elationship has always been a doorway to myself. The situations that come up for me and my partner Kushad have totally dropped me into myself in the six years that we’ve been living together.

We began to connect at a time when he was really wanting to explore his sexuality. When we first met we had a hug and he said, “Wow! I’d really like to fuck you!” I went: Whoaa, this is too much energy for me. I was drawn to him but I knew I couldn’t meet that kind of energy because I wasn’t in that space with my own sexuality.

So I watched Kushad for a while. I liked his aliveness and his joy and I was always kind of curious about who he was. But I’d heard other people’s judgements about him being a womanizer and I just bought it all.

When I started to connect with him I saw that he was quite different from what my judgements and the judgements of the community were. I knew when we were going to be together that part of his journey was to free his sexuality. So we have had this agreement from the beginning that we’re open to be with other people because we both want to be free of the fears and jealousies that run us in relationships.

Underneath I always had this feeling: I want to be free of this stuff. When Kushad shared what his visions were of being free I went: yes! That’s how I want to be too! I knew I was probably going to go through horrible hellish experiences but I was willing to check it out and see how it worked for myself.

What we’ve both discovered is that exploring the energy in the moment is what carries us into being with someone else: just coming together with somebody and the energy does where it goes – and we are willing to say yes to that. As teenagers we didn’t have an opportunity to explore our sexuality in a natural, healthy form. And so that’s what I feel we’re allowing ourselves to have by being with other people.

Our judgement is that this is the issue that many couples in North America make conscious and unconscious choices about not dealing with. And it comes up in our groups all the time – whether people want it to or not. My experience is that the more I suppress it, the more dead I become as an individual and the more dead my relationship becomes.

Kushad went out with another woman fairly soon – 3 or 4 months into the relationship. Mostly I dealt with the feelings on my own. I would just be with myself and feel it – anger and sadness and fear mostly. I’d beat pillows and yell, “You fucking asshole, how can you do this to me? I’m gonna cut your penis off!” And yet every time these feelings came up I knew that it wasn’t about Kushad, it was about old hurts that were getting triggered and I just needed to feel them.

And it made me jealous to see that he was out there doing what he wanted to do with his energy. It threw it right in my face that I wasn’t doing whatever I wanted to do– because I was afraid. That’s where the anger came from: I was pissed off because he was giving it to himself; he was doing it – why wasn’t I? So these situations totally dropped me into myself because there was no way to go past or through them without feeling my feelings.

I’d be with my process almost the whole night. By the time Kushad would come home I would have discharged most of my anger and be ready to share. I needed to share that I was angry but I didn’t dump my anger on him; I shared my sadness and my fear. And what helped me a lot was that he was at a stage in his dealing with it where he could pretty well maintain his joy from what he’d experienced and his joy of seeing me – he didn’t get triggered into his guilt. If he’d been in his guilt I would have been more onto him with all of my stuff.

And I would make my requests. From the very beginning of this relationship we’ve been functioning from a foundation of communication that lasers through a lot of the past and brings it right into the moment. I’d say, “See me! See, I’m here! Why are you out there with another woman? I’m here and available.” I’d say, “Love me!” and “Don’t leave me!” and his response in the moment was yes. So often in those moments his love would be so strong, and my love with him too – there was a foundation of that – that the intensity of my old stuff didn’t have a lot of strength in the energy of the love and joy.

But I was also real clear that did take care of myself to say what I needed to say. One time Kushad and I were at a party and I knew that he was attracted to one of the women there. I was really tired and I went home to sleep. When I woke up he wasn’t there and I knew the party was probably still going on. So I called. I asked to speak to Kushad and got the message, “No! I don’t want to talk to Wendy right now!” So I said, “OK, I want you to give Kushad a message and I want you to get it right word for word. You go and tell him that his woman wants him at home; she want to fuck him; so tell him to get his ass over here.” Everyone laughed later because the irony was that right at that point he was starting to put a condom on! But in the moment I felt totally satisfied. It dissipated so much of what was going on for me because I did everything I could in that situation to take care of myself and say what I needed to say.

Every time Kushad or I have gone with somebody else, I’ve always looked to see: Is this the way I want to grow? Because it was so painful I was always checking: do I want to go through this?

And each time the yes would just come. But I needed to keep asking. I didn’t want to be there just because that was the only way I could be with Kushad. For sure I was real clear that I didn’t want to do that. I’m going into this because I want it, not because this other person’s going to be there with me. I’m here because I want to be.

The bottom line fear has always been that he’ll fall in love with someone else and leave. But in the last six months going through menopause I’ve gotten so much stronger within myself, I feel so much love for myself that I know it’ll be OK if I’m not with him. What I’ve learned through all this exploration is that it’s a state of love that I’m in; it’s my state of being; it has nothing to do with the other person.

As I’ve been feeling and expressing my feelings, particularly my anger, I’ve realized that it’s not satisfying when I’m focusing on something or somebody outside of myself. It’s not satisfying to focus outside on Kushad.

It’s been about: Oh he’s out there with her and he’s doing what he’s doing with her and I feel horrible and why doesn’t he see me and it’s all out there. So I go: OK Wendy, it’s not about out there, it’s about me, it’s about here – so just come back to this moment. OK, in this moment I’m sitting here; I’m in this room by myself and I’m feeling fear and anger and sadness. What do I need right now to take care of myself in these feelings, to nurture myself and love myself?

What I started to see is that through hitting the pillows and making loud sounds I was just throwing my energy out because I didn’t want to feel my feelings completely in my body. I have tremendous fear of feeling all of my aliveness in my body.

So I started to see, OK, I just want to feel this energy. Rather than throwing my anger out I want to be in my body with the energy. And I can enjoy it now – it feels good. Even when I’m feeling sad there’s this sweetness to my sadness; and in my anger there’s strength and the power of my being.

I always wondered what Osho meant when he told us to celebrate everything. I knew he didn’t mean laugh and dance and be joyful all the time because that’s not always what’s real. And now I see that it’s more about allowing all of myself to feel all of what’s there. If I can let go and relax 100% into what my feelings are, there’s this magical element or quality of yes! this is me! I just put out my desire and my longing – I’m willing to experience all this. I have a willingness to allow all of what the universe wants to give to me.