MY SHADOW MARRIAGE
The lovers I chose, the dream I was attracted to, and what they revealed about me.
I recently finished Pomba Gira: The Red Queen by Sarah Hellman, an introductory book exploring the philosophy and mysteries surrounding Pomba Gira.
Pomba Gira comes from Afro-Brazilian spiritual traditions and is associated with feminine power, desire, sexuality, autonomy and the woman who refuses to be contained.
This article is inspired by the power of Pomba Gira. I’m still reading another book that takes me deeper into her spiritual world, so I want to save a full exploration of her world, for an essay of its own.
One chapter in Sarah Hellman’s book really stayed with me, and that is the Shadow marriage.
A shadow marriage is what happens when a relationship brings our hidden patterns to the surface. The person we love becomes a mirror for our fears, old wounds and needs we may not even realise we have. We think we are choosing a person, but sometimes we are simply choosing a familiar pattern.
So the question is not only who we love. It is what part of us is making that choice to love them.
According to this chapter, that confrontation is part of a woman’s initiation before she becomes her liberated, unapologetic self. That fascinated me, because the idea of transformation through darkness appears in so many spiritual and mythological traditions.
In mythology, women often have to enter the underworld, face danger and confront their demons. They lose the identity they once knew before they can return to the world as a freer woman, with authority over her own life.
But what happens when the underworld is a relationship? That question sent me back through my own relationships.
MAYBE WE DON'T JUST FALL FOR PEOPLE
I am thinking about the men I have loved and wanted.
Who was I when I chose them? What did I fear? What did I believe love was supposed to feel like? What did I think I was ready for that, looking back, I clearly wasn't?
Perhaps I was never even attracted to them. Perhaps I was attracted to the pattern, to a feeling that was already familiar to me.
We meet someone and experience chemistry, intensity and fascination. We think we are responding entirely to the person standing in front of us, but underneath that attraction can live an entire hidden world: fear of abandonment, fear of commitment, fear of being controlled, fear of disappearing inside a relationship, fear of not being chosen, and the desire to be loved while simultaneously wanting to remain free.
What if the person is not even a person, but your phantom appearing in the physical world? Sorry, I am thinking about Beloved, the movie, where the haunting ghost becomes the resurrected daughter.
Because if the world is mental, wouldn't we be able to create from thought and fear? Maybe that is why some people feel strangely familiar before we even truly know them.
THE LOVER AS MIRROR
Do you realize that the emotional unavailable person meet the part of us that is terrified of real intimacy. The person we have to chase meet the part that believes love has to be earned. The controlling person exposes our fear of claiming our own authority, while the inconsistent person reveal how much uncertainty we are willing to tolerate in exchange for intensity.
So instead of asking, Why did he do this to me? I had to ask myself, What is he showing me about myself that I refuse to see?
LOOKING BACK CHANGES THE STORY
The funny thing for me is that relationships that used to be so important to me mean absolutely nothing to me now. I don't care about them at all. Not even a tiny bit. People I once lost sleep over, I probably wouldn't even recognize if I saw them today. Completely erased from my memory bank. Whatever psychological charge they once carried is gone.
How crazy is it that someone can occupy so much space in your emotional world, and years later you look back and wonder, What exactly was I holding onto?
Looking back, it became clear that I am a big dreamer. Hahaha. I was holding on to a fantasy, waiting for my prince on his black horse who would somehow be perfect for me, even with all my imperfections.
Not being raised by your biological father can plant a seed you don't even know is growing. Only through disappointment did I realize what I had unconsciously been searching for in these men: a sense of completion.
To be honest, I don't think I was really attracted to them. I was attracted to the dream.
The illusion started to disappear when I realized I was already complete. What I had been searching for in others, I had to learn to see in myself. And through my faith, I came to understand that I already have a Father in Heaven who provides for me, protects me and loves me.
I wasn't attached to the person. I was attached to the desire. Once I no longer needed another person to fulfill that desire, the relationship lost its mythology.
I GUESS I NEEDED MY SHADOW MARRIAGES
I love books that leave me with an uncomfortable thought, and Pomba Gira: The Red Queen by Sarah Hellman definitely triggered something in me. Why? Because I love to dance with my own shadow.
My shadow marriages have taught me a lot about myself, including the part of me that was attracted to toxicity. Once you understand that this part exists, you have a choice: feed the beast or starve it.
That is the initiation. You enter believing the relationship is about the other person, and you leave knowing considerably more about yourself.
Eventually, the real initiation ends when you enjoy your own company more than the deception. When you understand that peace is the only authority worth living under.
If there is no healthy communication, transparency, emotional availability, consistency or reciprocity, I simply don't entertain it anymore.
I am grateful for the experiences, I would never have arrived here without my shadow marriages. That is also why old lovers become irrelevant. Their importance belonged to another version of you.
I now know that the shadow marriage did not end when the person left my movie, but when I wrote myself out of the part. I no longer needed that particular dynamic, so there was no role left to play.
The lover loses his mythology. The pattern loses its seduction. The fear loses its authority. And you walk into a new world without needing the old one to follow you.
With Love,
Mara Michels
