This is my first post here, but I can definitely relate to this topic. When I first became more conscious of the way I was reacting to different situations that life presented, I wouldn’t say that everything changed immediately but, I developed this inner drive for me to do things better with more consciousness. I basically wanted to stop being so reactionary and instead actually think about what would be best to do in the situation, and not respond based on automatic societal programming type thinking.
I was already in a relationship at the time, and it actually was because of the relationship that I had this shift in consciousness. I realized how selfish most of my actions were and it was actually the first time that I sort of detached myself from things and realized that all I had to do was use my willpower to make the right choices, no matter how much it hurt my ego because I didn’t want to be a slave to my emotions anymore.
Well anyway my boyfriend then, husband now, had no such noticeable changes when I first began to make these changes in my thinking and behavior. And even now that we have been married for over 8 years, I still feel like we are on different levels but I don’t feel like he needs to catch up or that I would ever end the relationship because we don’t agree on the same path for spiritual growth. Mainly because I still see how much of an effect that I have on him. I will bring up spiritual topics and I know it helps him think about things differently and I can see how he has changed from me challenging some of his long held beliefs; the kind that are just programmed into us when we are younger that it is hard for most people to question or let go of.
I think that you can always be a benefit to your partner, even if you believe you may have outgrown them spiritually. Think about this, many relationships are shallow and if you choose to leave and not help to better your partner where else will they come into contact with true spirituality and consciousness? If you really love someone be prepared to accept their faults, which may include ignorance about being more conscious and enlightened, because if the situation happened to you and your partner became more enlightened wouldn’t you want to know that they wouldn’t just bail on you because you have not grown to their level yet?
Now this is assuming that other aspects of your long-term relationship are not toxic and the person is at least willing to listen to your opinions and not shut you out, and is not in some way sabotaging your personal journey towards higher consciousness. But definitely don’t be afraid to open up about how different you feel and see things now and see if that won’t have some sort of small effects on that person shifting their own consciousness over time, before you decide to give up and go looking for someone on the same level as you.
There is this article that I read recently here about a couple that went through this same sort of consciousness shift and enlightenment that you bring up and basically one person struggled with fear and ego-centric thoughts which almost destroyed the relationship before finally “de-programming” as they put it and being able to grow and continue on with the relationship. They even postulate that it is a natural state in relationships for one person to be more spiritually mature than the other, and that person’s duty should be to strengthen and guide the other.
TL, DR: Basically the way that I approached my long-term relationship when I gained a more conscious outlook was to help my partner change at his own pace. I wanted to be more loving, less selfish and share new insights about the things that I was thinking about and learning in order to help guide him towards a higher state of consciousness that I think we’ve both since developed. Try to be patient with your partner for a while and if you still think you’ve changed too much to be compatible then you can decide from there how you will proceed.
