The Deeper Want
El Deseo Más Profundo
A student navigates a pivotal moment of relationship commitment, exploring how fear, avoidance, and conditioned patterns obscure a deeper knowing about what one truly wants.
The Deeper Want
A student navigates a pivotal moment of relationship commitment, exploring how fear, avoidance, and conditioned patterns obscure a deeper knowing about what one truly wants.
I'm experiencing a really poignant moment of relationship tension. It's been there on some level throughout, and it centers around commitment. My partner is wanting more commitment, and I find myself feeling resistant to that. I don't know how much of that is my own avoidance and attachment wounding, and how much of it is my intuition telling me something important: that this might not be the right fit. I suspect it's a combination of the two.
There are also moments where I think, "This could actually work." The relationship has a lot of fundamental building blocks. It feels very workable, and occasionally I can see it long-term, starting a family. Sometimes I'm aware that life is what you make of it. I could probably find fault with any partner and any situation if I let myself. I've just been feeling really raw, because it's getting to a point where we either have to part ways or take the next step.
What kind of commitment is she asking for?
I don't know exactly what the next step is. We're partnered. We were open for a while and recently closed. We live separately. We recently shared our vision for the relationship, and there is some overlap, but she's more heavily oriented toward deepening the partnership. She wants a child, to live together. Basically, a deepening in partnership with an eye toward starting a family.
The question beneath the question
So it would be something like moving in together, since you're already in a closed relationship.
I think the core of the issue you're struggling with is: what do you want? It's a question of what you want, and then what you listen to when asking that question. I'm not referring to an actual inner dialogue of asking a question and then listening, but it has to do with what we attune to when we flow and move in life. What are we attending to?
Imagine there are waves, and you can surf waves that are deeper or more shallow. Obviously in the ocean there are only waves on the surface, but metaphorically, imagine you could surf something deeper. If you're riding the deeper wave, it's going to take you in a different direction.
The question "What do you want?" will give you conflicting answers, because there are different levels. The shallow waves go one direction, the deeper ones go another, and even among the shallow ones there are different directions. At a certain depth, there is only one movement, one wave, one direction. There is a kind of desire, a kind of want, that is simply deeper. The colloquial conversation around "listen to your heart" is pointing to that deeper want.
Seeing through the conditioned mind
As a way to clarify, you can look at your fears. You talked about avoidance, coping mechanisms, attachment styles. You seem to describe a more avoidant pattern, is that right?
Yes.
The only way to really break through that is to do what you're avoiding. But it's tricky, because it could also not be the right person. I intentionally wanted to present that as a kind of mental catch-22. At the level of thinking, you can't know. You can't resolve this by figuring it out, by thinking about it. And if you do resolve it that way, it's probably the wrong direction.
We use the mind; it's a tool. But something deeper needs to be attended to, and that only happens when we reach a kind of mental deadlock: when we see that the mind can look at one side and find all of these pros, look at the other and find all of these cons, and there's no way to add them up to arrive at a clear direction. When that is our experience, we are actually more free, and the mind is more free.
Our mind is always conditioned. A conditioned mind will have a bias. It will have many pros and very few cons in a certain situation, always strongly in favor of one thing over another. An avoidant mind is always going to be finding fault and reasons to get out. The reverse is true for a mind conditioned in the opposite way. A neutral mind, a free mind, will weigh the options and find them roughly equal. The mind can give you information, but it can't give you a direction. That is where we can go beyond thought. That is the conversation of the heart.
The same direction, a different quality
Within the conditioned mind, there is an emotional reaction. The mind says, "Get out of here, I don't want this relationship," and it creates a strong pull. But that's the conditioned, biased mind. Then there could be a deeper sense that might even point in the same direction: this may not be the right relationship. But if you're listening to that deeper source, the way in which the relationship ends will be different. It will be more open, more heartful, more loving, more painful, more sad, as opposed to reactive, closed, and numb.
Or you could find that the deeper want is: I really want to explore this with this person.
What gives you information is paying attention to what your fears are, because that is what obscures the deeper wanting.
Growing up and breaking the loop
I think the challenge of life here falls into what I'd call growing up, as opposed to waking up. There are two aspects of this work, and they're not separable. What you're going through is the challenge of how to deepen and move through something. At one level, is this just the habit? If you find yourself thinking, "Here I am again," that shows you you're in a mind loop. Nothing ever repeats. Only in our imagination does a situation repeat. Only in the mental-emotional realm can we construct a situation that feels repeated. It will have a similar emotional tone, a similar thought pattern, but the actual situation is completely new. It always is. The mental-emotional pattern loops, but that is precisely what we can move out of.
I hope nothing I say is suggesting any specific direction. That choice is up to you.
I think that's what I struggle with on some level, because I know enough by now to catch the mental habits, or at least work with them. There's enough communication and flexibility in the relationship that some of that can be accommodated or allowed to move through. I have experienced moments of surfing those deeper waves.
We all have. It's not a rare thing.
But it's interesting to me that at various times it leads in different directions. So, as you said, it's a choice only I can make. What I'm struggling with is the anxiety of making that choice, because I've noticed that if I feel one direction, I can catch that wave and attune myself more to that frequency.
The one-year question
Think of it this way: if you had one year to live, what would you do?
It's funny. The first thing that came to mind was: go party. Just have a lot of connections, experience the smorgasbord of relational delight available in this land of being in human form. But my second thought was: what if life continues? And in that case, I think I might want to have a child, even if I'm not going to be around to raise that child. It seems like the more meaningful path.
Notice that you're still not talking about your partner. A child you could have in many ways: adoption, a surrogate mother, a sperm donation.
That actually comes up sometimes. It's strange that the times when I feel most stable in the direction of staying together are when I think about having a child, which I find surprising. Often it's the opposite for people; that's the scariest thing. But for some reason it settles my system.
You make a good point, though, that it's almost less about her in that scenario. I really like our connection. I really like her as a person. Honestly, part of the appeal is that I think if we did separate, we'd make really good co-parents. There's a lack of drama, a lot of integrity that she brings, and I show up and meet that. I've never been in a relationship that felt so functional. At the same time, I worry that it lacks what you could describe, perhaps pejoratively, as a Disney fairy-tale kind of romance.
The fairy tale and the avoidant pattern
Have you had relationships that do have that?
I have, and they were relationships that didn't work out. There was unavailability on their part, or too much unconscious material causing conflict.
Notice that pattern. The Disney fairy-tale romance is where the other person is not available, where there is no real opportunity or possibility of commitment. You can project the fairy tale because it's going to end. There's no danger. "I can project the fairy tale."
I don't think I knew it was going to end in those moments, but maybe my system knew on some level.
What I was getting at is this: once you settle into a relationship that's committed, the fairy tale ends. We're going very deep into the realm of psychology here, and I would really recommend therapy. But this is very much the work of relationship, attachment style, the journey of maturing, and how one deepens by taking more responsibility and commitment.
What you describe as the fairy-tale Disney romance: in order to continue growing, that has to end. But after burning, like the phoenix, a relationship can be reborn in a different way, and it is much more beautiful, much more valuable, much deeper. It can only be discovered by going through the ending of that fantasy.
The romance is naturally safe to project in a relationship that's not working or not committed. All of the fantasy flourishes easily there because the risk isn't yet real. The heart can open, it can go into full fantasy. But once there's true commitment, once it's long-term, once children are involved, it has to do with what you truly want. I'm advocating for growing up, but how that looks for you is only up to you.
Waking up and growing up
There are archetypal journeys. The human body and mind, like a tree, evolves in certain ways. Much of what I talk about here focuses on the rarer aspect: waking up, which has to do with realizing that we are not the human body-mind, waking up from the belief that that's what we are.
But at the same time, and this is paradoxical in a sense (though not really), there is an experience of humanity, and I work with that as well, because the two are not separate.
What you are right now is already free. Being in a lifelong commitment cannot touch that. Being outside of a lifelong commitment cannot touch it either. The freedom we desire is something we already are, and we cannot find it in circumstance. We get tempted to find freedom in a relationship style, a lifestyle, a work style: open, closed, permanent, long-term, consulting, employee. That is an endless, fruitless search.
I'm curious, because I've heard you talk about the question, "What do you want?" And I've heard other Buddhist teachers talk about desire, the wholesome form of desire, as part of the path. To me, it can feel at odds with this concept that you're already free and there's nothing to do.
I understand that. It does appear to be at odds, because you imagine that freedom is the fulfillment of desire, or at least the movement toward fulfillment.
More like the journey.
But it's not just the journey. What if the desire is never going to be fulfilled?
I think that's okay. If you're in, say, a battle of the bands, it doesn't really matter whether you win the prize. It's about whether you showed up and moved toward it. There are mindsets where you have to be the winner or you'll be devastated, but there are others where that's not the case.
Even with the possibility of non-fulfillment, the journey is still oriented toward resolution.
With some things, like in a romantic context, it can be painful not to "get the girl." Having children feels higher stakes. When I play sports, a very small part of me cares about winning; mostly it's about the game, the people, the enjoyment. But I'll admit there are times when the stakes feel really high.
Her life in your hands
The choice whether to be with this person and commit to what you've been talking about is a big choice, in large part because there's another person involved. Your choice can change another person's life directly.
She has already chosen. She wants more commitment. Now it's up to you, one hundred percent up to you, what journey not only your life takes but hers. She has, in a sense, surrendered her life into your hands, saying, "Choose. Do you want me or not? Do you want more with me or not?"
That is a big choice. I'm not taking away her freedom or her responsibility. But she's already done her part. She's asked for it. She's communicated, probably in more than one way. Now it's up to you. This person has placed her life in your hands in the sense of partnership, relationship, future, possibly children, possibly one of the few chances she'll have to be a mother.
She's forty-one. I think that's the other dimension.
So if I'm talking to you as a friend: it's a big choice. Don't take too much time, because it's her time you're taking. If you're not serious, make up your mind.
That's especially what I've been feeling the last couple of days. She's on the cusp of invoking that choice herself.
And also, what an opportunity. What a gift. Do you believe you have a lot more chances and options?