Feeling Motivated to Build and Foster Healthy Relationships

Quote: “Daring to set boundaries is about having the courage to love ourselves even when we risk disappointing others.” -Brene Brown

This month, my theme is building and fostering healthy relationships. On my YouTube channel, I share some real-life, present-day experiences in my romantic partnership with Mister. I also talk about my relationships with family, friends, and the community here in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. I highlight the importance of compatibility, shared values, boundaries and respectful communication. In this blog, I will explore this huge topic in greater depth. I’ll also share insights from other authors, in books I’ve read, and some titles on my must-read list.

I’m going to dive right into romantic relationships, by discussing my own history with men. I’ve been a helpless romantic since I was a little girl. While friends dreamed about becoming firefighters or veterinarians, I dreamed about meeting my prince charming and having babies. Not surprising, I suppose, that I started down the relationship road early. Unfortunately, my immaturity didn’t bode well for discerning what qualities to look for in a husband. My choices in a partner were guided by the allure of chemistry and hormones, like many people. I never considered things like compatibility, shared values, boundaries and communication.

My first two forays into romantic partnerships failed miserably. The first one didn’t survive past courtship and an unplanned pregnancy. The second lasted more than twenty-five years, but it was a rollercoaster of unhealthy interactions from the very beginning. When I felt my marriage crumbling hardly before it began, I was so consumed with raising my children, I wasn’t able to make time to address our issues, so they simply festered, into resentment and dysfunction.

One of the first tools I used to try and save my marriage was self-help books. I scoured the relationship section of the library, a free intervention that I could implement according to a flexible schedule that put children, work, and household tasks first. The first title I remember vividly was Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus, by John Gray. He was interviewed by Oprah, which I considered high praise and a lofty endorsement.

At that time in my life, the premise that women and men are so different as to be aliens, from other planets no less, seemed perfectly reasonable, especially in light my own polar union. You couldn’t find two people less alike and more poorly matched than him and I. Yet even at that time, I felt Gray’s stereotypes, of women as emotional creatures who like nothing more than to shop, and men as tough guys fixated on sports, did little to help me find common ground and build a healthy relationship. I nodded my head, but still kept butting it against his.

Another book that stands out in my memory is The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman. While it was a bit simplistic as a tool for our complex challenges, the five love languages made sense to me and my experience. Words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service, and physical touch were the ways different people feel love that Mr. Chapman described. That information didn’t help much either, because my language was quality time, which I received very little of, and his was physical touch, which was also sporadic and even our expression of intimacy was unhealthy.

My first husband and I left a graveyard of marriage counsellors in our wake. We tried techniques like mirroring, anger release and cognitive behavior therapy, hoping to uncover our individual blocks. We went to a sex therapist, which resulted in a ten-page contract of non-negotiables. At least we knew all the things that didn’t work. We enrolled in weekend retreats and workshops. Yet nothing could fix something that was more than broken. Nothing could un-do the damage done, nor erase the pain we inflicted on one another over those long, difficult years.

The good news is, as stubborn as I was that I could crack the code, I finally conceded that the only solution was divorce. I acknowledged that we wrong for one another, and let him go. I freed myself from the ties that bound me; the vows I’d made, and the life we’d built together. I was finally able to stop walking on eggshells, enduring criticism and verbal abuse, and allowing the slow extinguishing of the light of my soul.

The even better news is, all the years of therapy and self-help manuals proved to be a fabulous foundation to build a healthy relationship upon. It’s true, we often learn best from our mistakes. When true love and divine compatibility manifested into my life, I had so much deeper awareness, maturity and wisdom.

While learning from experience is often the best and most impactful way of gaining wisdom, I can’t resist offering one tidbit of advice. Do your own work. Before committing to a long-term relationship. If at all possible, spend those early adult years of your life in curiosity about who you are. Learn how to listen to your intuition, and how to discern reality from fantasy, egoic desire from divine truth. Then, follow your heart, and let your spirit guide you.

One of the most important discoveries I made in my quest to learn how to foster healthy relationships within my family was when I learned about the concept of boundaries. I was in my early forties when I heard this terminology for the first time. I was previously unaware that such things existed, let alone of their importance. Once I realized it was possible to identify my responsibilities and separate them from the responsibilities of others, a massive shift occurred.

I was pleasantly surprised to read it was appropriate for me to decide who could touch me and how. It blew me away when I felt supported to have my own thoughts and to allow my family members the freedom to have theirs, even when we disagreed. I learned how to disengage from the unrealistic or manipulative emotions of others. As I grew in my awareness, I felt in awe. I could distinguish between God’s will and my own. I learned how to trust life and myself too. I was finally able to dispel the notion, that so many women of my generation were taught, that having boundaries and limits was selfish and unloving.

I’ve read a litany of manuals and non-fiction self-help about communication, and how important it is in all relationships. Yet my most valuable lessons also came to me from my spiritual awareness. When I started to meditate and practice mindfulness, when I dove into uncovering who my authentic self is and started to love and accept myself as I am, I realized that being open and honest in my communication with people I love is absolutely vital for me. It’s what creates trust, and for me, there is no relationship without trust. I also learned how to be a better listener, which, of course, is as important as speaking with clarity.

Somewhere along the way, I also uncovered the truth, that knowing gained from my own experience far exceeds learning gained from other people’s advice. As I embraced my authentic purpose as a storyteller who writes from the heart, I found out how powerful it can be to be shown an example, through a story, instead of told, through a manifesto. With this new wisdom to guide me, I’m devouring novels that deal with the themes I’m drawn to and adding them to my growing list of must-reads. 

My list of must-reads is massive, but I’m still open to suggestions. The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls, comes up whenever I google-search for novels about families.  Far From the Tree, by Robin Benway, was given high praise from my youngest daughter. At our compound library, I just picked up The Liar’s Club, by Mary Karr, a memoir that has received rave reviews from a variety of different sources. I can also highly recommend several books I have read, including The Island Walkers by John Bemrose, A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews, and A Fine Balance, by Rohinton Mistry.

If you have your own list of favourite fiction that dive into the messy arena of relationships with insight and vulnerability, please contact me. I’m always on the search for character-driven, emotionally-impacting stories that will propel me along my journey and nourish my quest for transformation and self-growth.

So yeah, I’m feeling motivated to build and foster healthy relationships.