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Narratives, Part 5

Imagine you are going to co-author a story (or a book) about your relationship. Imagine it using tales of your successful commitments and accomplishments – but also the story of your desire for one another.

relationship bookLesser among equals

Though of equal importance to your relationship, desire does not compete well for time and energy. It lives within the time left over from the many commitments you’ve made. So although desire is the soul of “aliveness”, it’s also less commonplace, more fragile, fluid and elusive than the world of careers, domestic management, in-laws, pets (if any) and oh yes….money.

Desire falls prey

Desire can easily fall prey to efficiency and sameness and compressed time frames. But what’s really missing is a mutual understanding: that the relationship(s) are fundamentally based on a shared imaginative journey. That journey is filled with narratives. (And those narratives are loaded with thriving templates.)

Functional but deadening

Neatly scripted sexuality is functional (positive in many ways), but its repeat mode suppresses the desire to learn and experience new things.  Instead, how will you engage your partner(s)’ imagination(s), in a sustainable, ongoing way, defying the numbing familiarity and isolating distance enforced by much of everyday life?

wellspring of desire

The wellspring

An imaginative life together is the wellspring of both love and eroticism. What “imaginative” means can take many forms. But it’s a part of committed relationship that socially and culturally speaking isn’t well understood or emphasized (especially as a long term relationship practice.) And yet the lack of desire – a desire typically not fed internally or externally – is the principal reason marriages end.

These are the high stakes of keeping desire fed and thriving.

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