December 09, 2019

Part 2: Building a Strong Relationship Bridge

December 09, 2019/ Dr. Chelsea Page

In Part One of this series, we talked about up-leveling your relationship by having the right tools, using them consistently and up-leveling yourself. This helps to strengthen and grow that Relationship Bridge where connection, love, and intimacy live. To have this you want to build your Relationship Bridge in a way that is strong and in the right shape so that it is sustainable. To understand the right formation for a strong relationship, we are going to dive into the alphabet.

This is part two of a 3-part series. Make sure to check out Part One: How to Up Level your Relationship and Part Three: The Intentional Woman's Relationship to get all the goods!

The Non-Sustainable Relationship Bridge

To understand the strong Relationship Bridge, let’s first look at what we don’t want to build but can happen in many relationships if we aren’t building intentionally. Let’s imagine that in each relationship there is an “I” for each partner. So you represent one “I” and your partner represents the other “I”. You and your partner are two “I”'s together but if they aren’t connected in any way they are just two islands and two individual and separate people. No Relationship Bridge and therefore no relationship.

Now Imagine the letter “A”. Where the left side of the A is made up of one “I” and the other is made up of the other “I”. The line connecting the two is the Relationship Bridge. So with the Letter “A”, we have two individual people and there is a linking bridge between them. What has happened, though, is each person has built their side of the bridge in a way that depends on the other’s support to stay up. This happens a lot to people-pleasers and overachievers who do all the effort to ensure their partner is “upright” and taking care of them.

The problem? Yes, we want to be available and supportive in our relationship BUT not have to do all the effort to keep your partner upright, and therefore the whole bridge upright. All of the energy is going into focusing on the other person rather than on yourself or the connecting bridge between you. What happens when you feel too much weight of your partner leaning on you when you are doing all the things? What happens when your partner perhaps withdraws? What happens if you get so burnt out and exhausted from holding all the relationship bridge up and you withdraw? Then your side of the bridge, you, collapse and the whole thing crumbles. And as I said in part one of this series, without you there is no relationship.

Also with this “A” bridge then the relationship can only grow so high. And as we talked about last week, in order to uplevel your relationship and feel stronger and stronger in intimacy you need to continue to grow your side of the bridge, meaning yourself. If you are dependent on your partner, if you are relying on him for your happiness by trying to please him and do all the things, then you are not taking self-responsibility for building your side of the bridge. And if you are focusing so much on your partner and making him happy and holding him up then you are being over-responsible for his side of the bridge. You need to focus on your side of the bridge.

A Strong and Sustainable Relationship Bridge

Let’s now imagine the letter “H”. Here you have the two individual people as well as the Relationship Bridge between. With this formation, you and your Relationship Bridge are strong and mighty. Here you each manage your own side of the bridge and you both focus on it being strong and stable. You focus on balancing the relationship so each of you trust the other to do their own work and so you pull back and let your partner build his own side of the bridge. Because you are an Intentional Woman, you only focus on what you can control, which is your side of the bridge.

When you focus on your side of the bridge you are self-aware and self-strengthening. You have grabbed the tools you need to uplevel yourself. You are both upright on your own, without anyone doing more of their fair share of the work. You or your partner doesn't feel the pressure of the other for their happiness or trying to do things perfectly. Instead, you are each focused on building the bridge higher and higher. Meaning each of you are growing as individuals AND your relationship grows right along with you.

Now keep in mind that you might not 100% have an “H” formation for your relationship. There are times that you may need to lean on your partner for support and there may be times that your partner will need to lean on you. This means that at times your relationship structure may look more like the “A” bridge, and that’s OK. The key is that you don’t form the “A” bridge as the standard in your relationship. If you remember the 80/20 rule when it comes to your relationship, we can apply it here and know it’s OK that 80ish percent of the time your relationship is in the “H” formation and 20ish percent of the time it’s an “A”. Knowing this you can then ask yourself, what am I going to start doing today that will help me create the “H” relationship so I’m not holding too much of the relationship weight?

This is part two of a 3-part series. Make sure to check out Part One: How to Up Level your Relationship and Part Three: The Intentional Woman's Relationship to get all the goods!

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