There is a Hidden Contract between You and This Person
The power of this card is to understand that all relationships are based on first having a relationship with yourself. You’ve identified an aspect of you that is co-dependent on your journey to spiritual independence. You are being called to look at how you build relationships based on a hidden contract that fulfils mutual fundamental emotional needs. Your Higher Self is calling you to identify this underdeveloped aspect of yourself and to meet that need on your own.
We all experience the excitement of a new relationship, new friendship, or new colleagues at work, an excitement filled with the promise of dreams of acceptance, security and fulfilment at finally being heard and witnessed. As the newness fades, the relationship follows old, repeated patterns where the promise turns to disappointment and the dream ends.
Fundamental to every relationship is love. We oftentimes, though, in forming relationships confuse love with need so that we unconsciously build our relationships around that need. In doing so both parties in the relation-ship agree to a hidden contract whereby each person fulfils a hidden need for the other. The unconscious agreement states: ‘You give me this and I’ll give you that; you give me financial security and I’ll look after the emotional needs of your life; you rescue me or approve of me and I’ll put you on a pedestal; you play the parent, and I’ll play the child.’ Relationships of this type are usually a form of bargain in which something is compromised. This mutual dependency on each other defines the relationship and forms the basis of the connection. This connection is experienced as a kind of love expressed through approval, safety, acknowledgement, responsibility and control, etc. In the reflection of the other person’s eyes each person feels witnessed; they feel secure; loved, connected and in flow. However, you are never going to feel whole until you have identified and fulfilled this need for yourself.
The key for your growth is to become conscious of where you confuse love with need. You are currently experiencing a familiar pattern in a relationship because you constantly look for the perfect person who is willing to provide this need for the lifetime of the relationship. What you call love is the basis of meeting that need. When you say, ‘I loved that person’, you have confused the subtlety of your need to feel safe and acknowledged with the feeling of love. We can and do feel genuine love in relationships built upon hidden contracts, yet when our hidden needs go unrecognised or dominate the relationship, love tends to die.
You may now be feeling a subtle shift in a relationship because an emotional contract based on hidden needs has been ‘broken’. And though your trust is disrupted, your Higher Self asks you to embrace this change as a catalyst for your growth. The shift that is happening now is part of a familiar pattern in co-dependent relationships. In the beginning of the relationship both individuals are drawn to participate because the other fulfils a core need for them. In the bargain, each ignores the clear signs of compromise. As long as the core need is being met – forming a connection which is interpreted as love – a person feels justified in dismissing any warning signs. And so the relationship pattern unfolds. The shift occurs once the fundamental emotional needs of one or both individuals are fulfilled. Yet because the agreement is unconscious there is no recognition that the core need is being fulfilled through the connection to the other person. As one or both individuals feel stronger – no longer needing the other – they change the rules of the agreement.
In their new feeling of strength one or both will shift their focus to areas of lack – oftentimes the warning signs that were dismissed earlier. These may point to the areas in the relationship that lack compatibility – possibly seeing the other person as less than, or an obstacle. Without acknowledging the other person’s role in supporting their recent growth, they start to highlight the needs/wants that were compromised in order to have this core need fulfilled. They start blaming the other person and see all that is ‘missing’ as the other person’s fault. Resentment sets in as old patterns of emotional desires and needs appear, as they focus on all that they have ‘given up’ in the bargain to participate in this relationship. Now that their need is met they feel emboldened and may want to pursue another relationship with someone perhaps more exciting like the artist or more secure like the financier. They may want to fully develop qualities that have been stifled in this relationship – travelling around the world, following their dream of being a writer, etc., and feel the only way to develop these is outside of this relationship.
In their new confidence they change their behaviours. They use different mannerisms or body language; the voice they use when they speak to you may have a different tone or they may change the language they use. Before they were grateful and now they’re impatient, and so on. This new assertiveness, confidence or excitement may be interpreted as disrespectful or as competition. As a result, the relationship will no longer have the same level of communication. There is a lack of awareness in the true basis of the relationship. So as the need that was confused with love changes, it now feels like love is being withdrawn. At this point, intentions are questioned and both individuals may be lured into playing out their unresolved childhood conflicts, their schoolyard fears about insecurity or need for competition. A battle may ensue to re-establish what they feel is lost in the relationship.
The truth is that you were each depending on the other to fulfil a hidden need so that you could prepare for this moment of change and growth. The initial stages of co-dependency actually provided a platform for your growth. The way to think of this is a young tree is given a brace, a wooden stick that it can lean upon until its roots and trunk are solid enough for it to stand alone. In the same way, each in the relationship has braced the other, to provide that platform of growth as the other develops their potential. The cycle has come to a completion and this moment is the call to growth. The stick has done its work. Each individual is being asked to step up, to develop their own skills, to manage their own self-care, nurture themselves and maximise this opportunity where their needs have been met. However, most people at this stage of the relationship simply move on to find another co-dependent or they continue to punish the other person for breach of contract.
In choosing this card you are being called to recognise that through the hidden contract you have each braced the other to support their growth and that you are ready to take responsibility for the life you want to lead. This recognition unlinks both from responsibility for the other and frees each individual to develop in a healthy way. The shift in the relationship shines a spotlight on what hooked you at the beginning of the relationship – an emotional need being met by the other person. This need is being highlighted to point you like an arrow in the direction of your growth. The arrow is pointing to the true purpose of co-dependency, which is to move you towards independence. You are at the final stage of development in discovering your true heart.
In your wariness of this person, celebrate the truth and the beauty of a relationship that recognised and met your core needs. It is time to allow the hidden need that underlies each of your relationships to surface into the light of consciousness and point you back to yourself. When you become emotionally aware and take care of your emotional needs there is a maturity, a spiritual flowering in which you will indeed take responsibility for what you ask for and how you conduct the dance of energy in your world. Love of self is built on responsibility for oneself. Only those who truly start to love themselves take total responsibility for their own journey. Listen to your core, connect to Source and allow the energy of love to flow as your spiritual flower blossoms in all its brilliance.
