Relationships and Personal Journeys are not the same thing, neither do they run on parallel tracks. They may for a while, but often a person  has to carry on with a personal journey while in a relationship that is not parallel or even in the same quadrant of personal growth. I didn’t call this blog “Relationship Journeys and Personal Journeys” because I assume all relationships are a journey or even several at a time!

Relationships journeys for me can range from communication to negotiation to lifestyle to a million others, Communication seems to be a no brainer, but is actually very difficult. How will you communicate? Will you find a healthy form of expression or dialogue or will you be on the ends of the continuum of communication practicing silence or violence. (Violence here meaning turning to volume or threats or manipulation to get your way in the discussion as well as physical violence.)

Negotiation is related to, and possibly a subset of communication. It involves deciding how two people are going to negotiate to receive a fair outcome, what a fair outcomes is to begin with, and, in some cases, what priority the relationship has in the people’s lives will affect how the negotiation is done. It will have to be approved, silently or in a conscious spoken way.

Lifestyle choices for people in a relationship can come only after communication is established and a manner of negotiation is selected. Lifestyle choices involve many important decisions. How will we spend our money? Together? Alone? Who pays what bill? And in regard to shared bills, how warm will the thermostat be set? What sort of grocery shopping shall we do–bargain basement or fancy foods? Do we need to squeeze every penny or do we…?  You can see where I am headed.

In this blog, I haven’t done much but name some of the relationship journeys I think many of us find ourselves on at one time or anther. There are questions, too. What do you think? How have you maneuvered this? What was your biggest iceberg experience in one of these categories or one I haven’t mentioned. I don’t have time to answer all of these now AND cover personal journeys and the intersections they run with relationship journeys. So this will be a two or three part blog entry. I would LOVE to hear your comments. If you move your cursor down the right side of the page, you will see a faded out balloon turn grey  and give you the option to leave a comment on your biggest question or your experience. Please do, I would love to have a dialogue with you!