Your Result
BOUNDARYLESS AND ONE DOWN
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Your primary relational stance is one-down and boundaryless, which represents a combination of low self-esteem and uncontained boundaries. In its most extreme form, people who fall into this quadrant can come across as desperate and needy.
People with this stance have great difficulty containing their anxiety and look to their partner to regulate them. Their sense of well-being depends on their partner’s love and approval, so they pursue their partner with a desperate need to get reassurance.
One-down and boundaryless people often struggle to see themselves as lovable and easily take their partner’s comments personally. They tend to believe that expressing their emotions is necessary, regardless of their partner’s response. Partners of people in this quadrant often feel overwhelmed by their neediness.
The more boundaryless a person is, the more they are concerned with connection over protection. This is often a consequence of abandonment experienced in childhood, where the person once felt secure, and then had the security evaporate. Thus when their partner isn’t fully attending to them they may re-experience that childhood wound of feeling alone and scared, and desperately try to reconnect.
Where does your stance come from?
One-down: Low self-esteem is characterized by feelings of shame about the core of who a
person is. Adults who easily go one down were generally disempowered or belittled as children.
Boundaryless: Boundaryless people are more concerned with connection over protection. This is often a consequence of abandonment experienced in childhood, where the person once felt secure, and then had the security evaporate. Thus when their partner isn’t fully attending to them they may re-experience that childhood wound of feeling alone and scared.
About the Relational Grid
We all have our own default patterns of how we relate with our partners when we are triggered. This default reaction often stems from our childhood and, when at our worst, is an exaggerated version of how our teenager self might respond.
The good news is that with conscious effort, this pattern can be changed! We are not beholden to it, nor must we be captured by it.
The following grid can help us understand our relational dynamics—both in how we sabotage the health of our partnership and what actions we can take to move toward greater and more satisfying intimacy.
The horizontal axis represents boundaries. The vertical axis represents self-esteem.
A healthy relationship is where a balanced version of these two skills intersect. This means each partner is both connected and protected and comes from the belief that all humans are equal in worth.
As you reflect upon the following, we invite you to forgive your human imperfections and practice self-compassion as you build and strengthen the muscles required for a healthy partnership.
Are ready to start working on your relational programming and learn how to create healthy, lasting relationships?
We invite you to join Terry’s powerful program, Staying in Love: The Art of Fierce Intimacy our most affordable online course to date!
Meet Terry Real
Terry Real is an internationally recognized family therapist, acclaimed speaker and best-selling author. As the founder of the Relational Life Institute (RLI), Terry and his team have offered workshops for couples, individuals and parents all across the US, along with a professional training program for clinicians wanting to learn his Relational Life Therapy (RLT) methodology.
A family therapist and teacher for more than twenty five years, Terry is the best-selling author of: I Don’t Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression (Scribner, 1997), the straight-talking How Can I Get Through to You? Reconnecting Men and Women (Scribner, 2002), and most recently The New Rules of Marriage: What You Need to Make Love Work (Random House).
With its rigorous commonsense approach, Terry’s work speaks to both men and women—leading couples on a step-by-step journey to greater intimacy and greater personal fulfillment. His ideas on men’s issues and on couples therapy have also been celebrated in various venues and publications—from Good Morning America, The Today Show and 20/20, to Oprah and The New York Times.
Terry has been passionately committed for decades about giving individuals and couples both a map and a sophisticated toolkit for living truly relational lives—lives of deep connection to themselves, to the people they love, and to the planet as a whole.
As part of his commitment to helping people become more conscious, thoughtful and intenttional individuals, he hopes that with this free summit, anyone can finally begin the journey towards creating the relationships that they deserve.
As seen on:
About Terry Real
Terry Real is an internationally recognized family therapist, acclaimed speaker and best-selling author. As the founder of the Relational Life Institute (RLI), Terry and his team have offered workshops for couples, individuals and parents all across the US, along with a professional training program for clinicians wanting to learn his Relational Life Therapy (RLT) methodology.
A senior faculty member of The Family Institute of Cambridge in Massachusetts and a retired clinical fellow of The Meadows Institute in Arizona, Terry has worked with thousands of individuals, couples, and fellow therapists for more than two decades.
A family therapist and teacher for more than twenty five years, Terry is the best-selling author of: I Don’t Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression (Scribner, 1997), the straight-talking How Can I Get Through to You? Reconnecting Men and Women (Scribner, 2002), and most recently The New Rules of Marriage: What You Need to Make Love Work (Random House).
With its rigorous commonsense approach, Terry’s work speaks to both men and women—leading couples on a step-by-step journey to greater intimacy and greater personal fulfillment. His ideas on men’s issues and on couples therapy have also been celebrated in various venues and publications—from Good Morning America, The Today Show and 20/20, to Oprah and The New York Times.
Terry has been passionately committed for decades about giving individuals and couples both a map and a sophisticated toolkit for living truly relational lives—lives of deep connection to themselves, to the people they love, and to the planet as a whole.
As part of his commitment to helping people become more conscious, thoughtful and intenttional individuals, he hopes that with this free summit, anyone can finally begin the journey towards creating the relationships that they deserve.
As seen on:
What People Say About Terry Real
“Terry Real helps overturn old-fashioned, confining roles and opens up a treasury of hope for lasting and exciting intimacy for couples everywhere.”
– Edward Hallowell, M.D., author of Crazy Busy
“Falling in love is easy, staying in love is another matter. Couples yearning for more closeness are truly in uncharted territory . . . until now, that is. Terry offers amazing new insights about men and women and what it takes to make relationships work in our ever-changing culture.”
–Michele Weiner-Davis, MSW, author of Divorce Busting
“If you’re tired of the same old dance, get ready to learn a few new steps—real steps—the ones that will make a difference in your life and the lives of those you love.”
– Cheryl Richardson, author of Life Makeovers
What People Say About the Relational Life Therapy Method
“Before learning Terry Real’s model I’d work with couples to problem-solve their dilemmas of the day. I always had misgivings about the long-term potential of my work because I didn’t know how to move in deeper to address with them their relational processes. Now, having Terry’s model for teaching clients healthy relating, I have guidelines to help them perform the modest miracle of personal transformation on a permanent level.”
– R.D., student of Terry Real's professional training
“Terry Real helps overturn old-fashioned, confining roles and opens up a treasury of hope for lasting and exciting intimacy for couples everywhere.”
– Edward Hallowell, M.D., author of Crazy Busy
“Falling in love is easy, staying in love is another matter. Couples yearning for more closeness are truly in uncharted territory . . . until now, that is. Terry offers amazing new insights about men and women and what it takes to make relationships work in our ever-changing culture.”