There are three vital factors that you need before a relationship can work well enough to last. The first is to be able to love each other unconditionally. The second is to have a commitment to the relationship and your partner. But this is difficult unless you both already have a third factor in place.

However, ‘being my true self’ does not mean having the freedom of ‘doing’ anything I like. ‘Doing’ that is acting out my needs and wants is very different from just honestly being the person who has those wishes.

Let’s say you have a partner who asks you to give up all interest in other men or women. You could perhaps pretend to totally ‘give up’ such an interest but your commitment would be based on dishonesty. If, however you can restrict your expression of that ‘interest’ to ways you can share tactfully, with your partner, without ’doing’ or acting out that ‘interest’ then you can maintain an open connection and still be authentic.

In this way you retain the ability to be honest about who you really are while keeping your commitment to fidelity with your partner. This in turn leaves them more freedom as well to be who they really are within the relationship.

The ability to commit to the other person and at the same time allow them the freedom to be who they are, creates an interdependent partnership, described in the box below. This kind of sharing involves balancing responsibility, giving and taking freely between each partner as needs arise, but not to the point of over care taking on the one hand or becoming too dependant or codependent on the other.

In a successful relationship, both partners:

1. Can give and receive unconditional love

2. Can give and receive conditional commitment

3. Feel a limited freedom to ‘be’ and ‘feel’ who they really are, while knowing they can’t always expect to ‘act out’ or ‘do’ some aspects of that individuality.

4. Share information about these differences in their individuality, understand them and laugh together about them.

This by the way is why a new relationship is so exciting. There you have the same elements minus the conditional commitment. This amplifies the freedom we feel at that time to be who we really are. If our new partner appears more than happy with us that way then for a short time it seems as though we have at last found the perfect relationship, especially if there is some good sex involved as well.

However, at the moment in the new relationship that ‘commitment’ comes into the picture all this can change. If either partner sees commitment as meaning ‘Now you (or now I) have to give up being who we are and start being who the other person wants us to be.’ then the relationship becomes the responsibility of their inner selves. So both partners in a successful relationship also need to:

5. Have an awareness of their inner selves, can see and work with these separately and balance them through their aware adult

6. Have given up the idea that the selves can or should handle relationship problems.

Creating a relationship that allows for commitment plus love plus both remaining individuals (interdependence) is not easy to do but if both partners can work from their aware adult it is achievable. The result is more than worth the effort. I have a personal belief that all this works rather better, when both partners also feel free to talk about the spiritual aspects of their aware adult, whatever those might be like. This will not be so for every couple.

In each case Jack has a desire to try out a new and different activity during lovemaking, something that has never been mentioned by either partner previously. For the sake of the example let’s say this involves one of them wearing the other’s underwear. That would require a greater degree of uninhibitedness than Jill is likely to agree to, so let’s assume that in none of the following cases will Jack and Jill ever get round to actually doing the underwear swap. We can learn much, however from how they each handle the ‘not doing’ process.

In the first case Jack does not feel free enough to even suggest the idea, knowing that Jill is unlikely to agree or may be shocked by it. In this relationship it is not OK for Jack even to talk about what he wants or to be who he is. In the second case, Jack talks openly about with Jill about the suggested ‘activity’. Her one-above selves use this as an opportunity to shame and criticise Jack, suggesting that he is sick and perverted and needs psychiatric treatment. They also stop Jill talking about who she really is or what she wants or feels in an authentic way.

However, in the fifth case there is a noticeable difference. Jack describes the activity openly and authentically. Jill responds with the comment ‘I don’t think so’ and then both partners laugh!

Maybe Jack doesn’t get round to experiencing the thrill of exchanging underwear in bed, but both have had the chance to be who they are and are able to enjoy a moment of intimacy because they could share their authentic thoughts and feelings on this unusual topic. Each was able to take a strong though opposing position and each could happily maintain respect for the other for being who they are.