Your partner deserves to know the real you. To be well and truly loved and to love your partner fully requires you to strip away all pretense and show, and to be authentically raw and real together. This may sound scary and hard, but it’s really the only way to go!
For those who have had a hard road in life, family dysfunction, addiction or domestic abuse, the prospect of allowing your-self to be completely vulnerable and open to ANYONE may be terrifying. Having spent your life building coping mechanisms, reading the moods of people and their “vibe” and adjusting your behavior and persona accordingly, the concept of being your authentic self, raw and vulnerable is hard to wrap your head around. How do you choose one way to be, when you are used to living like an emotional chameleon and only showing the side of yourself that you feel is appropriate to the given situation?
The answer is to find someone that feels safe. Having a partner that is authentically yours gives you permission to be the same. It’s a good idea to share with your loved one that you are struggling with idea that you need to feel that your relationship is a judgment free place where you can be emotionally raw and real with one another. Have a lot of conversations around what it means to be authentic. If you feel like you are still holding back, some counseling might help you to understand why this is happening and how to face your fears.
We’ve all been hurt before. Some of us have had our hearts broken more than once. I hope that you don’t let those past hurts get in the way of your present relationship and future happiness. It will take a conscious effort on your part to strip away the carefully constructed walls you’ve erected over the years, to peel away the masks and get to the core of your true emotional self. Once you feel secure with your partner, and have a strong emotional bond of trust you can feel comfortable being your true and authentic self. You know that your partner is not going to reject you if you say or do something they don’t agree with, and you know in your heart that they love you no matter what.
It can be a painful process to strip away all of your protections, but knowing that you are free to be yourself, to be who you truly are is a joyful and intense kind of freedom. It’s worth the inner work you need to do to recognize these complex coping mechanisms for what they are and to put the past in perspective. Nothing that’s happened to you in the past should be given the power to control the present. You may have a history of self-sabotage, of not letting anyone get too close to you. Don’t let this pattern of protection ruin your chances for a true and authentic relationship. It can be difficult to break old habits, but having a loving partner in a real and authentic love relationship is worth it.
It takes courage and dedication to open yourself up, to risk your heart. When you find someone that’s worthy of your love, they are deserving of 100% of your love and commitment. It can feel scary and risky to live this way, but the rewards make it all worthwhile.
