{"id":2589739,"date":"2022-07-19T10:22:33","date_gmt":"2022-07-19T16:22:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.outsideonline.com\/?p=2589739"},"modified":"2024-11-08T10:42:18","modified_gmt":"2024-11-08T17:42:18","slug":"romantic-partner-outdoor-adventure-activities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.outsideonline.com\/culture\/love-humor\/romantic-partner-outdoor-adventure-activities\/","title":{"rendered":"Your Romantic Partner Shouldn\u2019t Be Your Only ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Partner"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the summer of 2018, Adam, my boyfriend at the time, was my main adventure partner. I realized this was an issue halfway up the first pitch of a climb in Squamish, British Columbia. My heart was racing as I held my breath and tried over and over again to jam my hand in an overhanging, fist-wide crack. As I dangled on the rope out of Adam\u2019s line of sight, I burst into tears, cursing him for choosing a climb that was just too hard for me. \u201cYou got this,\u201d he encouraged me from the first anchor. What seemed like an hour later, I fumbled my way up the last 30 feet, frustrated, panicked, and unable to put a smile back on my face. \u201cYou should\u2019ve known this would be too hard for me,\u201d I yelled at him as I clipped in, tears welling up at the bottom of my eyes. He apologized, unsure how to react to my volatility. We abandoned our goal and rappeled to the ground.<\/p>\n

Adam and I had moved to Bellingham, Washington, together a few years prior to this incident. He was freshly recovered from hip surgery and we were both stoked to add skills like alpine climbing and glacier travel to our repertoire. We loved all the same activities and had similar adventure goals, so other friendships took the back seat while we were together. But when our relationship eventually faded, I was left to relearn how to be independent\u2014in the outdoors and in my personal life.<\/p>\n

After Adam, I dated Alex. Where Adam was compassionate and supportive in the mountains, Alex was more logic-driven. When I started to learn his sports (skiing and mountain biking), Alex took on the role of teacher. He was eager to help, but the mutual hard-headedness that brought us together eventually started to wedge us apart. \u201cHere, just do it like this,\u201d he would say, taking the bike tool out of my hands. I\u2019d swiftly grab it back and try it myself. \u201cJust point your skis downhill,\u201d he would say from the bottom of a run as my legs froze and my skis felt like they were made of lead. \u201cIt\u2019s not that easy,\u201d I\u2019d yell back. On the outside, I was stubborn, but in my head, I was\u00a0internalizing his overbearing-yet-well-intentioned advice to mean there was something wrong with me. Insecurity is a bitch.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve all experienced awkward tension outdoors when we overhear a couple fighting\u2014or maybe we\u2019ve been there ourselves. When I brought this topic up to girlfriends, most of them recalled moments of frustration to the point of tears while\u00a0out with significant others. \u201cI feel like when Paul is explaining how to do something, I take it as an extreme critique of my ability,\u201d my friend Sara mentioned over text. \u201cWhereas with a friend, it\u2019s a lot easier to swallow.\u201d Libby, another friend, agreed, \u201cThere are just more emotions wrapped up in doing things with your romantic partner than a platonic friend.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blair Hensen<\/a>, a relationship counselor in Bozeman, Montana, chalks this up to stress\u2014and the way individuals communicate (or fail to communicate) about it. \u201cIn our primary or romantic relationships, partners are the people that we\u2019re choosing in the world to keep us the safest, in a biological sense, not a conscious sense,\u201d she says. \u201cIf there are varying comfortabilities with\u00a0skill and risk levels in a relationship, it can pretty much automatically inspire distress in some way; if I\u2019m someone who needs to go towards someone in the moment of stress and my partner needs to move away, now we have opposite needs.\u201d<\/p>\n

When you\u2019re in a heightened state of stress and haven\u2019t learned how to manage it, you\u2019re \u201cmore likely to use old coping skills that you learned when you were a kid and see some immaturity coming out in your responses,\u201d Hensen says. That may be why I was so often my worst self\u00a0with past partners in stressful outdoor situations.<\/p>\n

On top of that, Alex had already seen me at my low\u2014hunched over on the couch, cramps raging, with a heating pad across my stomach\u2014so with him, I didn\u2019t have to act happy when I wasn\u2019t. I could wallow and pout and get fed up and rip off my helmet and snap that I didn\u2019t want to go up one. more. goddamn. hill and he would still love me (maybe).<\/p>\n

But my friends choose to hang out with me. If I throw a tantrum when the group makes a wrong turn on a hike or snap at them when they offer advice, there\u2019s a good chance they\u2019ll stop responding to my invites. With friendships, you \u201cmay not want to show the person how you really deal with stress,\u201d explained Hensen, and you have \u201cadded social pressures, so you may mentally work harder to be positive or keep the group mindset strong.\u201d So, when things get tough and I\u2019m not having fun, I tamper those feelings and try to keep the stoke for the sake of the group. With that slight attitude shift, I\u2019m much better prepared when things go wrong\u2014as they ultimately will in outdoor adventures.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also easier to learn from friends. Without the heightened emotions that come with a relationship, we\u2019re free to explore skills and gain knowledge in a more neutral environment. The same words that come off as critique from a significant other sound like advice from a friend. \u201cWhen I get advice from my partner, I take it as he wants\u00a0to acknowledge he knows more about the sport than I do,\u201d explained my friend Hannah. \u201cIf my friend tells me to do something differently, I see it as them wanting me to be stronger, safer, and more knowledgable.\u201d Another friend, Alana,\u00a0experienced this, too: \u201cWhen I started sport climbing with my friends, I actually started taking falls. I felt more comfortable having a conversation and working through my fear with them, instead of having to prove myself.\u201d In turn, you begin to take ownership of that activity. The more comfortable you get with your new hobby, the more you build positive associations\u2014and the fear starts to subside. \u201cWhen we have positive experiences going out and feeling confident while learning something new, we\u2019re going to carry some of that confidence into our relationships, most likely,\u201d Hensen says.<\/p>\n

Ever since Alex and I split over a year ago, my go-to adventure pals have been my best friends, not romantic partners. I\u2019ve found a new love for sports I once hated. Recently, on a mountain bike ride with friends, everything started to go wrong. I forgot my helmet and had to scramble to borrow a friend\u2019s. I couldn\u2019t shift into my lowest gear, and my brakes weren\u2019t working very well. When we arrived at the top of our climb, I lagged behind the crew, walking my bike up the last incline. On the verge of bonking with no more snacks in my pack (usually a recipe for disaster), instead of getting frustrated or beat down, I rolled up with a smile and cracked a joke. For some reason, I didn\u2019t have to fake it; I just was happy\u00a0to be out there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Relationship dynamics in the outdoors are hard; getting out with friends can help<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":93451,"featured_media":2590082,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"uuid":"c65579cdefff56c60318944d8cacaeea","footnotes":""},"categories":[2578],"tags":[2640,2895,2821],"byline":[6146],"ad_cat":[7798],"legacy-category":[],"class_list":["post-2589739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-love-humor","tag-climbing","tag-mountain-biking","tag-relationships","byline-hannah-singleton"],"acf":[],"parsely":{"version":"1.1.0","meta":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"Your Romantic Partner Shouldn\u2019t Be Your Only ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Partner","url":"https:\/\/www.outsideonline.com\/culture\/love-humor\/romantic-partner-outdoor-adventure-activities\/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.outsideonline.com\/culture\/love-humor\/romantic-partner-outdoor-adventure-activities\/"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/two-friends-camping-view_h.jpg","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https:\/\/cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/two-friends-camping-view_h.jpg"},"articleSection":"Love & Humor","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"klindsey"}],"creator":["klindsey"],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Online","logo":"https:\/\/www.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/favicon-194x194-1.png"},"keywords":["climbing","mountain biking","relationships"],"dateCreated":"2022-07-19T16:22:33Z","datePublished":"2022-07-19T16:22:33Z","dateModified":"2024-11-08T17:42:18Z"},"rendered":"