Many people come to therapy in order to help understand and then change their unhealthy relationship patterns. Over time, they have begun to notice that they are attracted to a ‘type’ – perhaps they tend to choose someone who is controlling or dependent, emotionally unavailable or needy. Givers tend to be attracted to takers and those who are passive to those who are dominant. In any case, they do the work – uncovering the pattern, figuring out how and why that dynamic has appealed to them and then looking at what a healthy relationship does look like. They have goals to not repeat the pattern, to act on the red flags, to have a healthy relationship.
For anyone who has had a relationship pattern that tends to run hot and cold or one in which love and approval are intertwined, sometimes entering into a healthy relationship seems boring. They have met someone who fits the criteria of a healthy relationship, and yet this niggling feeling comes in that there isn’t much ‘spark.’
It is at this point that we can’t confuse consistency with incompatibility. Healthy people tend to be emotionally consistent, stable and dependable. If we confuse that solidity with ‘boring’, we may be landing in seeking what is familiar, not what is healthy.
We are much better served to first recognize the default position so as to stay the course to see if compatibility is present – to feel he stability of a healthy relationship, to be able to rely on its foundation of trust, commitment and securely attached love. To understand in this case that ‘boring’ is good. 😉
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