We aren't really taught how to be in relationships. Love stories and fairy tales all end at the beginning of a true relationship. 'And they all lived happily ever after' is that false perfection of falling in love, and it begins to fall apart as soon as the end credits roll. Because if you have found your fulfillment in me, if indeed 'I complete you,' then as soon as I grow at all, change at all, you will begin to feel pulled in a direction that is not the one your inner compass wants you to go in. We may align to a degree in the direction we're headed, but to the degree we don't, we will be pulling at each other, misaligned partners in the three-legged sack race of love.
When this begins to happen, when the bloom is off the rose and we have to start learning how to live together as adults, often-times we go to the only model we know, the one society teaches us as the only thing that counts: the economic model. What am I getting? What is it costing me? Am I operating at a profit or a loss? We do a cost/benefits analysis of our relationship. When we start to look at things through this paradigm, the idea of giving shifts and it's no longer for fun and for free. We give something our partner wants or needs, but we expect something in return. When our expectation is not met, we add to a list of resentments we have begun to keep--a ledger, really--and when the ledger gets far enough imbalanced against our perceived good, we might begin to punish our partner for not fulfilling contracts they didn't even know they'd made. And it is inevitable that, if we have been keeping score, our partner has been keeping score as well, based on their own set of values. Insert here a mental image of two people frowning, arms crossed, facing away from each other
When we've headed down this road, a couple of things happen:
First, we become focused on the negative. We lose sight of the gratitude we were feeling just a short time before for the great good fortune of finding our soul mate. Only now we're not really even seeing our partner any more. We're seeing only what we're not getting. We take everything personally, even those things that are not at all personal. Perhaps we are very sensitive to loud noises. Our partner sneezes near us and even though we know it's completely irrational, we might blame them for hurting our ears. Our resentment builds. Again, not because we want it to, but because it's the system we've set up. You have control of my happiness. I'm not happy. You get blamed--rational or irrational, it doesn't matter.
Second, we begin to withhold our giving until... until our partner starts to treat us differently, until they love us the way we need to be loved, until they stop doing X, until they pay more attention, get more romantic, do more toward finding a job, etc. We find ourselves rationalizing our bad mood, our ingratitude, our lack of loving-kindness: 'If he loved me, he would never _________.' 'If she loved me, she would __________.'
I once had an extended layover of a day and a half in an airport just over the International Date Line. It was my birthday. My partner at the time had the idea that, on one's birthday, one must be given to. Giving was not exactly the primary pattern of our relationship, so an entire day of giving or being given to was a conspicuous change from the norm. We did fine for the first 15 to 20 hours, but because of the shifting time zones, we ended up 'in my birthday' for about 36 hours. Somewhere past hour 20--she worn down from so much giving, and me worn out from making sure I was exhibiting an appropriate level of gratitude, both of us trashed from jet lag and lack of sleep--walking through this modern, cavernous airport shopping area, I inadvertently stepped on the back of her flip-flop, the strap of which broke. Chaos ensued. The build-up of it all spilled over, tears were shed, the unfairness of life became blazingly apparent and the idea that the love between us ever would be strong enough to work out the problem of my shortcomings was exploded as the myth it so obviously had turned out to be. Needless to say, the rest of our trip was less than sublime.
Of course not all relationships are based in the ideas presented here; but many of them do have aspects of these patterns. If we continue to see relationships as places of receiving rather than of giving, this is inevitable. If we have a relationship that is at all less than ideal, it's important to begin to recognize the problems for what they really are--problems of perception and of behaviors based in old ideas, rather than necessarily problems of being with the wrong person. Real love and relationship based in real loving-kindness toward each other is possible. Shining a light upon our patterns can be the beginning of finding this for ourselves.
More about that tomorrow.
Today I will try to give something to someone for fun and for free. Whether they deserve it or not, whether I am feeling needy or not.
Hawaii Live Fire!, Honolulu, Hawaii
