Relationship Autonomy: Why You and your Partner Need it to Survive
Relationship autonomy may sound like an oxymoron. What does it actually mean to be autonomous in a relationship? You might assume that the strongest relationships are those in which partners are never far from each other and share everything with one other. It turns out, that isn’t the case.
Continuing to develop the self and establish your own inner and external world fuels a rich and connected long-lasting relationship. When couples reach this balance of togetherness and separation, according to Gottman Lab research, they typically report a great sense of:
Peace
Trust
Contentment
These happy couples also often share that the mutual interdependence they have achieved is the result of learning how to communicate through struggles, overcoming stressors, and encountering growth moments across the years. This is to say, this balance doesn’t happen overnight.
To better understand relationship autonomy, let’s take a deeper look at the stages of relationship development. This will help you understand how couples can achieve this powerful balance.
The Developmental Model Stages
Relationships tend to develop along a continuum of stages. These stages aren’t always linear. Stressors in life, such as the birth of a child or the needs of a sick parent, may cause stage regression. What’s more, each stage presents unique challenges and skills to learn before a couple progresses into the next stage.
In their fascinating book, The Quest of the Mythical Mate: A Developmental Approach to Diagnosis and Treatment in Couples Therapy, Ellyn Bader, PhD, and her husband Peter T. Pearson, PhD present their compelling model of how romantic relationships progress and develop through a series of clear stages.
Let’s use this model to understand how you can move through these stages to create an even deeper relationship with your partner.
Stage 1: Bonding
Relationships begin with a period of intense bonding. You may recall this in a current or past relationship. You were focused on all the ways that you and your partner are alike. This felt so good and with each new similarity, you felt as though you were one.
During this time you also merge boundaries to establish yourselves as a couple. Each person minimizes their needs and rarely if ever makes demands for the other person to change. This stage is critical because it cements the attachment between two people that serves as the foundation for their journey forward in time and in development. This is something we often do in the shift from talking to dating.
However, this intense and euphoric stage cannot last—which you may also recall. It has to give way to a re-emergence of the individual identities of each person, both you and your partner.
Stage 2: Differentiation
What follows next is the stage of differentiation. It’s within this sometimes tumultuous stage of the relationship that couples learn important life-long skills for managing conflict, sharing power, and tolerating differences. This is when you may experience your first big fight and instead of feeling that “merging” energy, what you feel is “oppositional” energy.
It’s uncomfortable and you may even experience disillusionment with the relationship or intense fear or panic that your partner is all wrong for you. As difficult as this is, these conflicts are necessary.
This is the vital training ground for learning how to manage disagreements with your partner. Couples who mask disagreements with peace and harmony actually do themselves a disservice because they don’t grant each other permission to grow as individuals and they don’t learn how to understand and tolerate their differences.
Fighting is not fun, but during differentiation, we can improve at fighting, so that ruptures are repaired sooner, and conflicts are managed better. As we learn how to have healthy conflict, we forge the foundation for healthy relationship autonomy.
Stage 3: Autonomy
After surviving differentiation, couples enter a stage focused on reestablishing individual autonomy. At this time, you’ve gone through the good and the hard stuff and in doing so, collected the skills of affection, intimacy, conflict management, and problem-solving.
Now, with an even deeper connection, you can shift your focus toward independence again. The energy in this stage is all about self-directed pursuits. A renewed connection to the external world takes place and developing the self comes back from before the relationship started, taking priority over developing the relationship.
This stage matters because it connects you and your partner to your own self-esteem. Previously, you may have relied on your partner to reflect your value and worth. The challenge of this stage lies in staying connected emotionally while reconnecting to yourself through independent activities and relationships.
Stage 4: Reconnection
Finally, the reconnection stage occurs. You and your partner have satisfied the intense psychological drive for independence (even if you didn’t know you wanted it) and come back together in a balanced way. Commitment to self and commitment to the relationship feel balanced and mutual interdependence is achieved.
You may find comfort in the consistency that emerges in your ability to give and take and to balance “I” and “us”. Everything you learned from the intense early stage to the challenging conflict stage is now the foundation for a relationship that’s deeply connected while providing both you and your partner the independence you need to thrive.
Relationship Autonomy is Necessary
If you’re wondering what it takes to go the long haul with your partner, this is it. You need the courage to grow and develop yourself as an individual in equal measure to the relationship part of your identity.
In Mating in Captivity, the great Esther Perel says “Love rests on two pillars: surrender and autonomy. Our need for togetherness exists alongside our need for separateness. One does not exist without the other.”
Independence is a precursor to connection and a sign of security in your relationship. Rest assured, it is a myth that relationships require total sacrifice of one’s individual identity. In fact, the opposite is true.
Sources:
Gottman, J., & Silver, N. (2015). The seven principles for making marriage work: A practical guide from the country's foremost relationship expert. Harmony.
Bader, E., & Pearson, P. (2013). In quest of the mythical mate: A developmental approach to diagnosis and treatment in couples therapy. Routledge.