s arrow was built with these 36 Questions, a quick look at the facts tells us we are going to need more than 36 questions to fall in love (and though I have 1,000 more questions if you wish to ask them, I’m not talking about more questions. There are great lessons we can learn from Catron, though, about how we can effectively improve our own search for love, as well as our efforts to nourish the love we have. What strikes me as important pieces of Catron and fellow-climber-now-boyfriend’s love story are these things:

Curiosity. This is how all real connection begins – having an interest in someone.
Reciprocation. When curiosity is reciprocated, the potential for a spark exists. It doesn’t work if it’s only one-way.
Vulnerability. This is the risk-taking part, that opens us to hurt, yet also forms a foundation of trust and intimacy for a relationship to grow.
Take action. To build love we must do something. Love isn’t a thing we have, it’s a thing we do – so to find it, grow it, and maintain it, we must take action. Love is a practice that never ends, because love is the practice and the practice is the love.

If you want to be an epic sparkster (spark starter) like Catron, here’s a challenge that will give you the perfect opportunity to take a risk to get to know someone better (or to better your knowing of someone you love) – THE 36 QUESTIONS CHALLENGE.

Speaking of practicing love, this recent Style video from the New York Times Modern Love video series, is a perfect ending to this post. Enjoy this quick video that highlights three long-term couples who ask one another the 36 questions to fall in love. Their experiences are captured in this touching video. You will see the unfolding of exactly how curiosity and vulnerability combine to make the perfect intimacy cocktail, and their answers highlight the fact that love is a practice, a thing we do.

The 36 Questions Challenge

The 36 Questions Challenge is an invitation to connect to someone… to anyone. These are the same 36 Questions that went viral in 2015 after Mandy Len Catron shared a story about how her and her now boyfriend, used these 36 questions as an experiment, and they fell in love. While there are no promises that you will fall in love, the odds are really, really high that you will feel significantly closer to any person with whom you do this exercise.

Give it a try… what do you have to lose?

Suggestions for how to use this 4 minute video of The 36 Questions Challenge:

Invite someone you have a crush on to take the 36 Questions challenge with you. You can do this in person or online. (Yes, I’ve made it easy for you to duplicate the clever strategy used by Mandy Len Catron).
Bring this up with a group of friends and pass the questions in a circle, with each answering one then passing to the next person to ask a question, then the next, until all 36 questions are answered by someone.
Exchange these questions with your current partner to see how up-to-date you are on her!
Use this at your next family gathering to generate some fun and create some meaningful conversation.
Try this out on a stranger – maybe you have layover at the airport and time to kill, take a risk and invite a stranger to do the 36 questions challenge with you.

JOIN THE FACEBOOK GROUP HERE

THE CHALLENGE VIDEO

Happy curiosity to you and your question-partner.

Wishing you much closeness and connection, and may you see and be seen, know and be known, love and be loved.

5 More Love Languages

Five More Love Languages

Reflections by Michele O’Mara

I consider the five love languages, described by Gary Chapman in his book, The Five Love Languages, to be good information for all couples. Yet, something is missing. Read on to learn about five more languages that will help you communicate love.

When my dad died, I spoke at his funeral. He was my hero and I was his pumpkin.

His generous spirit and capacity to uplift others made him extra, extra special. When it came to love languages, he was a multilingual master, which you can read about here. However, these five love languages are not enough to convey the magic of communicating love. In fact, I believe the 5 love languages discussed in Chapman’s book create a helpful recipe, but having all of the right ingredients is not enough. You must also understand know when and how to use them, adapting as necessary to changing conditions.

Sometimes, you can speak the precise language your partner has taught you to speak, yet without the right dialect (cooking methods), it’s as if the message does not register. The same exact ingredients can create different outcomes, depending on how much of each ingredient you use, when and how you include them, the temperature and cooking technique used, and so on..

I love softshell crab rolls. But only when they taste the way I like.

Similarly, I love touch. But only when it feels the way I like.

Love is a feeling. What feels like love to me may not feel like love to you. If we both agree that touch is our love language, there is no guarantee that we will agree on when, how and kind of touch that ultimately conveys love. Touch is the strategy, love is the goal. What is missing from this formula is the thing that connects the strategy (touch) with the goal (love).

To simply touch her, talk to her, do things for her, spend time with her, or give her gifts – these feel like ingredients that are designed to create a feeling, to communicate love. Without the heat, the food isn’t cooked. Without patience or timing, the food can burn or be undercooked. Without balance, the taste can be overbearing or underwhelming. Just as, when we behave in certain ways, the separate ingredients used to communicate love, whether we touch, talk to, do for, give to, or be with her, we may need heat, we need spice, we need timing, patience, and balance.

When I think about the most powerful language of love, I think of energy. Food is energy. People are energy. Love is energy. This energy is part of who we are. Therefore, the language of love has to do with how we treat, manage, hold, express and exchange this love-energy, and how we mix and blend this love-energy with the others.

Ultimately, we partner to feel a certain way.

Rather than focusing on a behavior (touch, talk, gifting, etc.) spend time understanding what the experience of love feels like to you and to her.

What is the feeling you hope to experience by being in love with another?

It isn’t the action, the gift, the words, or the touch that we crave, it’s how we anticipate those things will make us feel that we desire. It isn’t the clean house, or the heartfelt card, or the passionate kiss, it’s the way these things make us feel.

Therefore, the important question to ask the one you love is:

“How do you want to feel?” and “What makes you feel that way?”

For example, I want to feel understood, accepted, alive, inspired, worthy, playful and connected. What makes me feel this way is not easily found in the five love languages.

I feel loved when someone expresses genuine interest in knowing me. I feel loved when she “get’s me,” and feeling accepted, and I need to experience the positive energetic and chemical connection that can only be felt, not described.

The magic of love is that it’s experienced so intensely, it can inspire and fulfill dreams, create hope, give birth to and save lives, soothe the soul, and so much more. Love is like energy; we can not see it, instead we experience it and the effects it has on us and others.

Just as energy is inseparable from who we are, love is inseparable from the lover, the one who loves. I’ve come to see love as a part of the energy that makes us who we are. Just as we can not see the energy of who we are, we only see the physical form that the energy takes and the impact or outcome when we express of our energy.

“How can we grow love?”

If I were to write a book called 5 More Languages of Love, I would describe these languages as personality characteristics; not strategies or behaviors, rather ways of being. I would use the 5 Languages to describe the lover, the one who holds the energy of love, and how that love is experienced, expressed and grown.

Because there is no one way to love or feel loved, we all end up being responsible for teaching others how to speak our unique language of love. After some thought, here is the dialect of my personal language of love. I hope by reading this, you are inspired to consider your own language, as well as the languages of your important others.

For me, the most powerful love languages are less about what you do, and more about who you are, how you are, and the way you express the energy of love.

Here are five more languages of love:

CURIOSITY

To me, curiosity is the engine of love. It encourages engagement, sparks interest, and fuels an active desire to know and understand the one you love. Curiosity is an openness to one another that does not base understanding on assumptions, stories, or projections. Curiosity communicates desire. Curiosity says, “You interest me, and I want to know you.”

ALLOWING

Allowing creates the feeling of acceptance. Allowing is not permission to misbehave, it is permission to simply be who you are; all of who you are, without fear that you will be judged, criticized, rejected or otherwise disconnected because of who you are.

Allowing is how I imagine the sky is to clouds. The sky seems so graceful and accepting of whatever the clouds may do – always a steady backdrop, creating room for what unfolds, and never can I imagine a time when the sky would say to the clouds, “you look a little too puffy today.”

FORGIVENESS

Because we are human, we are certain to make mistakes. Forgiving is the safety net of love. It is like a trampoline of sorts, offering a kind landing if we should falter, and just enough oomph to help us back up. To be forgiving is to ensure there is enough wiggle room to make mistakes, learn how to do it better next time, and feel better for having had the opportunity to learn.

KINDNESS

The sentiment I am trying to capture here is hard to put into just one word – it’s probably a concept that does not yet have a word, and yet it’s one of the most important languages to me. I feel most loved when I am in a positive, kind, playful, environment with laughter, silliness, vulnerability, and ease. It’s an energy, for sure, and like love, it’s much easier to feel than it is to describe. There is some way that energy speaks louder than actions, and for me to feel love, that energy needs to be positive and kind.

The one ingredient that seems to capture the essence of this part of love languages for me is a basic human kindness. Kindness is the sort of energetic vibration that radiates out to all beings, and it is consistent and true. Where there is kindness, oxygen seems to fill my lungs more easily, interactions go more smoothly.

Kindness is a form of gratitude, a gentle appreciation for all that is good by tending to the energy we pour into the world around us; a sensitivity to and appreciation for, the power of our own energy’s effect on those around us. Kindness allows us to breathe in hopefully and exhale peacefully. To feel loved, I need to experience a sincere sense of kindness in the company of the one I love. It is not enough that I sense their kindness toward me; trusting this love means I see this same kindness directed to others. It is a way of being in the world, a part of who you are.

TRUTH (AUTHENTICITY)

For some, the sentiment I’m reaching for here is talked about in terms of loyalty, fidelity, honesty, or even commitment. While related, they are not the same. To me, the characteristic of being true means that you are true to yourself, that you know and understand and love yourself, TRUTH IS ABOUT AUTHENTICITY. In the words of Oriah Mountain Dreamer, “I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself.” When you are true to yourself, I know you can be true to me. The feeling this provides is safety and security. If you know yourself, and you know how you feel, and it is deeply true to who you are, then I can trust that when you extend your love to me, it is true. This gives me the feeling that, no matter what happens, I am safe with you. The emphasis isn’t on ensuring that you stay, or knowing that you’ll never lie to me. The emphasis is on knowing that you will live a life that is true to who you really are and that your first commitment is to you so that the you I think is loving me, is the you to whom you are most true.

I CAN PREDICT THE TYPE OF PERSON YOU ARE ATTRACTED TO

… TRY MY QUIZ TO SEE IF IT’S TRUE

Healthy Relationship Goals Examples and Checklist

Five Key Areas of Relationship Success and Healthy Relationship Goals Examples

The Gottman Relationship Checkup is a 480 question, online assessment created by Dr’s John and Julie Gottman. With 40+ years of extensive scientific research on what makes relationships succeed, the Gottman’s have created a Relationship Checkup tool to examine in detail the five key areas of relationship success, and under each category are related relationship goals examples.

The major categories of importance for a healthy relationship according to scientific Gottman-based research. (Also, relationship goals examples)

Section 1: How strong are your friendship and intimacy?

We feel satisfied with our relationship.
We feel secure in our commitment to one another, without the fear of abandonment or being left.
We feel equally known by one another.
We share a mutual fondness and admiration for one another.
We show interest in one another and enjoy one another’s company.
We enjoy a satisfying and romantic connection.
We have satisfying sex and enjoy connecting sexually.
We connect sexually at a frequency that works well for both of us.
We feel a part of a team, united and do not suffer from loneliness.

Section 2: How does it feel to be in your relationship?

We know what to predict from one another and we feel safe in our relationship.
We share a mutual trust for one another and believe the other has our back.
We are equally committed to our relationship.
We are comfortable with one another’s emotions and have a shared desire to be a supportive comfort when one of us is not feeling emotionally or physically well.

Section 3: How well do you manage conflict?

Our conflict is something we do not fear because we know we have the skills to manage whatever disagreements arise.
We are capable of delaying conflict interactions until we are in a safe and appropriate setting to properly address the concerns at hand.
We feel respected and heard when we experience a disagreement. Neither of us feels overwhelmed or frozen with fear or the inability to think and speak, during a disagreement.
We value one another’s opinions and believe that we are heard by one another.
We are willing to compromise.
We manage our negative emotions and protect our relationship from negativity toward ourselves and one another.
When we experience a conflict, we find ways to understand one another and make peace with our differences of opinion. We are able to repair our connection and let the conflict go for good.
We feel emotionally connected.
We accept that stress is a part of life, and we support one another by seeking to make life easier for each other.
We maintain healthy boundaries between our relationship and the relationships we share with friends, extended family, work and other relationships.
We appreciate the importance of our mutual independence, and we do not place limits on one another that stems from insecurity.
We are faithful and honest.
We share basic values and goals.
We are equitable with household chores and child responsibilities.
We are in agreement with our financial decisions.
We experience joy, laughter, and fun together.
Our spirituality, religion and ethics are in alignment.
We agree on issues related to parenthood.
We manage distressing events as a team, supporting one another rather than turning against one another.
We resolve issues rather than keeping them alive. We accept that some differences will remain, and we allow this rather than continue working to “change,” the other.

Section 4: Are you headed in the same direction?

We have rituals that help us stay connected.
We respect one another’s personal and life goals and desire to assist one another in reaching them, while also nurturing our shared goals.

Section 5: Individual Areas of Concern

Neither of us abuse drugs or alcohol
We are emotionally stable and free of any self-harming thoughts.
We are safe with one another, both physically and emotionally.
We feel a sense of personal freedom without the threat of emotional or physical threat or harm.
We feel supported and encouraged, not degraded or criticized.
Sex is a positive thing in our relationship.
We do not experience any property damage when we disagree.
We are physically healthy and free of chronic health concerns.
We experience positive thoughts and feelings about one another and our relationship.
We are confident in ourselves and secure that we are viewed positively and well by others.
We are emotionally stable and at peace in our skin.
We are free of anxiety, depression, and anger.
We do not experience disabling fears or phobias.
Fears and Phobias
Do You Worry about What Others Think?
Our thoughts are clear and helpful.
We have normal appetites, neither over or under-eating.
We fall asleep easily, sleep well, and awake easily in the morning.
We are not focused on death or dying.
We are free of guilt

How do you rate with these relationship goals examples and checklist? To do the thorough Relationship Checkup and receive a detailed report with suggestions about how to improve the health of your relationship go here.

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