Blog 76 Relationship (Gary)

While hiking today a mountain bike rider suddenly appears and tells us there is a wild cat a short distance away.  I pull out my camera hoping he is in the light and that he hasn't gone back into the dark brush, which is his protection.

            Let me see the tiger!  Let me witness this darkness!  I go to fantasy about all he might be.  But he is not.  That which I wanted so much never appeared in real form.  As my mother said, "What does it matter?"  It matters not mother, for you are dead.  I am alive and it matters not.  Thanks, Mom.  I learned how to witness darkness in relationship.

            She said, “What does it matter?” in her depression many times before she died, but I think she realized a deeper truth, that there is little in this world that really matters.  What matters to me in this moment is the light connected to another soul besides myself.  You see, to me what matters is not doing life alone.  he was very alone because, being in survival all her life, her ego and her fear pushed people away.  She kept herself in a dark place.  I understand why, and cast no judgment on her, and thank her for helping me choose light over darkness.  It helped me to understand the darkness in relationship in my work with couples.  Feelings expressed aggressively or passively have the contrary effect of pushing people away from each other.  Alternatively, it is hard to resist hearing the truth spoken from a caring place if it is delivered eyeball to eyeball, with ownership of one's feelings and using “I feel” NOT “You feel” messages, accompanied by a touch of the hand: I, eye, truth, and touch.  That’s communicating with love.  The partner has the other half of the job, which is equal, and that is to listen without anger or repulsion driven by ego, the ego being the enemy of relationship.  The listener has no obligation to give an immediate response, but, rather, has the opportunity to take it in, and consider what is true for them, and respond in kind after consideration.  It is not a battle to see who wins, as is almost always the case with couples. 

            We live in a culture that worships logical, rational, linear thought processes, and disdains and ignores feelings. Feelings are seen as uncontrollable, unnecessary, and dangerous.  Yet, it is our feelings that make us human.  That’s what I learned from the book, Women Who Do Too Much, by Patricia Sprinkle.

            I ponder the “sin” part, and my first marriage, and here’s my thinking.  If you communicate from a place of love, which I've just described, and you still think you should leave (as most leave too soon) remember that you made a commitment.  Ah yes, a commitment before your community.  You gave your word to witnesses—including God—that you would hold this as sacred, yet most take it as just something to get through.  Then, when up against it, the vows fold because they were never taken seriously and owned, truly owed.  And there is no accountability other than to the court and financial institutions.  No one in the community stands up and says, "You made this commitment.  Now you go the distance."  We quit too easily in my opinion because we don't know how to work through the hard times, and no one holds us accountable in more than a financial sense. 

            Where do you quit?  When do you sell out on yourself and the relationship?  What are your stops?

            Our society needs to return to the basis of all life: relationship.  It starts with a spiritual relationship, with a higher power, elder, parent, and community.  Ideally, all of the above stress the meaning of relationship.  It is interesting to me that this reinforces my belief in a need for God.  That is, a higher power invested with wisdom tells us the way.  Unfortunately, religion has failed, or the people who organized the religions have failed.  What we need are wise elders who show us the way with conviction (that’s an example of commitment) to communicate and hold us accountable to what we commit to.  I sure wish I’d had that.

            I think it is only due to family dysfunction that my first marriage failed.  At the age of sixty-three, I now see the need for a higher authority, and I see what is created by its absence.  Now, because of the obvious corruption in church, state, and family, we have turned to other higher powers for direction, or one could say, false gods.

            Video games and starlets are modeling directions and consequences for actions, and kids are eating it up.  Starlets don't necessarily give us the consequences directly, but they sure do show us the result of their actions in the bright lights of their own lives.  Video games, just in case you haven't played one at all, require a strict set of guidelines that you have to actually study and integrate or you don't get very far, and the whole idea is to be able to stay alive by figuring out the rules.

            So where did I leave off?  My humble opinion is that it is never okay to get a divorce unless you have exhausted elder direction (okay, therapy).  Unfortunately for us, our elder direction either came too late or, in my opinion, was not forceful enough to get us to look at what we, each of us, were doing that was wrong.  It wasn't just a failing of the marriage.  It was our individual failings that were never addressed.  That would only bring us back to another failure in relationship between others and ourselves.  How sad.  Fortunately, it brought me to about eighteen years of off-and-on therapy to overcome most of our generational inability to promote healthy relationships. 

            I don't blame anyone.  I only accept responsibility for what I can do now.  Now is what matters.  I prefer conservation of energy.  Life is too short.  I am committed to learn and grow until I die. 

            What are you committed to do?

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