7 Partnership Models

In This Article

Introduction

Every Connection Lives Inside A Container

Not every connection is a couple. Not every couple is a marriage.

There are many different partnership models, and each one creates a different container for two people.

1. Lovers

A Casual Connection Without A Solid Container

The first model is the lovers model.

The connection is more casual. It is based on sexual connection, and often on romantic energy.

But there is no solid coupling container.

Lovers Have Soft Agreements

The agreements between lovers are soft.

Both partners have a lot of freedom and spaciousness.

Lovers Can Be Non-Exclusive

Sometimes the lovers container is not exclusive.

Lovers sometimes have multiple lovers.

I Prefer The Word Lovers

There are more worldly labels for this experience, like “fuck buddies.”

That label fits within the lovers experience, but it puts it in a perspective that doesn’t glorify the experience.

I prefer the idea of lovers.

2. Coupling

A Real Partnership With Many Flavors

Then you have the traditional couple model, or coupling model.

This one is a real partnership. And it has lots of different flavors.

Spacious Coupling

Coupling can be spacious, with lots of space and freedom for each other.

• Separate homes: You might not even live together.
• Chosen rhythm: You might see each other 2 or 3 times a week.

Symbiotic Coupling

Then you have a more symbiotic model.

The couple lives together, and may have children together.

Marriage Extends Successful Coupling

If coupling is successful, it moves into the marriage model.

Marriage is an extension of coupling, and it often leads to creating a family with children.

3. Dharma Or Spiritual Partners

A Life Alignment Based On A Spiritual Journey

Another model is dharma partners, or spiritual partners.

• Spiritual alignment: A life alignment based on a shared spiritual journey.
• Intertwined lives: Two people whose lives are woven together throughout life.

Twin Flames And Soulmates

The dharma partners model can also be connected with the idea of twin flames or soulmates.

Dharma Partners May Never Become A Couple

Dharma partners might never enter into a coupling experience.

But they often stay in each other’s lives for extended periods of time.

You Can Have Many Dharma Partners

This is not an exclusive model either.

One person might have multiple dharma partners or soulmates in a lifetime, and even several overlapping at the same time.

4. Intimate Friends

A Connection That Can Go Deeper Than Coupleship

Intimate friendship is not necessarily a partnership model in the traditional way.

But it’s a connection that can deeply influence and impact a person’s life.

Sometimes friendship goes even deeper than lovership or coupleship.

What An Intimate Friendship Looks Like

• Intertwined lives: Your lives are woven closely together.
• Frequent contact: You see each other very often.
• Shared secrets: You share things with each other that nobody else knows.
• Sensual charge: There might be a degree of sensuality, or sometimes even erotic fire.

Intimate Friendship Can Transmute

An intimate friendship can definitely transmute itself into a lovers experience, or even a coupling experience.

When Intimate Friendship Meets Coupling

If one person is both coupled and in an intimate friendship, their partner may feel that their energy is highly divided.

Part of it goes to the coupling experience. Part of it goes to the intimate friendship.

5. Cycled Coupling

Coupling Within A Time Frame

Cycled coupling is one of the variations of coupling.

It is a coupling experience that is limited in time, or has a certain time frame. That time frame is not fixed.

The Monthly Cycle

A cycled coupling experience can last for a month.

After that month, it might be the end of the coupling experience. Or it can extend into multiple cycles.

Every month, you renew the desire to be together and keep exploring together.

The Yearly Cycle

A cycled experience might also last for a year, with a clear end decided by both partners.

Cycles Set By Life Circumstances

Sometimes the partnership is established for a short period, maybe 3 or 6 months.

One or both partners needs to move to another city or change situations. They know it won’t be possible to maintain the relationship after a certain date.

Cycled coupling means there is a very specific time frame.

6. Mission Or Business Partners

Not Romantic, But Massively Impactful

Mission or business partnership is not established in the traditional romantic way.

But it can have a massive impact on somebody’s life. If you start a business with someone, that person becomes a very significant player and influence in your life.

A Business Partner Shapes Your Life

Even if you’re not romantically involved, these things massively impact your life and how you navigate your experience:

• Their moods
• Their presence
• The way you relate to them
• The boundaries you have with them
• The agreements you have with them

When Mission Meets Coupling

If you are in a primary coupling experience, your partner might sometimes feel triggered or conflicted by the amount of energy you bring into your mission or business partnership.

7. Situationship

The Most Boring Model Of Them All

This one is, I would say, the most boring and uninteresting of them all.

It’s boring and challenging because it’s so undefined, so it keeps changing all the time.

• Unstable ground: Nothing feels solid underneath you.
• Unstable agreements: What you agreed on keeps shifting.
• No direction: It feels like it’s not moving toward anything, and can feel really stagnant to one or both people.

Where Friction Can Arise

These Dynamics Go Beyond Male-Female

Here we are mostly looking at straight relationships. But you can apply the same dynamics to gay connections.

Traditionally, these partnerships are seen as male-female partnerships. But if you are a man with a very deep friendship with another man, a very strong brotherhood, that connection will influence your primary coupling experience as well.

The same goes for a mission or business partnership. It can strongly influence the dynamics of your coupling experience.

Why We Look At Male-Female Dynamics

Right now, we are looking a little more in the direction of male-female dynamics.

We want to understand the places where friction can potentially arise.

The Man With A Close Female Friend

Take a primary female friendship for a man.

If a man is in a deep coupling experience and also in an intimate friendship with a woman, his partner might feel triggered or challenged by that friend. The friend may have intimate access to him.

By intimate friendship, I don’t necessarily mean sensual or sexual. It can also be an emotional connection with a very strong romantic dimension to it.

Choosing The Right Container

Every Container Can Be Sacred

From a spiritual or tantric perspective, all of these containers can be extremely sacred and powerful.

All of them can have a mystical or spiritual dimension. Or they can be really matrix-based.

I look at them as potential fields of expansion and possibility.

Why Partnership Models Matter

Why is it important to understand these different partnership models?

Because sometimes you are going to be in a partnership, or you start feeling attraction to somebody.

Then you need to identify the box, the label, the container you are developing with that person.

When Two People See Different Containers

• Coupling vs. lovers: You feel a very strong attraction, and one of you feels it’s a coupling experience while the other feels it’s a lovers experience.
• Dharma partners: It might be a dharma partnership or a spiritual partnership, without a sexual or romantic dimension.
• Intimate friends: Sometimes you feel an intimate friendship, but don’t feel like moving it into anything else.

Agree On The Container

Identify the container you really have.

Then check whether you both agree on it, and whether it’s truly a match for both of you.

Some Partnerships Are Guided From A Higher Place

You can have a very deep dharma partnership with somebody who keeps coming into your life for many years, without it ever needing to turn into coupling or even a lovers experience.

That’s the frequency that has been given to your partnership.

When a partnership is guided from a higher place, from a spiritual or tantric dimension, trying to force it from one model into another can create lots of trouble.

Don’t Force One Model Into Another

It’s very important to listen internally and intuitively to what the model is, without trying to force it into something else.

If you are in a very intimate friendship and try to move it into lovers or into coupling, that can feel very forceful. There might be a fundamental incompatibility there.

Every Partnership Has A Lifespan

The same applies to coupling: long-term coupling, lifelong coupling, marriage, or cycled coupling.

Some partnerships have a relatively short lifespan, a capacity or potential that is not meant to be lifelong.

So identifying the time frame, the length of the cycle, is also very important.

Want clarity on the partnership model you’re really in? Reach out for coaching at vitalcoaching.com/coaching.

Keep Reading

• A Sovereign Lovership Is Conscious — A Situationship Is Unresolved
• The Sovereign Lovers Model — Obsession Without Ownership, Connection Without Control
• The Three Macro Boundaries Of Love — Vanilla, Polysensual And Polysexual
• The Shiva And Shakti Circles: The Hidden Social Geometry That Shapes Every Romantic Relationship
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