As we come together this holiday weekend to celebrate freedom, an idea that many of us are reflecting on, we wanted to discuss the idea of freedom and how it pertains to our intimate relationships. Freedom and autonomy are basic human needs and yet we see so many couples struggling to create proper space for them inside their intimacy. More freedom is an issue that nearly every person that we have coached wants or has wanted — in some way.
Whether it’s freedom to live authentically, freedom to travel, freedom to spend money, freedom to flirt or freedom to simply ask for what you want, this idea of navigating how to create space for each other's freedom poses many challenges to couples. Part of the reason for this struggle is that when couples come together and become a “we,” all too often they lose sight of the “me” of each individual. It’s easy and common for this to happen.
It’s essential to a certain extent to prioritize the needs of your partner and the relationship over your own. During this process however, it’s easy to become disconnected from your own needs for freedom and autonomy in the name of "love" and in service of compromise and wanting to avoid conflict. Freedom in relationships comes from two places.
The first is the ability for each person to be able to tell the truth about what their needs for freedom are. This requires people to be truly honest with themselves and their partners, a challenge for many of us. We have all been brainwashed to.