Anyone else old enough to remember that Buffalo Springfield tune the first time around?
Among the denizens that hang around here, I have the dubious distinction of having been in several serious, long term relationships that ended in various ways. I've been both the dumper and the dumpee, and, alas, the widow. I very much agree with something that NOP said a while back that all Rs hit some kind of a wall, and at that point you have the choice to either stay and keep loving or move down the road and start over. In every past R, I've felt that the problem was that I hadn't found the right partner "yet."
I never expected a perfect R. I know there are bumps and conflicts, but what was missing, and is still missing, is a foundation of connectedness and serenity. The closest I came was with my late husband, but even then, he was depressed, and it was hard.
Last night I took my bf to the emergency room after we determined that he had a temp of 104, and they diagnosed him with pneumonia. (Can you catch REAL viruses from the internet?) While I was waiting for him, I read the book our book club is doing tonight. It's called "Homemade Love." It's a collection of short stories about different romantic Rs. It's written in dialect (African-American), and I usually find dialect very hard to read, but I didn't have anything else to read, so I plowed through. And somewhere in the middle of the book, something seeped into me and awakened me. In this book, the author, with the colorful name of J. California Cooper, presents such sweet simple stories of people who find love. Some don't; some find only trouble. But the kind of love she describes is so SIMPLE. Karen, your post caught my eye with the title Simple Loving. That could be the subtitle of this book. I know that 's what I want. I don't mind conflict. I don't mind work. I'd rather not have medical emergencies, but I can handle them. I don't need a lot of money, and I don't mind contributing my money to the enterprise. I don't mind taking my share of the responsibility. But I want to be part of a loving R. Back to my concept of the Economy of Emotional Deprivation. I'm starving for affection here, and it just plain isn't necessary.
Also I've been reading some books written from a Buddhist psychotherapy point of view-- Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach, and books by Sharon Salzberg and John Welwood-- and what they say-- what we've all said over and over again-- is that you have to start with yourself. You have to start by loving yourself. But what exactly does that mean? What does that look like?
Today, I took my bf to the doctor to follow up. I was glancing through a magazine in the waiting room and was plunged into a dark and pensive mood when I read that the average man has intercourse 7 to 8 times per month. (You know me and stats. ) Then bf and I went to breakfast. We pulled up to the restaurant, and I asked him something-or-other, and he-- for the gazillionth time-- replied to me in that exasperated, sighing, eye rolling, totally unnecessary tone of voice, and I just stopped him dead. I said, "Look, you go into the restaurant. I'll take these prescriptions to the drugstore and come back." I drove around thinking... looking back over my past Rs, not wanting to start over with someone else. I recognize that I cannot control what my bf does or how he treats me. I can only make a request and then stick around or not stick around. But I felt like a piece of the puzzle was missing.
Then a big light bulb (or as we say in the South: a "LAHT BUB") appeared over my head. I know I am the common denominator in all my Rs-- obviously. But in each one of them, in one way or another *I have had to nail my partner's feet to the floor to keep him present.* That sums it up, in a nutshell. In one way or another, my partner has not been present during our relationship.
It's easy enough to say "oh well, you attract unavailable men." Well, duh.
But the Buddhist psychotherapy perspective (and not only that one, but it's the one I've been reading) says that your R is mirroring yourself to you. The state of your R is mirroring your internal state. A good way of putting it (from an alcoholism site) is: "When you're in love with someone, they are a walking manifestation of your soul-- good and bad." Sometimes this concept is presented (rather unhelpfully IMHO) as: you attract what you think you're worth. Well, yeah, but how do I increase my own idea of what I'm worth? Lose weight, work out, make more money, act more sexy, have a face lift?
How much more revealing for me to apply this mirroring concept to myself by saying: *I* am not present for myself, therefore I attract partners who mirror that back to me, i.e., who are not present to me. When I become present to myself, then I will have a partner who is fully present. That might be current bf or not. This gives newer and deeper meaning to the expression: "Ninety percent of life is just showing up."
When I picked him up at the restaurant, he was Mister Chatty, but I put my hand on his arm and said, I want you to treat me with kindness. Whether you think I deserve it or not. I don't ask for a lot, but I must have kindness. I also shared with him what the C said to me privately, namely, that she doesn't think he can rise to the challenge of being really awake. She thinks he is going to keep putting his mother's face on me and then punishing me for how she treated him. I told him that she said if he did change, it would take years, and that I would probably have to seek out another partner. I was driving at the time, so I didn't see his face, but you know what, he's a big boy.
I put myself on hold while he was drinking, after the heart stuff, when he lost his job, when he QUIT drinking. Now he just started a really good job (Yay!), and I can't wait any more. I'm dyin' here.
Being absolutely open, transparent, and vulnerable to each other seems to be the surest way out of the SSM. I think the NOPs, IHJ, and GGB (congrats, BTW!) have shown the most consistent "success," IF we define success as an undercurrent of connection, intimacy, and physical eroticism that can be accessed with some predictability, minimal defensiveness, and just feeling that the future looks pretty darn good.
If I look at the things about my bf that most hit my hot buttons, I have to take what I observe, remove him from the picture, and ask, how do I do this to myself. If he lets me down, how do I let myself down? If he is afraid to be open with me, how do I lie to myself? Do I walk my own talk, or do I just talk to hear my gums flap (don't answer that!)?
This felt like a huge revelation to me. When I am present to myself, I will attract a partner who is present. How am I not present? For one thing, by letting him talk to me in ways that hurt. By not taking as good care of myself as I can. By focusing so much of my energy on him that I forget about myself altogether.
I had a big insight about 20 years ago when I was going with another guy. I wrote in my journal a lot back then and did a lot of work on myself, but when I would go back and reread the stuff, I noticed that whenever I felt that I was on the verge of some kind of inner breakthrough, HE would have some kind of crisis that would distract me. That pattern has repeated, too.
I'm also in a position that many of you are not, namely, not married, no kids, our own houses, separate finances. I look at some of the situations on this board, where y'all have been struggling for years, and you don't feel D is an option... and it breaks my heart into a million pieces.
Even if it is an option, some of you are divorced, so you know how painful it is.
So like NOP says, you either stay and love or go somewhere else and start over... and if you have not become conscious of the way in which your current R mirrors your internal R with yourself, the odds are very high that in a few years, you'll be in exactly the same spot. Well, not exactly the same... that would be too easy. But the themes will be there... the loneliness, the frustration, the wondering why s/he can't give something that's so simple and natural...
And yet, I can see, that when you take care of yourself first, namely, begin to truly offer support to yourself (which some partners do not), value your own wants and needs (which some partners do not), keep your commitments to yourself (unlike some partners who fail to show up when they said they would), to stay with someone whose behavior is so discordant with your healthy inner life will become intolerable. This is the crucible, where you grow and change, or one of you bails.
I have to say that I think I have grown more in this R than any other in my past. 'Bout damm time.
"The truth shall set ye free, but first it shall make ye miserable."
I wanted to clarify something (as one can easily get misunderstood on the internet). When I said
Quote: I recognize that I cannot control what my bf does or how he treats me. I can only make a request and then stick around or not stick around.
by "not stick around" I didn't mean leave the R initially. I meant leave the room, refuse to engage. Like I used to do when he started on his second six pack. I would just go to bed. So today when he did that, instead of getting into it with him, I did not have breakfast with him.
Later in the day, something good happened. I called him on the phone, and he was telling me some stuff, and I kind of interrupted him a few times, and I recognized the occasion as one of those times that he usually snaps at me but he didn't. I realized this after we hung up the phone. Because he didn't snap at me, making me defensive, and starting an argument, I was able to see that my interrupting him is really annoying, and that if I would just wait a second, he would get to what I'm interrupting about, and I wouldn't do it at all. If he had snapped at me, I would have been mad at HIM and wouldn't have seen myself. I would have been distracted. Kind of like "remove the beam from your own eye before you go after the mote in your brother's eye." So I called him back and told him this: that I could see, since he refrained from snapping at me, that my behavior in this regard is REALLY aggravating. By not reacting to me, he created an opportunity for me to discover this ABOUT myself FOR myself. He got it. I got it. We both got it.
The problem with spending time (toom much?)thinking about a problematic relationship is that you develop an "idea" of who your partner is and how he/she behaves and you contrast that with your "ideal" of how you would like a partner to behave. I once read a bit of a Buddhist book on sexuality which recommended that you should try to see your partner with "fresh eyes" every time you have sex. It would be nice if we could see ourselves with "fresh eyes" too.
I recently came across a videotape in which I am interacting with my children when they were around 3 and 6 years old on an occasion we weren't conscious of being taped. Imagine a smiling, slow-moving, spaced-out cow interacting with two very active, grinning, chattering monkeys. I was struck by the fact that my kids tendency to cheerfully bounce off the walls was directly linked to my tendency to be cheerfully distracted and slow to react. I guess my point is we can be unaware of our own behavior even in a situation or relationship in which everyone is happy.
I sometimes wish I had a videotape of some of my interactions with my H. I'm sure that in many ways I'm getting exactly the H or relationship or reaction that I'm asking for and I just don't realize it. I think your suggestion that we should concentrate on observing ourselves in our relationships rather than our partners is a good one.
My sister was recently telling me about how she used to have problems with relationships because she was always becoming involved with heavy metal guitar player types. The way she got over this was by doing her best to become a heavy metal guitar player herself. If we need a relationship in order to feel complete, maybe we need to concentrate on figuring out what are our own missing puzzle pieces. I hope I don't offend you by saying this but it seems to me that you are often writing on the theme of being simultaneously attracted and repelled by your BF's childish traits. Perhaps what you want/need is the presence of a real child or children in your life at this time.
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
Quote: I hope I don't offend you by saying this but it seems to me that you are often writing on the theme of being simultaneously attracted and repelled by your BF's childish traits. Perhaps what you want/need is the presence of a real child or children in your life at this time.
No offense in the least. I'm extremely interested in all observations that other people have of me regarding things I cannot see about myself.
On that note: WOW!
That is a really good observation. I don't have children of my own, and as an only child, I was never around babies or anything. Somehow I got the message from somewhere that I wouldn't have children. That that was something other people did, but that I wouldn't. Not that having children was "beneath me" or anything like that. Quite the contrary... that I was not entitled to this simple human pleasure and responsibility. I truly felt I did not have permission to have children.
One might ask me "do you regret not having children?" but in my mind it really wasn't an option. Kind of like you might see an astronaut on tv and never consider for a minute that you could be an astronaut. I remember reading books about babies and pregnancy and being excited and fascinated, but it still didn't seem like something that was accessible to me. Again, kind of like "it would be so nice to live in Paris someday" when you know you'll never do it.
I know this message came from my mother who was the oldest girl of 10 children in an immigrant family. She has some very dark stuff in her childhood that she will not talk about. Anyway, that's another long story.
I've only lately come to these realizations and conclusions about having chidren. This belief about myself was like an invisible suit that was restricting me, but that I could not see. A lot of this stuff is like that, so you have to ask other people to point it out.
But to carry your comment further, how can I introduce a child into my life? The obvious answer (but not until this moment) is to let my own child come out to play.
In my FOO a child was not a valuable thing. A child was someone who should be quiet, speak when spoken to, and keep out of the way. Maybe that is bound up in the message to me about not having children-- why do something so worthless.
I think I have failed to value the child in me. I know I have. Somewhere along the way I discarded her and abandoned her... and now I need to go back to wherever I dropped her off, pick her up, and take her with me.
For those who remember Buffalo Springfield, you'll also remember Transactional Analysis, a pop psych that appeared in the late 60's. Simplified: we each have Parent, Adult, and Child facets to our personalities. When two people get together these facets relate Parent to Parent, Parent to Adult, etc., through all the iterations. But Sex happens in the Child to Child interaction. Sex is grownups at play. In fact my late husband's shorthand for ML was, "Do you want to play?" which I always thought was very sweet.
It also occurs to me that my tendency to micromanage my bf's irresponsibility is me relating to him as Parent to Child, which not only tweaks his Mom issues, but is the death of sexuality.
It FURTHER occurs to me that as a writer I often feel creatively stuck when it comes to story ideas. But of course the creator and generator of fiction is the Child. So my Adult needs Little Lil to tell me the stories that I write down. Yikes... what a lot of "pregnant" ideas from your one comment.
There is a heckuva lot of food for thought here... put it on my tab, JJ.
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Years ago, I got the following text from somewhere, and when I meet a new friend, I usually print one up for them in certificate form on nice paper (sometimes I frame it). Feel free to plagarize at will. It fits nicely on letter sized paper landscape format. Just copy the text, paste, then center it.
Quote: By this Certificate know ye that
(NAME)
is a Lifetime Member in Good Standing in the Society of Childlike Grown-ups
and is hereby Forever entitled to
walk in the rain, jump in mud puddles, collect rainbows, smell flowers, blow bubbles, stop along the way, build sand castles, watch the moon and stars come out, say hello to everyone, go barefoot, go on adventures, sing in the shower, have a merry heart, read children's books, act silly, take bubble baths, get new sneakers, hold hands and hug and kiss, dance, fly kites, laugh and cry for the health of it, wander around, feel scared, feel sad, feel mad, feel happy, give up worry and guilt and shame, stay innocent, say yes, say no, say the magic words, ask lots of questions, kiss dogs on the nose, ride bicycles, draw and paint, see things differently, fall down and get up again, talk with animals, look at the sky, trust the universe, stay up late, climb trees, take naps, do nothing, daydream, play with toys, play under the covers, have pillow fights, learn new stuff, get excited about everything, be a clown, enjoy having a body, listen to music, find out how things work, make up new rules, tell stories, save the world, make friends with the other kids on the block, and do anything else that brings more happiness, celebration, relaxation, communication, health, joy, love, creativity, pleasure, abundance, grace, self-esteem, courage, balance, spontaneity, passion, beauty, peace, and life energy to the above-named Member and to other Humans and Beings on this Planet. Furthermore, the above-named Member is Officially Authorized to frequent amusement parks, beaches, meadows, mountain tops, swimming pools, forests, playgrounds, picnic areas, summer camps, birthday parties, bookstores, cookie shops, ice cream parlors, theaters, hammocks, aquariums, museums, planetariums, toy stores, festivals, and other places where Children of All Ages come to Play, and is encouraged always
to Remember the Motto of the Society of Childlike Grown-ups:
I love your certificate. I clearly remember being a big 12 year old girl in the sandbox telling herself that it was okay to play in the mud one last time because pretty soon I would be too old. I also clearly remember being a big 21 year old girl at the state park with a male friend telling herself that it was okay to "play in the mud" because pretty soon I would be too old for that kind of thing.
I think one of the main reasons I enjoy the company of children is that it allows me to access the child within. For instance, I frequently think "I wish I had a 4 year old, so I could read some picture books.". Of course, I don't really need a 4 year old. It's alright to enjoy picture books even if you're 40.
I often find a strangely childish pleasure in doing things for which I have no talent, skill or knowledge. I have no hope of actual success or accomplishment so I'm just doing it for the fun of it.
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
) Then bf and I went to breakfast. We pulled up to the restaurant, and I asked him something-or-other, and he-- for the gazillionth time-- replied to me in that exasperated, sighing, eye rolling, totally unnecessary tone of voice, and I just stopped him dead. I said, "Look, you go into the restaurant. I'll take these prescriptions to the drugstore and come back." I drove around thinking... looking back over my past Rs, not wanting to start over with someone else. I recognize that I cannot control what my bf does or how he treats me. I can only make a request and then stick around or not stick around. But I felt like a piece of the puzzle was missing. 
