The agony & the ecstasy
- A. N. Onymous
- 1 day ago
- 4 min read
Chapter two: frayed connections
If you've ever found yourself in the grip of a yoga dilemma, you're not alone. Each month, our resident yoga agony aunt turns your yogi-woes into yogi-yeses with sage yoga advice cultured by years of experience as both a teacher and a student.
In our second chapter, she investigates the trials and tribulations of true love when you're walking a different path to your partner.
Q:
“I’ve been with my partner for five years. Even though we connect in so many ways and I feel we are destined to be together, we're at different points in our life, spiritually. He has a keen interest in my beliefs and lifestyle, but we don't align completely. He happily goes along with what I want, but it makes me feel guilty. And if he doesn't join in, I feel frustrated and wish we could share this branch of my life on a deeper level. Are we eventually destined to fail because of the different paths we walk?”
A:
Firstly, congratulations on five years with your current partner - it's a remarkable achievement and you should both be proud to have navigated life together for this time. Life can be exponentially challenging, so having someone to navigate the journey with is a blessing.
Secondly, you’re not alone in how you feel. Many people I meet have experienced this divergence of paths with a partner at some point. Often, they are coping with changes to their attitude to life and orientation in how they wish to live, without the support of the person they love the most. It sounds like your partner doesn’t fall into that category.
When we become fervently passionate about a cause or something that is important to us, we can inadvertently get tunnel-vision and adopt an all or nothing approach. For example, yoga often attracts new interests and approaches to life – like eating a plant-based diet. This choice is well intended and comes from deep-rooted earnestness for embodying the values of yoga, like ahimsa. So, if the person we love doesn’t follow suit and relinquish life-long habits immediately, we can become frustrated and feel like they aren’t supporting our choices. But when we take a step back and look at the bigger picture, they usually are supporting us in some way - or many ways. Our passion has just temporarily blinded us from recognising how they are committing to us and our choices.
If your partner loves you, he will respect you and your choices. Holding you and your happiness in such esteem, he will support how you want to live. It might not be that he’s just going along with what you want, per se. Rather, he commends your commitment to your new path and by participating in your interests, he’s passively gaining some value too. Believe me when I say that no one would steer off the normal course of living if they really didn’t want to!
There’s still so much stigma around yoga and living an intentional life. It can be off-putting to many; to be judged and stereotyped in the way we often are. When someone’s brave enough to embrace their authentic self, like you have, the people who love you won’t judge you. They’ll join you, in their own unique way, and celebrate positive changes with you.
It’s important to remember that we all have the right to be our own, independent person. That goes for our romantic partners too. Even though we unify as a partnership, we're still our own people and should have our idiosyncrasies within the relationship.
I’ve been in a relationship with my husband for over twenty years – since we were the tender age of 18. I don’t refute our compatibility, but we’re diverse in many areas of our life. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. If we were carbon copies of each other, life would be terribly boring. At times, I’ve struggled to accept he doesn’t share the yogic approach to life as much as I do. But he does in some ways, and that’s good enough for me. I try not to force anything on him, and he does the same for me – he wouldn’t force his opinions on me, so why should I on him?
Instead, we listen to and respect each other’s intentions for life. We learn from each other and grow together. Sometimes our paths cross but we remember that we’re bound together by love, so we must occasionally separate with respect. He’s free to make his choices and I’m free to make mine. Where they can intercept and we can share things, then that’s just another beautiful, fortunate facet of our relationship. And I think that applies to your relationship too.
Got a burning question or pressing dilemma about yoga, life, and everything in between? Email Agony Aunt to be featured soon!
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