31 Jul Being a tourist in your own relationship landscape

Being a tourist

I don’t know about you, but I like being a tourist. While it has its negative connotations, I like to think, as a tourist, I might actually become part of the place I’m visiting.

The idea of being a tourist can be a spellbinding one, be it the journey to the place you are visiting, the arrival at your new destination with its elusiveness and sense of wonder, the exotic sensuality of finding something wild and wondrous, or just the overwhelming sense of being curious to explore the unknown and stepping into another culture foreign to our own. All of this can stimulate excitement or a sense of fear of what could happen next.  The wonder of being a tourist is being able to look where you want, within reason freely, and to be more curious than we might be at home.   As we go on our holidays, wherever that might be, we all become tourists.  As we settle into our final destination, we start to explore our new surroundings, tentatively tasting the local food with our eyes wide open, taking in the exotic culture and the people around us (even if it is in Devon).

As the days progress, we start to, tentatively or passionately, explore further.  We take in the buildings. We are drawn into the alleyways with their intriguing shops, where we can procure the unusual or the useless, to ultimately saviour our memories of the places we’ve visited.  And then, as our sojourn ends, we reflect on the few days we have lived away from the normality of our home and start to wonder about how life will be when we return to our everyday existence and how magical it might be to stay a little longer to see what life could be like in this foreign land, but knowing its impossibility, makes our visit even more tantalisingly enduring.

Being a tourist in your own relationship

What about being a tourist in your own relationship?  Have you ever thought about being a tourist in your relationship?  If you think about it, what did you do when you first met your partner?  Did you look at them with curiosity?  Did you wonder about seeing the expansive vistas of what it would be like to grow with them, to build your landscape together, where you both could wander and visit each other’s outer and inner avenues of life?

Once you have discovered the landscape in your relationship, it can develop into something familiar as you get to know each other better.  But, as with being a tourist, there is always something new around the corner.  You might have a map to guide you, but the territory you think you know you can change rapidly, as with any landscape that borders another territory.  The unexpected can happen, and others outside of our own intimate relationship can start to plan something unexpected.  This is where you might start to feel out of control of your relationship, especially if you or your partner don’t intervene to keep the status quo you both might have planned.

Knowing the map

In a relationship, we might think we have a map just to help guide us to where we think we should be going.  We might be trying to figure out how to use the map, even right at the start of your relationship. Still, as we start to understand it, we venture to different places, such as intimacy, sex, children, trust, values, holidays, families, parents, etc. As we travel down these roads, we start to notice different signs and languages we need to learn.  It’s as if we, at times, need an interpreter to give us some guidance on the local dialect and culture we have just entered.  Our partner starts to help us decode what each part means to them, how they see the map and the local events and experiences. This can take time to learn, as these might be areas you haven’t experienced before.

As a tourist in your own relationship, you can start to get to know your relationship map, along with the roads, alleyways and curiosities that begin to become familiar, even pleasurable and comforting as you get to know these places and understand what to do in each of the locations on the map.

But what if the territory in your relationship starts to shift?  As we become familiar with our relationship’s territory and boundaries, we recognise what to do in various situations, just like the local customs and rituals in a foreign land.  However, as we grow together or even as we move apart, the territory and boundaries can change. So the map we once knew that guided us might not be able to keep up with the adjustments to the landscape.  So once again, we might find ourselves in an unfamiliar land.

Get to know your territory

As we progress in our relationship, we start to know that the map is not the territory.  The territory is different to each of us and different from how we see the map in our relationship. Our territory is the one where we can be ourselves, and if it’s invaded by something unfamiliar, we might start to defend it.

Being a tourist in your relationship allows you to look at your partner’s territory with fresh eyes.  You can start to see where the boundaries are that keep them safe. You can also begin to become aware of your own limitations to prevent unfamiliar events from happening.  You can become aware of the small customs and rituals that need to be checked to prevent any hostility from happening and become familiar with the social and personal laws and rules each of you has in place.  If you’re not familiar with them, then it might feel as if your role and your territory could be in jeopardy. It might feel as if you might become too vulnerable with any change that takes place, which can cause instability reigning in the relationship rather than the comforting, pleasurable experiences we have become used to.

Changing the landscape

To prevent making you or your partner feel like you are being invaded, start familiarising yourself with the territory in your relationship.  What are the boundaries you have yourself? Do you know your partner’s boundaries and when you’ve crossed them?  If not, get to know them.  Get to know each other’s roles and customs, so you can start respecting each other’s unique characteristics. You might need to negotiate how to share or merge some of your customs and roles as your territories overlap. But it would help if you put whatever you’ve negotiated on the relationship map so you can see how your relationship’s landscape has changed, mainly for your future reference.  There might also be areas you don’t want to visit again, so you might have to negotiate no-go areas on your relationship map so you and your partner can know your own territory a bit better and go into areas where you feel uncomfortable.

The landscape of your relationship will change over time.  Events and different customs will disrupt the landscape – health, children, career, friends, affairs, sex, and loss.  So you need to check with your partner on what’s changed to ensure you don’t become the unfamiliar tourist just looking in.

Being the curious tourist

At the end of the day, we are all still tourists, even if we think we are permanent residents.

As life travels along, our surroundings can change in what can seem like a blink of an eye.  If we are not careful, the landscape, territory and map of our relationship will change whether we realise it or not.

So don’t stay in your hotel for too long.  Get out and become the curious tourist in your relationship.  Explore with your partner the complexities of your relationship landscape and venture to new and unfamiliar areas.  Start asking questions that you’ve longed to ask, be respectful of those rituals and customs your partner has, and don’t try to colonise their territory.  Just be curious. Long to relish the exquisiteness of the exotic in your partner as I would hope you would in any foreign land and enjoy the pleasures on offer in the uniqueness you both can offer in your relationship.

This post was inspired by a conversation I had with a patient about their different expectations of being tourists while on holiday.

Photo by Tim Stief