Why do we repeatedly attract similarly unhealthy intimate partners and relationship patterns? Should we seek to escape such seemingly self-destructive cycles through safer, less intense relationships? Or do these patterns serve a purpose that we must respect, instead using a new approach to harness their energies toward healing and growth?

In the midst of yet another challenging relationship, I deeply explore the unconscious roots and mechanisms of this “repetition compulsion” in the chemistry of our relationships. I also initiate a discussion about the dilemmas, paradoxes, catch-22’s, risks and rewards posed by two contrasting approaches to compatibility and conflict. In an era of dangerous polarizations and threats that demand engagement and resolution, it is a topic of great relevance to our families, society and world.

Reading Ishmael by Daniel Quinn in 1997 first exposed me to the idea that civilization is an inherently unsustainable and unhealthy social structure. But it took further reading of works by Quinn and Derrick Jensen, along with greater experience, to help me increasingly incorporate this understanding into my life. Most recently, Jensen’s work Endgame impacted me with a particularly convincing presentation of civilization’s shortcomings from the concrete and powerful perspective of physical resource dynamics.

In this post, I examine the paramount importance of internalizing the implications of our social structure’s fundamental flaws, the experience of facing the impact of this understanding, why it is to difficult to fully internalize, the variety of ways that people respond to the issue, and how my growing acceptance of it has influenced my life journey. I then discuss the process of finding our optimal roles in the re-emergence of health and sustainability and the invaluable role of community and support as we do so.