BENGALURU : Does loving someone and being in a relationship with them give one a right over them? Can you love someone and care for them without wanting to somehow control or hold them and without needing them to have such a hold over us? Many times, in relationships, we see people really blending into each other. We see such a strong desire to somehow be unified into a oneness where there is no boundary between the people in the relationship, and all that one has is accessible, auditable and available for the other, and vice versa. It could be social media accounts, email accounts, passwords and user ids to all sorts of things, bank debit card PINs and even registering each other’s fingerprints on all their devices so all devices are equally accessible for everyone.
The idea of being so intimately entwined with each other might sound romantic to some, one supposes, and that notion of an absolute open, transparent and shared reality is even celebrated as, “Nothing secret between us,” or “We are completely open to each other”.
Many people even make it a step in the evolutionary process of their relationship, like how one has steps like meeting each other’s friends, family members, maybe moving in together or making it official through a status change in Facebook or other social media. Some even make an event of it, as if it were a commitment ceremony of sorts, and others who did not think this was even expected, talk about how their partners make a huge deal about it, talk about “not feeling trusted,” or “not being able to trust” if there is any resistance to this degree of sharing of information between the people in the relationship. Is it really a romantic gesture, or a sign of an insecure attachment that seeks to hold by controlling? Chances are that it is the latter.
Relationships where everyone is secure in themselves and in their attachment may not really care at all whether there is such an open access. In fact, even if there were any concerns such as some gossip about one person in the relationship flirting with someone else, or sudden absences from the relationship, people in secure relationships will be more likely reach out to each other directly and talk about it openly, without necessarily needing to even ask for access so there could be verification. Even where such access is given as a way of proof, one might not take it up and dive right into it, but stay with holding the person accountable for their behaviour.
What it means is that if the person you are connecting with gives you rights to all their personal matters as a gift of love, and expects the same from you as a proof of your love, you might just want to take a step back and ask if this is really love at all. True love seeks to celebrate each other, not control each other. (The author is a counsellor with InnerSight)