FOR HIM & HER: Beyond Deida? 4th Stage Relationship

Beyond Deida? 4rd Stage Relationship

David Deida writes beautifully about relationship. In his model he describes 3rd stages of relationship. Briefly, these are as follows:

1st Stage
This is 1950’s model of relationship. The man is the bread-winner. The wife stays at home and “makes house”. The woman is subservient to the man and dependent on him for his largesse – money, gifts, even money for house-keeping, etc.

In this type of relationship the masculine is somewhat in his masculine, but it is an immature masculine, expressed through responsibility, often felt to be overwhelming. He is not in touch with his emotions - such expressions would threaten the stability of his world and rock his fragile ego structure.

The woman is typically in the feminine but in a disempowered place. She may have the softness of the feminine but she does not have the true strength of feminine power.

The root of this relationship is one of patriarchy, which is often expressed through disenfranchising women and the immature use (and too often abuse) of power by men.

2nd Stage
In the 1970’s the feminist movement helped to overturn this patriarchal hegemony and began to empower women. Unfortunately one of the consequences of this has been that women stepped more fully into their power by imitating the masculine and often becoming over-identified with this at the expensive of their feminine. The revolution against patriarchy held women to burn bras, ditch their make-up and ultimately, to move into more masculine professions and too often forget the grace and beauty of their feminine.

During this phase of development, men were encouraged to get in touch with their inner feminine and to express their emotions more freely.

This development was a wonderful and necessary stage but had some disastrous results. Men became im-masculated, women de-feminised. Both lost their way to their core sacred masculinity and femininity. Apart from being a revolution against patriarchy, this phase is signified by a sense of equality – making out that men and women are equal. Too often the concept of being equal and being the same were confused. Deida christens this stage “50/50” – where both men and women are unclear about their gender identity and roles and sit somewhere between masculine and feminine, pretending they are both and the same.

3rd Stage
Deida’s solution to this unsatisfactory situation was to develop a 3rd stage relationship. This is one where the man is in his masculine, the woman in her feminine but both show equal respect for the other. There is equality, in the sense of a lack of power struggle between genders, but there is not sameness.

The woman is loved and held by the masculine. This enables her to go into the flow which is her natural state of being, she can be fully in the moment and experience and express this fully. The man is connected to his core masculine – a place of centred, groundedness and presence.

In this type of relationship there is mutually recognition and honouring of the differences between masculine and feminine, not a sense that “we’re all the same”. It is an attraction of opposites, of the dual polarities of masculine and feminine in their mature forms.

4th Stage
I believe there is something beyond the 3rd stage relationship. Each of us holds both masculine and feminine energies within us, in differing proportions depending on our gender and how we identify ourselves sexually. But even the most masculine man contains a feminine element and the reverse is true for every woman.

So, to honour all aspects of our selves, we need to recognise both masculine and feminine energies within ourselves and to bring these into relationship too.

A fourth stage relationship is one where, lets say for simplicity, the woman is predominately in her full feminine flow. The man is predominately in his masculine presence. This is the mainstay of the relationship, a point to which both partners can return for stability and structure.

But within that it is possible for the roles of masculine and feminine to be reversed. The man may assume a more feminine aspect for a time and the woman will naturally step into the masculine. This is very different from the 2nd stage relationship where the identities between man and woman are blurred by a sense of sameness.

This 4th stage relationship works when the man is so fully connected to his masculine core that he can step out of it with comfort and into his feminine essence and when the reverse is true for the woman. Being so deeply connected to this masculine core, the man has the confidence to step more fully into his feminine, knowing that he is not going to be perceived as effeminate, weak or “less of a man”. He is so in touch with this masculine core that this will shine through, even when he is in the feminine. In a sense it is the power that comes from being able to show ones’ vulnerability fully; to be able to say, this part of me is scared or small, it’s my inner child. And I’m so connected to my mature strength that I can show this “small” part of myself to you.

For the woman, being in her masculine in this way is not about being the hard-headed business woman. It is being able to be present and loving. She is in stillness, not expressing her flow of energy in the same way as when she is in her feminine. It is as though her presence is intensified through the condensing of the energy which normally expresses itself as flowing. Instead of going into her flow in response to what is received, she sits in pure acceptance of what is. From this place there is awareness and consciousness which manifests in her having a greater ability to make choices about how she expresses her feminine energy. It’s a beautiful combination of Love & Will.

Again there is the polarity and attraction of opposites but in this case they may from time to time be reversed from the more conventional duality that Deida describes as 3rd stage.

As with all developmental structures, the 4th stage incorporates and transcends the previous stages. In this place both as men and women we have more freedom and flexibility to express more and deeper aspects of ourselves, both internally and in relationship and in doing so, we empower ourselves further and move closer to our wholeness which is our divinity.

© Mike Lousada 2010
Sacred Sexual Healer
www.heartdaka.com