As someone who grew up an only child, the relationship that fascinates me the most is that of siblings. I’ve always been drawn to friends who had many brothers and sisters, curiously looking and admiring that complex dynamic. It was clear to me that my first son, although born with a granted older brother from his father’s side, will get another sibling, so he won’t be left alone from any direction. When I created a photo album for his 20th birthday I realized, going through hundreds of pictures of 20 years, that his sister was the greatest gift we gave him. And her.
The greatest joy of parenting for me is witnessing the siblinghood between my kids – their care for one another, their loyalty, their communication that comes from a deep place of connection. They’re very different, almost opposites, but their bond is clear.
They taught me a lot about siblinghood, my kids. You don’t get it, because you don't have siblings, they told me years ago, when I got irritated by their fights – that’s what siblings do. And it’s true in some sense – when our bodies lack an experience, no observation or learning can replace actual felt knowing. But as we know, our body wishes to move forward toward healing experiences, and it does so even if we haven't experience it ourselves before.
So, it seems that due to that lack of something so substantial, I've researched and built the best of relationships that are similar to siblinghood as possible.
I want to display here the results of my research and my conclusion, in two parts: in the first exploring life-partnership, and in the second – Focusing.
Building relationships on what the body knows
When our body creates new relationships, it relies on the knowledge already existing within it, on a known experience. Many times it will try to fix – through the new relationship – an old one. For instance: I would choose a partner that can push the same buttons my mother or father had pushed, but this time, so I hope, and sometimes without even knowing it – this time it would be good. This time I would be seen, I would feel loved. It happens without noticing – our relationship with a life-partner proposes an opportunity to recreate or heal the wounds of former, earlier relationships.
But in the realm of relationship there is a price to pay when it comes to basing our life-partnership on the paradigm of parent – child relations, because it puts us – at least in certain ways – in the same positions: who is big and who is small, who has the power, the responsibility, who leads, and who is weak and being lead; who supports and who is being supported.
Moreover, by the reenactment of the primal wound, it deepens. Thus I might feel dependent on the approval of my partner, longing to feel worthy, loved, and being disappointed, again. When a partnership tries to fulfill the needs that were neglected in the initial relationship, the chance of getting hurt again – in these exact spots – is already within it.
I would like to suggest that the relationship we want to base our life-partnership on – is the one of siblings. It does not mean we base it upon our actual relationship with our siblings – it's not always great or pain-free, and sometimes, like in my case, we don't have actual siblings. But we want to look at siblinghood as a paradigm, as a structure of family constellation, and we want to look for a life partner based on this structure.
In the realm of relationship there is a price to pay when it comes to basing our life-partnership on the paradigm of parent-child relations, because it puts us – at least in certain ways – in the same positions: who is big and who is small, who has the power, the responsibility, who leads, and who is weak and being lead; who supports and who is being supported.
Who has my back?
In Family Constellation, an approach that looks at the system and the structure of family, and seeks for the best order that allows love to flow – the parents' place is behind their children. As parents we want to support our children, “have their back”, allow them to lean back when needed and move forward into the world, to their own lives, future, children. There is a built-in hierarchy between parents and children: parents give, children receive; parents take care of their children, children are dependent on their parents, need them, and crash without them.
Think for a moment about this structure in the bodily sense: our back is a huge part of our body, it holds us, through muscles, through the spinal column. We can't see it with our eyes, but we feel it.
The power of the one standing behind is massive: Sometimes the parent passes down to the child the trauma they got from their own parents, sometimes they push them to a certain direction (picture someone pushing you from your back, with both hands) which is not always the right pace or the right direction for the child. Sometimes the child just needs a hug, someone to lean on, not a shove.
Sometimes the parents are not present behind the child, due to trauma or their own pain (or their parents' pain). The child is then missing her anchor, and moreover – drawn to the parents' pain, worried about them, trying to save them, and can’t turn onwards to her own life.
When we place our life-partner in the position of a parent, we put them behind us: we address them with the needs we originally address our parents, we want to lean on them, but we give them a big role in our life, bigger than their size and ability, so we most probably be disappointed. Also, when we place them behind us, we don't see them. But moreover: we are not only doomed to be disappointed, we also hurt the relationship. Life partnership needs mutual support, like a hug. And when one side leans on the other, without seeing it, like a child on a parent, when the giving flows in one direction – the delicate balance is broken.
Siblings – Different and alike, connected and free
Siblings, and also partners – stand in constellation side by side. It’s a different type or experience, of support. It's a felt togetherness, solidarity.
Siblings are our first soulmates: they are positioned on the same line in the chain of generations, facing the world from the same perspective, together. They share what was passed to them by their parents: genetics, culture, traumas… They share responsibility in passing forward the family legacy, to the next generations, and when the parents grow old, they share together the responsibility of caring for them. Siblings are eye-level with each other (especially when they're grownups), the respect between them is mutual.
When Siblings and life partners are in their right place, side by side, they share a point of view: they’re both looking onwards, to the road ahead, to the future. They see each other in the corner of their eye or by turning their head toward the other, no one hiding the other or hidden by them.
Siblings are different and alike, and that's beneficial for them: each one and his or her place in the family: the serious one, the good student, the funny one, the dreamer. They do have things in common – the family resemblance, things they've experienced at home, but they can be different and autonomous completely in other areas. They are close to each other in the narrow part of the body – their sides; most of their surface area is open to other directions, mostly they are free to be who they are.
Life partners will also benefit from having other directions of living, from being different and autonomous, from evolving and growing to their own directions, even when they're together.
Standing side by side support us, differently from the support we get from behind: it's the support of someone holding my hand, walking alongside me, together with me. And the wonderful thing is that by that we are not only supported, we also support the other, holding their hand in ours – it’s a mutual support.
When we walk hand in hand, we're quite in sync with our rhythm and direction. And if one of us slips or slows down – the other can slow down too, or stop and wait. We walk towards a future together, building a home and a family, dealing with the hardships on our path. Sometimes it feels like it’s us against the whole world.
Yes, we want a life-partnership that is based on solidarity, eyesight level, where we can see each other. We want a life-partnership in which giving and receiving flows between us, a hierarchy-free relationship, of mutual support and respect, of walking hand in hand, facing life together – a relationship that allows us the freedom to be.
When Siblings and life partners are in their right place, side by side, they share a point of view: they’re both looking onwards, to the road ahead, to the future. They see each other in the corner of their eye or by turning their head toward the other, no one hiding the other or hidden by them.
~ In the picture- siblngs. Different and alike
