If Your Partner Isn't Ready, You Aren't Ready Either

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This is a common thing we hear from one partner in a relationship…

MY PARTNER HAS A LOT OF WORK TO DO.

THEY’RE NOT READY. I’M READY. BUT THEY’RE NOT. THEY STILL HAVE A LOT OF WORK TO DO.

THEY NEED TO FIGURE THEIR SHIT OUT.

THEY NEED TO WORK ON THEMSELVES.

MY PARTNER NEEDS TO LEARN HOW TO COMMUNICATE.

THE ONUS IS ON MY PARTNER TO WORK ON THEMSELVES.

I MIGHT HAVE WORK TO DO, BUT MY PARTNER HAS MORE WORK, OR HAS DEEPER WORK TO DO.

It’s this self-inflation from one partner, pinning the sole weight of responsibility onto their partner’s shoulders as to why they’re having issues in the relationship, or drowning in a sea of relational dysfunction.

This is PARTICULARLY common when one partner is in the personal growth space and the other is not.

The partner in the personal growth space sees that if their partner just started doing the work they’re doing, all their relational quarrels would finally be resolved and they could have the relationship they desire at last.

But here is the thing: if your partner is not ready, neither are you.

If your partner has work to do on themselves, so do you.

And guess what?

YOU HAVE JUST AS MUCH WORK TO DO AS YOUR PARTNER!

We quickly run into problems when we begin trying to compare the work each of us has to do and engage in this battle of superiority over our emotional intelligence and how well we know ourselves and have learned to work with our inner landscape.

Sure that work is obviously going to be different work, but I can promise you that if you’re in a relationship with someone, you likely are in a similar place in your own emotional evolution.

It doesn’t matter if one of you is in personal growth and the other is not, if you have created a relationship with someone and been attracted to someone and drawn to them, that most definitely means you both are at similar places in your own emotional development.

Brought together for specific reasons to help one another to grow and develop into the next stage of your evolution.

Cause if we complain that our partner is emotionally unavailable, guess what?

We probably are to. If we were emotionally available, we wouldn’t have been attracted or drawn to someone who was that disconnected to their emotional world in the first place.

We complain our partner doesn’t know how to communicate, guess what?

We probably don’t either. That’s because communication is about communicating in a way where we can actually be heard, so clearly, however we’re communicating with our partner is not establishing trust and creating enough of a safe container for them to feel like they can come forward with their truth.

Also, listening is just as important as being able to talk, so if we’re talking but refusing to listen because we think we know better than them or know them better than they know themselves, we’re not actually communicating.

If we can’t speak in a way where we actually create room for the person listening to open their heart to what we’re saying, we’re not communicating in an effective manner.

If we can’t really listen to a person and what they’re REALLY trying to tell us, rather than distorting what they’re saying through our own preferred lens of reality, we’re not actually listening in a way that is aligned with healthy communication.

"This self-righteous inflation and comparing behaviour can be because of a fear of vulnerability. We fear having the microscope pointed in our direction. It’s a lot easier to criticize others and label them the problem than actually turn the microscope in our direction and look at our own shit."

So self-inflating, criticizing, staying angry and belittling can be done to protect our own inner shame, shadow and fears that we don’t want to look at.

It could also mean there is a blind spot we’re not aware of. We’re being operated by a lot of shadow tendencies, disconnected from certain aspects of ourselves, certain parts of our unconscious conditioning that are driving our behaviours and driving us to self-protect in relational battles of superiority.

There can also be an unhealthy degree of ego involved. An unwillingness to be a student to our partner every day. This self-righteous belief that we know our partners better than they know themselves. That we know what’s best for them without listening to them and allowing them to show us.

There needs to be a level of ego death and a humble realization in a relationship that we have been brought together because we’re both at similar levels in our respective emotional evolutions, brought together to both teach and learn from one another.

Brought together to integrate new parts of ourselves, to bring more unconscious aspects of ourselves into the field of awareness for us to work with.

IT IS NEVER ONE-SIDED.

If your partner isn’t ready to take the next step in your relationship, neither are you.

If your partner struggles with co-dependency, I can assure you do too.

It’s about claiming OUR PIECE that is ours to own and work with inside of the relational container. To understand that self-inflating ourselves and engaging in this self-righteous battle of superiority where we live in judgement of our partner is the active process that is not only disconnecting us from our partner, it’s disconnecting us from ourselves.

It’s stunting our growth and keeping us in this protected stagnation where we don’t actually grow.

In relationships, we attract and are attracted to people at a similar level in our evolution. We are attracted to those who are at a similar journey in their path to individuating and differentiating from the family of origin. This is the case every time.

You and your partner almost always have the SAME AMOUNT of work to do. It might be different work, but it’s the same amount of work.

Even if you’re invested into personal growth work and you’re constantly trying to get your partner TO DO THE WORK.

So when you criticize your partner and constantly rag them FOR NOT DOING THE WORK, you’re actually just criticizing yourself but your way of avoiding your own discomfort is by putting the weight of all your work onto your partner’s shoulder as a protection mechanism.

Are you loving them for their potential and not exactly who they are showing you they are?

Do you love them on expectation they transform into something greater than they currently are?

Are you running your own agenda or actually tuning into what your partner is really, truly telling you?

Do we legitimately believe we’re more “evolved” than our partner?

When we love like this, it’s because there is a reality we’re disconnected from, a projection, a shadow, a hurt we don’t want to turn towards.

When we live in judgement of our partners, we’re not connected to our heart, we’re living in our own judgement of self, fuelling a disconnect from ourselves that leads us to shame and criticize our partners.

Besides, if we chose someone not in personal growth and continue to stay with someone who has told us that personal growth is not their path, when we know it's our path and continue to complain without doing anything about it, what does this say about us?

We either appreciate them for everything they are, or we move on, understanding that choosing someone similarly committed to a path of growth and healing is a non-negotiable for us in love.

Anytime I see one partner putting onus on the other person, I know the other person is self-inflating and disassociating from their shadow.

This is automatic response to protect older wounded parts of themselves they don’t want to look at. They self-inflate and put weight onto their partner or their former partner’s work as a way to shed the weight of discomfort they can’t sit with.

"They turn the microscope on their partner, to take it off of themselves."

For whoever this person is who puts the weight on their partner’s shoulders, they are always disassociated from their shadow and are living through their shadow.

This is called self-inflation, a puffing out of one’s self, in order to protect tender underlying parts of themselves they’re not willing to access.

I’ll give you an example with under-functioning and over-functioning....

Say a couple breaks up because the woman claims her ex had BOY ENERGY and was not individuated from his mother and was not enough of a man.

I guarantee the woman is just as co-dependent as the “boy” was. She would not have been attracted to that in the first place if she wasn’t.

Both the under-functioner and the over-functioner are JUST as co-dependent as each other but in different ways.

But the over-functioner puts all the emphasis on the other person being the “problem” and reason the relationship didn’t work, but until the over-functioner makes contact with the part of them that was willing to overstep their own needs time and time again, try to save someone and over-function for their partner, they will continue to create a similar pattern in all relationships.

The thing is, if we’re apart of a relationship that was dysfunctional and co-dependent in some capacity, we have just as much work to do as the other person who was in that relationship with us who we claim was the “sole reason” it didn’t work.

If we don’t believe that’s the case, then we’re disassociated from our shadow because we only attract and are attracted to people at a similar place in the individuating process. This is always the case.

On a spiritual level, relationships come together because both sides have important lessons to learn and integrate in their own ways, but it’s always at a similar level.

When we get righteous and claim our partner IS the problem or WAS the problem in terms of not being willing to ‘work on themselves,’ it’s probably because the righteous person is operating through their shadow and they are self-inflating to protect older undigested hurt.

Knowing this, it means every breakup or ending is an invitation to deeper work. Cause if we were attracted to that person and built a dynamic that did not work, it’s always equally because both people are calling each other into deeper parts of themselves.

I promise if you continue to self-inflate, put blame on your partner or your ex, you are robbing yourself of your work that is necessary to bring you to the next level of your relational life. And if you continue to cast the weight of your pain onto your partner or your ex, you will just recreate the exact same pattern with the next person.

Every breakup, is an invitation there are parts of ourselves we still need to explore, we still need to meet, we still need to integrate.

Cause if your partner was not ready, it simply means the Universe has brought you to this point because you still have more work to do before you’re ready for what your heart desires.

Whether this comes at the conclusion of a relationship ending, or at the junction of making a deeper relational commitment such as marriage, moving in together, or starting a family…if one of us is not there, it means you aren’t there either.

If they still have work to do in order to prepare for this next stage, it means you do too. If there needs to be growth and maturation for one of you, it means there needs to be for both of you.

While the work may be different, there is still the same amount of work. We attract partners at similar stages of their own growth and development.

Knowing that, it means our best teacher is the container for this love. Whether at the conclusion of a relationship, or working towards taking our love to the next level of commitment, this container is forever here to humble me, to teach me, to remind me there are always parts of me I am learning to hold, to be with, to forever welcome deeper into my heart.

Sometimes this realization can be scary and painful and hard, so you’re trying to protect the hurt, trying to avoid diving deep into the uncomfortable feelings, because you don’t want to come into contact with the part of you that is not ready or feels the need to project certain things.

It’s your job to access your humility, access your hurt, access the underlying pain you’re projecting to your partner rather than welcoming it all the way into your heart.

It is never just one person, it is both of you together, brought together for divine reasons, to call each other deeper and further into your own work.

Even in the wake of an ending, they were not the wrong person, they were exactly the right person to bring us to the next stage of our own growth and evolution.

Always remember: If they are not ready or were not ready, it means you aren’t ready either.

The success of all your future love, whether with this person or someone else, depends on your ability to embrace and accept that to be true.

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