Ten years ago I was done with relationships.
In my experience relationships were hard work.
Relationships were too intense and limiting. They meant moving beyond your comfort zone in order to be there for the other person. This wasn’t just the case in my previous relationships, it seemed to be the norm for everyone around me as well.
Ten years ago I was also at a point where I knew I deserved to be happy, loved and supported as the person I am.
I wanted my life to be filled with creativity, love, and thriving.
I knew I wanted to be involved with someone, and I had the perfect solution:
I wanted an uncomplicated affair.
To me that expressed the fun without the drama. It didn’t entail dating someone who was involved with somebody else, it was about non-attachment, about self-love and seeking adventure and pleasure (basically all the opposites of what relationships were to me).
I had just moved back to Berlin from California, ready to finish my studies and I wrote down in my journal that I want to actively focus on self-love and happiness and that I wanted an uncomplicated affair.
Well, shortly after I met Joanna.
Ok, when I say I met Joanna I mean that we had some friends and activism in common and I started flirting with her at Scream Club Concerts in Berlin, eventually made out with her at a party, before officially asking her out on a date (on the magical 17th of November 2007).
It turned out to be indeed a very fun and uncomplicated affair. I had a very clear sense of what I wanted, I was so curious to get to know and hang out with this amazing person, yet I wasn’t attached to making anything “work”. My self-confidence and clarity was awesome. Joanna will tell you that she had a great time and knew from the start that we will end up in a long term relationship. The great thing is: she was neither worried about my idea of this staying an affair, nor did she want me to be anything else than who I was.
Surely enough our uncomplicated affair turned into an amazing relationship. In retrospect the key parts to this all being possible for me lay in self-love and focusing on what I wanted in a relationship with a person, without calling it that.
By loving myself and therefore not being willing to enter a world of relationships associated with heaviness and compromise, I just focused on what I thought would be fun and pleasing to me. So wanting an uncomplicated affair, actually was my way of allowing myself to enter a relationship that is beautiful, fun, creative and supportive.
Want to know this all continued?
In celebration of the ten year anniversary of my relationship with Joanna, I created an e-mail series about the awesomeness and challenges of relationships. So if you ever wondered how a queer relationship coach rocks her own relationship, this is for you.
I will give you insights into everything relationship from my life with Joanna, and from my roughly ten years of experience as a coach and counselor on relationship issues.
Whether you are getting over a break-up, are madly in love, or happily single, this is an email series I am sure you will highly enjoy.
Joy Zalzala-Soyka – I am a Law of Attraction coach and a multicultural, lesbian mom. I work across Europe and North America, offering you personal sessions over the phone, and books & articles here on www.evolve.how.
Get in touch with me today, I personally answer all my emails.