How Relationships Foster Spiritual Growth
By: Dr. Denise Renye
There are numerous reasons people enter into intimate relationships: convenience, sex, companionship, financial support, children, love, etc. With how the world has evolved, we are no longer fettered to a traditional way of living. Survival no longer requires getting married and popping out babies to keep the family farm running. Women don’t have to tie themselves to men in order to ensure their security. In many places, having sex and children out of wedlock is not the taboo it once was. For those in that position, that means there’s more choice about whether a person wants to be in a relationship or not. An intimate relationship is not the prerequisite for financial security, children, or sex that it once was.
So what the heck are relationships for then? Obviously, they can include any or all of the things I listed above, but intimate relationships may also be vehicle for personal growth. Marianne Williamson has a couple of great quotes about this in her book A Return to Love. In one, she says, "An intimate romantic love … is like taking graduate work toward a Ph.D. in the ways of love, and many of us are hardly out of elementary school."
Yes! Exactly! Intimate relationships that are pleasing to everyone involved require attention, time, and internal resources. With intimate relationships, all of a person’s issues may arise: insecurity, impatience, anger, neediness, etc. An intimate relationship is not just the dopamine rush of excitement and joy depicted in movies and on TV. It’s also the irritation of your partner constantly running 15 minutes late. Instead of dumping someone at the first sign of trouble in the quest to find a “perfect” person with whom no issues will arise, think of a relationship as a spiritual assignment.
To paraphrase another Williamson quote, relationships are a part of the plan for enlightenment and support a person in expanding their definition of love as well as their ability to do so under various conditions. She says relationships are laboratories in which people are brought together with the maximal opportunity for mutual growth.
There are many elements to a spiritual practice and one of them is “becoming.” The engagement and act of growing together is something that allows the relationship to be a vessel of growth, helping each individual to have a sense of purpose that is beyond the mundane world.
From that lens, relationships not only support spiritual growth, the relationship itself is a spiritual practice. That’s true in the sense that relationships provide people with numerous opportunities to practice love, acceptance, understanding, and patience. What happens when one partner forgets to take out the trash? When they leave dirty dishes in the sink? Or more dramatically if they want to move somewhere new and the other person is fine staying put? How are conflicts resolved?
Each of these questions points toward how relationships offer opportunities to practice learning a new skill. Instead of attempting to find the “perfect” partner, a relationship can be an opportunity for a person to better themselves. That’s not to say all partners are created equal or that if a person engages in enough personal development work their relationship will be trouble free. No, rather, viewing a relationship as an opportunity for growth and seeing intimate relationships as one form of spiritual practice means those involved have more bandwidth to handle whatever arises, separately and together. They see the relationship as the “spiritual assignment” it is. And that could make all the difference.
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Reference
Williamson, Marianne. “A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles.” Spirituality and Practice. Accessed December 14, 2021. https://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/book-reviews/excerpts/view/13844/a-return-to-love