A conscious marriage is defined as a marriage that fosters maximum psychological and spiritual growth. This kind of marriage is created by becoming conscious and cooperating with the fundamental drives of the unconscious mind: to be safe, healed, and whole.
There are ten main characteristics of a conscious marriage. They are as follows.
You realize that your love relationship has a hidden purpose – the healing of childhood wounds.
In a marriage, there are many surface-level needs and desires. However, it is important to recognize the underlying childhood issues that trigger them. Insight of this kind can add more meaning to your daily interactions with each other and will lead to a greater sense of control within the relationship.
You create a more accurate image of your partner.
When your relationship first began, each of you fused the other with an image of your primary caretaker as a child. As you progress in your relationship, you begin to shed those original illusions and see a more accurate picture of the person in front of you. You no longer see your partner as your savior, but another wounded individual, equal to you.
You take responsibility for communicating your needs and desires to your partner.
It is a common mistake in a marriage for each you to believe that the other should just know what your needs and desires are. However, psychic couples are rare and communication is key to a successfully conscious marriage. In a conscious marriage, you accept the fact that you will need to communicate in order to get your needs met.
You become more intentional in your interactions.
Instead of reacting without thinking, you begin to take more deliberate actions. When your interactions become more intentional, you use higher levels of thinking and employ self-control and critical thinking to deal with situations.
You learn to value your partner’s needs and wishes as highly as you value your own.
In an unconscious marriage, you assume that your partner’s main role is to take care of your needs. Over time, you can gain a conscious view in which you see the narcissistic nature of your previous perspective. You begin to give more of your energy to meet your partner’s needs.
You embrace the dark side of your personality.
Once you enter into a conscious marriage, you begin to acknowledge the fact that you do, in fact, have negative traits. The more you accept this, the less you will project your negative traits onto your spouse.
You learn new techniques to satisfy your basic needs and desires.
You begin to learn that age-old nagging is not as effective as you might have hoped and begin to explore other options for getting your needs yet. Your partner absolutely can be a resource for you as long as your tactics involve communication and self-control.
You search within yourself for the strengths and abilities you are lacking.
A large factor in initially being attracted to your partner was the fact that he or she possessed qualities that you lacked. Therefore, you felt whole with your partner. However, the conscious marriage promotes self-improvement and finding strength within yourself instead of within your partner.
You become more aware of your drive to be loving and whole and united with the universe.
In a conscious marriage, you feel secure and loved enough to explore other areas of ability and interest. Because of this, the possibilities are endless in what you can achieve for yourself, including a more whole practice of loving those and the world around you.
You accept the difficulty of creating a good marriage.
In an unconscious marriage, you believe the key to a successful marriage is finding the right partner. In a conscious marriage, you begin to realize the key to a successful marriage is to be the right partner. You realize that a good marriage requires commitment, discipline, and courage to grow and change.
By accepting the characteristics of a conscious marriage, you can create a deep, loving, and ever-growing relationship with your partner that will yield years of self-growth and understanding.
(Source: Getting the Love You Want by Harville Hendrix, Ph.D)
