Unapologetically You

"Supporting principles to guide you:
"1. Discover your partner.  ... What relationship best describes your partner?  And while you're at it, what style best describes you!  As I mentioned before, please resist the temptation to use this typologyas ammunition against one another.  Like any powerful tool, it can inflict damage if used improperly.  So use it with compassion in your relationship.
"2. Be unapologetically you.  Our task in committed relationships is not to change or become a different person.  Quiet the contrary: our task is to be unapologetically ourselves.  Home is not a place to feel chronically ashamed or to pretend we are someone we're not.  Rather, we can be ourselves while retaining our sense of responsibility to others and to ourselves.  And just as we unapologetically himself or herself.  In this way, we offer each other unconditional acceptance.
"Of course, being unapologetically ourselves doesn't mean we are reckless or uncaring about how we treat others, or that we can use this as an excuse to be our worst selves.  For example, if your partner is unfaithful or otherwise hurtful to you, he or she can't simply say, "Tough.  This is who I am.  Just accept it."  No.  This is a time when apology is definitely in order.  In fact, whenever your partner voices hurt, you need to focus less on being unapologetically yourself and more on tending to your partner's needs and concerns.  Remember the first guiding principle: creating a couple bubble allows partners to keep each other safe and secure.  Your mandate is to be unapologetically yourself as long as you also keep your partner safe.
"3. Don't try to change your partner.  You could say that we all change, and also that we never change.  Both are true.  And this is why acceptance is important.  We can and do change our attitudes, our behaviors, and even our brains over time.  However, the fundamental wiring that takes place during our earliest experiences stays with us from cradle to grave.  Of course, we can change this wiring in phenomenal ways through corrective relationships.  Sometime these changes transform all but the last remnants of our remembered fears and injuries.  But this should not be the goal of a couple's relationship.  No one changes from fundamentally insecure to fundamentally secure under conditions of fear, duress, disapproval, or threat of abandonment.  I guarantee that will not happen.  Only through acceptance, high regard, respect, devotion, support, and safety will anyone gradually grow more secure." -Stan Tatkin, Psy.D in Wired for Love

Being unapologetically you will help you and your relationship by knowing what you need and saying it.  Discovering your partner and their hurts is important to your relationship.  Accepting your partner for who they are will be hard and easy at the same time.

Renee Madison, MA, LPC, CSAT is a counselor in Colorado.  She can be reached for appointments at 303-257-7623 or 970-324-6928