There are many interpretations of authenticity on the internet. Without addressing variations on the word, this post refers to perceived authenticity—how genuine or real we consistently perceive ourselves, whether alone or interacting with others.
Perceived authenticity is about the sense of self, not feelings in general. Everyone has at least short-lived feelings that seem inauthentic, particularly under stress and with low physical resources.
Authenticity means more than familiarity—how we’re used to thinking, feeling, and behaving. We’re used to feeling tired at night, but tiredness has nothing to do with an authentic sense of self.
Authenticity means more than acting in ways that make you feel good. Indeed, authenticity feels bad at the funeral of a loved one.
Authenticity is about your important values, not tastes, preferences, or temporary feelings. It's a combination of thinking, feeling, and behaving according to what you deeply perceive yourself to be and what you long to be, independent of what other people think of you. For example, in touch with my more humane emotions—compassion, kindness, love—I feel more authentic and long to be more consistently in touch with them. I feel inauthentic when criticizing or devaluing other people’s character, even if I’m factually right about their behavior.
Lack of authenticity reduces commitment to lip service.
The minimum provision of attachment relationships is a commitment to safety, security, and a promise to be there in times of hardship, grief, and sickness.
Sadly, commitment is on the decline in most Western countries, where fewer people undertake the traditional symbol of commitment. Experienced clinicians agree that emotional divorce is also on the rise. That’s when people do not legally divorce but remain living together for convenience, although emotionally disconnected, with no mutual desire to reconnect.
A new variation on this trend is ambiguous separation: living in separate homes and seeing other people without divorcing. Common reasons include separating while still attached and avoiding grief by denying the loss of love. Some hope that time will sort out conflicted feelings. Some hope that the partner will get treatment and become better. Some have trouble thinking about the future, which, for them, is anxiety-provoking. They tend to view life as temporary.
In extreme cases, they’re like adolescents who think their lives will begin after school, after college, after a job, after marriage, after children, after deciding to divorce; it never quite begins enough to warrant full commitment.
Commitment has dual meanings that encapsulate the difficulty some people have with it. Consider the Oxford Language Dictionary definition:
The state or quality of being dedicated (to a cause, activity, person etc.).
An engagement or obligation that restricts freedom of action.
If “commitment” means dedication to one partner and loss of freedom to the other, the relationship will not provide safety, security, and reliability. Though they often go together, commitment and emotional connection are distinct states. We can commit to a relationship w with no emotional connection, and we can feel connected without committing to a relationship.
If attempts to improve your relationship have failed, it was likely due to an attitude of disconnection forged by coping habits of blame, denial, and avoidance. In an attitude of disconnection, every disagreement causes emotional divorce. Attempts to negotiate decisions and behaviors turn into coercion due to the overwhelming subtext:
“I can’t connect with you until you do what I want.”
With an attitude of connection, specific behaviors are negotiable but not the connection:
“We need to… (for example, respect each other) to enhance the connection we both value.”
Developing an attitude of connection requires mindful effort in the beginning. But the more partners practice connective thoughts and behaviors, the easier and more natural it becomes. (See my post, Attitudes of Connection.)
We're unlikely to feel authentic in a close relationship without commitment and emotional connection.
Authenticity, Commitment, and Connection
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19.12.2023
There are many interpretations of authenticity on the internet. Without addressing variations on the word, this post refers to perceived authenticity—how genuine or real we consistently perceive ourselves, whether alone or interacting with others.
Perceived authenticity is about the sense of self, not feelings in general. Everyone has at least short-lived feelings that seem inauthentic, particularly under stress and with low physical resources.
Authenticity means more than familiarity—how we’re used to thinking, feeling, and behaving. We’re used to feeling tired at night, but tiredness has nothing to do with an authentic sense of self.
Authenticity means more than acting in ways that make you feel good. Indeed, authenticity feels bad at the funeral of a loved one.
Authenticity is about your important values, not tastes, preferences, or temporary feelings. It's a combination of thinking, feeling, and behaving according to what you deeply perceive yourself to be and what you long to be, independent of what other people think........
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