Interdependent Safety

Everything I want from him and from relationship relies on both of us feeling safe. Which means all threats to his sense of safety are threats to the relationship.

That means I see his preservation of his sense of safety to be as important as my preservation of my sense of safety.

If the way he enacts his sense of safety threatens my sense of safety, or vice versa, there can be no relationship.

This is why I take full responsibility for my own sense of safety. I no longer hunt for clues about HIS feelings to make ME feel safe. I am safe no matter how he feels about me.

When I don't need his feelings to assure my safety, I can see his feelings and actions for what they mean to him rather than what I think they might mean about me.

I can see his distance, his emotional unavailability, his caution, as measures he's enacting to feel safe. I can demonstrate respect and reverence for these boundaries to increase his sense of safety with me.

If I make his distance mean that he's judged me to be unworthy, that he's flawed as a partner, that he's not ready to commit, my reaction to that could threaten the safety he was trying to preserve in the first place with the distance. It could drive him to create MORE distance, or, (in my opinion, even worse) drive him to violate his own sense of safety to assure me of my safety.

The safety of our relationship cannot exceed the combined safety we each feel in any given moment. I want him to feel as safe as I feel, and I'm willing to see him as an independent entity with motivations that have nothing to do with me.