In Case There's Any Doubt

More On Vulnerability As A "Virtue"

Many have come to believe in our society today (from heavy brainwashing) that it’s important, even crucial to be vulnerable with your partner. This leaves me blinking.

In almost every case in which the term “vulnerability” is used, I can find another word or phrase that is far more suitable and accurate. I can find words that hold true virtue. Vulnerability is not the right word. I implore you. Dig deeper!

For example, I am intimate with my partner. I share my journey with my partner. I ask my partner to help me with accountability and to remind me about the choices I am making. I don’t need to consider my own vulnerability (by any definition) in any way as it pertains to our relationship.

You say your “vulnerability” is your “super power.”

I say, “rubbish!” I don’t mean to offend you, but if you are saying things like that, I don’t have to worry. Everything anyone says to you is likely to be offensive to you- because you are admittedly vulnerable to the thoughts and feelings of others. You wear this like a badge of honor.

I have always been open with my husband. However, the more I consider this, the more I realize that my lack of feelings of vulnerability with him have absolutely nothing to do with him. *I* vetted him. *I* selected him. But, there’s more to it than that.

Vulnerability has nothing to do with anyone else. I worked on myself before I got here, and I am OK, loving even, with myself almost completely. I go to the bathroom with me. I pop my own zits. I know where my moles are. I know when I’m overweight and by how much. I know what I ate today. I know what lies I’ve told, even if white lies. I know what impulse buys I’ve made. I know when I’m lying to myself. I know when I am out of alignment with my values. I know that whatever I need to work on in me needs to be done by me.

I keep reminding people who champion vulnerability that “vulnerability” in the dictionary is an antonym of integrity. And the fact is that the more you align your words and actions with integrity (and this has to do with walking in alignment with your own personal values) the less vulnerable you are or ever feel in any situation, even if you have the occasional less than confident moments or sporadic lapses in your overall sense of invulnerability.

You can always shore up any sense of vulnerability by either looking at your life as a whole and acknowledging to yourself your walk in truth thus far- or you can do like my guest from upcoming episode 21, Mike Voss author of The War On Sleep, does and write down your daily rank on a scale of 1-10 on your white board each night before bed. Pick 3-4 categories such as food, sleep, exercise, creativity and productivity or whatever you value, and if you slip below a 6 in any of them on any specific day, you live today at your highest score in that category. You fix you. You do it daily.

But it seems as though society using the word “vulnerable” in the realm of partnership, as if it’s a virtue, turns relationships into never-ending pop quizzes or added, impossible tasks. If you are constantly testing your partnership based on the way it responds to your vulnerability and exploring how your partner reacts to your vulnerability over and over again as an indication of your partner’s merit, rather than you shoring up your shit, it will be your relation that’s vulnerable. It won’t last long in that state. If you make it to ever after, it won’t be happily. It’s going to suck.

Space is a vacuum and your holes will destroy your relationship if you don’t come to terms with them. You are only as good as your weakest link so if you keep leaning on that link, looking to it as your “super power,” claiming that sharing your most painful feelings with your partner (the ones that you refuse to address) is “strength”, your real super powers or your partner’s will eventually break that pattern. A healthy person won’t put up with that kind of bullshit from himself or others. That’s where you start picking up bad habits to cope with the nagging sense of insecurity about not handling your own stuff. Furthermore, what makes what you are doing different than the people claiming “fat is the new healthy,” “men can be women” or “avoiding human contact, sunlight or the gym is preventative medicine?” You’re just using crappy catch phrases like “safe and effective” to describe the unsafe and defective and patting yourself on the back for your ignorance of words and meaning. Just because some soft-science, self-help guru agrees with you doesn’t mean you are happy or healthy- or smart.

The truth is, in any case, it’s your vulnerability that you are imposing on your relationship.

It’s better to work through your vulnerability in your relationship if you want to make your relationship stronger. You may enlist your partner in holding you accountable to your intention of creating self-confidence and strength. I know we all have weaknesses and flaws, but we can work on them together!

When you ask others for help, you aren’t asking them to do your work for you or shore up all of your vulnerabilities by pretending the things you feel vulnerable about are just fine. I recall a Celine Dion lyric “I’m everything I am because you love me.” When I see relationships like this, they are often hued with sycophantic rhetoric from the vulnerable partner. (Puke!) Bolstering your self-image based on what another thinks of you reeks of insecurity. You have to turn your partner into a god so that his or her thoughts matter more than anyone else’s- particularly your own and especially, your inner critic. While your inner critic may be an asshole, it might help you to listen when it says, “you aren’t shit until you align yourself with your values.” No amount of praise to your god like partner is going to satisfy that honest voice within.

If you feel vulnerable about a part of yourself, then it’s not fine for you. That means whether it’s a personal issue for you to take some action to read some self-help book or seek therapy or whatever you need to do to get to the root of your uncomfortable feelings, something needs to be done on your part to heal. No other human can do that for you.

You can’t say “look at this part of me that isn’t ok and needs work and tell me it’s ok.” Actually, you can, but don’t kid yourself that your relationship is any more than codependency. So many relationships run on mutually assured self-destruction. I will ignore your issues if you ignore mine. If this relationship lasts to death do you part, it’s likely an early death.

People don’t live long making these kinds of pacts. In every area of your life, you are either growing or you’re dying. There’s no plateau in between. The part of you that isn’t growing or improving is in silent decay. It won’t be silent for long.

Where the strength lies is in addressing your fears, your flaws and your deficits as they affect your ability to live in alignment with your values. Some flaws, you may find the ability to transmute rather than destroy. Some flaws can be reframed and helpful in your long term vision if you are creative. In any case, until you feel comfortable, more resilient and invulnerable, working on or with them, and getting past your insecurity about them, they will hold you back.

I recommend before sharing what you need to work on to come up with a plan, some S.M.A.R.T. Goals to help you have a vision to be more secure, a process by which you can believe you are capable of mastering before wrangling your partner into helping you with it.

Come to your partner with a commitment and a plan. 1. You can talk about how you’ve been feeling up to this moment that you have come up with your plan (you feel sad, insecure, weak, lost, stuck, frustrated or whatever, objectively speaking, these feeling are not the problem but are indications of the problem). 2. Share your plan and how your partner can help you with your plan (bring your chosen solution and intention and give your partner an option of a role to play in your evolution). Powerful couples enlist their partner as their ally and fellow victor rather than constantly imposing the role of bandaid upon your partner to your open wound.

This all circles back to my view on boundaries.

Good boundaries are made by focusing on what you want to see in your life rather than what you want to hold out of your life. Always start with your ideal vision and form a picture of the roles you want others to play in that story. We can’t control whether others will chose to participate or not in the way we dream, but if they are frustrated (or you are) with their current form of participation in your life story, this will likely be an advantage to you both. Most people who care about your success are amenable when given clear roles to perform, especially ones that enhance or display their gifts and abilities. With proper guidance, partnership can be more successful.

It all comes back to resilience and building invulnerability. These are the true super powers. You can personify this by giving up on bad adages and stepping into a fuller, truly virtuous version of you in alignment with your values.

Give this a try and see if this shift makes your relationship stronger or weaker than your prior championship of vulnerability.