How did you learn about relationships?

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Open Minds London Group - Jan 23

Who told you what a ‘good’ relationship should look like? Did you read something, watch something online or do you think you just picked things up as you went along?

In the group, most of us thought that we took our relationship values from our families. We saw what relationships were valued in our familly communities and were sometimes specifically told by our elders what we should and should not look for in a partner.

When we unpicked this a little bit more we realised that we weren’t completely sure if all of these values made sense or if they were really supporting our happiness. We talked about the fact that many of the relationships we’ve seen growing up were made up of two people who married out of duty and not mutual love or respect and this kind of relationship didn’t always have a good outcome.

So what’s the point of these kinds of relationships? Committing to a long term relationship out of duty isn’t necessarily a bad thing. People get into and stay in relationships for lots of reasons and romantic love isn’t something that some people find easy to communicate or feel. These kinds of relationships can become problematic when people are not given a choice to enter them, or a choice to leave them. They are often part of a wider system of social expectation that tells us that we need to be seen to be living the ‘right’ way so that we can be judged to be a good member of a community.

For us LGBTQIA+ people being a member of heterosexual communities can be tricky, especially if these communities tell us that the only way we can have full acceptance is through a heterosexual marriage. Even if we don’t agree with their ideas, it can be hard to shake of this feeling that by living LGBTQIA+ lives, that no matter what relationships we form - they will never be good enough.

This is where we need to be mindful to push back against some of the values we have absorbed as children or young adults. Being proud of who we are isn’t always easy, and sometimes we realise this when we think about introducing our queer friends or partners to our friends and family. We worry about what they will say, how they will judge us and it shouldn’t be like this.

So what can we do? Well it’s hard to change other people’s views on relationships, especially if this means they need to think about their own situation and how they may or may not have done things differently if they had more freedom. Sometimes it’s also not fair to ask people to do this as they may still feel powerless to change things.

We can start by loving ourselves in the way that we want other people to love and respect us. Building ourselves up from the inside out will help reduce the effects of the toxicity of so called ‘traditional family values’ which may wrongly tell us that we shouldn’t exist. We have always existed.

The hope is that by feeling more joyful and content with ourselves, we will attract more joyful and positive feelings from others. When we want to have an intimate, romantic relationship, we’ll be ready to recognise other people who will be able to like or love us well.

Sometimes, living this way will also help other people realise that there are many different ways to be in a relationship and be happy or live well and when that happens it can be a very powerful thing!

We ended the group with a visit to a local restaurant to talk and get to know each other better. All in all it was a joyful experience to be around people without judgement or the pressure to fit in.

Our next group will be in Birmingham in February 2023. We’ll be using the same topic to see if different ideas come up!

With warm wishes,

The Open Minds Project ­

We meet on the last Wednesday of each month and if you want to join us at an Open Minds Meeting, please visit the Events page on our website.