"I consider Gay and Kathlyn to be my teachers." -John Bradshaw
A Relationship Issues Story: The Tale of the Glomer and the Splitter
Once upon a time a person who Really, Really liked to get close to other people met and fell in love with a person who seemed to always shrink away when she got near. She wondered at first if there was something wrong with her. Then she thought SURELY there is something wrong with a person who spends hours and hours and hours entirely alone and seems to be perfectly happy about it. Neither of those responses seemed to produce much happiness, so after a while she started wondering about the deeper meaning of getting close and getting separate.
In the mysterious World of Relationships she noticed around her, people seemed to see themselves as Glommers, the Ones Who Get Close, or Splitters, the Ones Who Like Their Space. She puzzled as to why, over and over, these two kinds of people seemed to choose each other as mates and then try to change each other. It was very strange and seemed to involve a lot of controlling and criticizing, not the most evolved human traits.
One day when she was watching a couple walking and talking about their Glommer-ness and Splitter-ness, she noticed that they almost danced as they moved closer and then further from contact with each other. Could it be, she thought, that Glommers and Splitters NEED each other to learn to create a dance of wholeness? After all, the tides come in and out, we breathe in and out, not just in. Nyah, she thought, too simple. If it were this easy, people would long ago have learned this key to enjoying harmonious relating.
Nevertheless, she decided to learn from her Splitter so she could experience being a whole person. She got really curious about what the Splitter was doing with alone time (something she didn’t give herself very much) and gradually learned to spend minutes, then hours by herself enjoying her thoughts and creative impulses. The world looked brighter after these times alone, and her perceptions were keener. She felt sufficient in her own being. Ahh, she thought, that’s what the Splitter is up to, being present and getting nourishment directly from the Universe. Cool.
While she was intent upon learning, the Splitter also appeared to by shifting, actually enjoying more touch, sharing feelings, kind of, well, glomming more! They were actually doing the Relationship Dance of come close and go explore. After a time, she looked in the mirror one day and saw that she had become a Glitter.
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