True Love
Is there true love?
Maybe.
The closest I've come to it in relation to others is the love I share with my informally adopted children. I haven't found it with a partner and I'm sure that has something to do with choosing the wrong ones. And something to do with myself, if I'm honest, because I was brought up in a house with very bad models and I don't think I understood how to be maturely loving until quite recently. I'm sure it was a challenge to live with me in my youth because I was needy and insecure, always searching for some ideal that I projected onto my significant other, then being wildly disappointed when he couldn't live up to it. I know now that I should have been paying closer attention to myself, to self development, the enlargement of my own heart rather than looking outside myself.
If I had understood that, I might have saved myself a lot of heartache, but probably the only way to learn it was through experience and reflection. I'm sure some of you knew that early, but I've always been late through the gate.
Maybe you'll think this is a surprising post, coming as it does after a long absence of personal reflection here, but I've been thinking about the nature of love and relationship for the past few years, led by the breakup of a relationship that I thought was going to be enduring, the rupture of one of my children's long-term pairing, and the new relationship of a different kind with my mom, who I started living with and caring for just over a year ago. This last one might be the most challenging of all.
I read a book recently that seemed to help my thoughts coalesce. I can't recommend it highly enough, for anyone in or out of a relationship. It's the first book on the subject that makes real, immediate sense and helps us to understand the fundamental dynamics of pairing. It's Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find-And Keep-Love by Amir Levine, M.D. and Rachel S. F. Heller, M.A.
What did I learn from the book? Just that my failures in successive relationships during my life may have been due to one single problem -- choosing individuals who were not really capable of intimacy, and being a person who wanted a deep intimate bond. And that there is not some irreversible flaw in me, which is what I was starting to come to believe. What a comfort to learn that.
I have also come to the conclusion, during the past few years, that the search for someone to provide the creative, intellectual stimulation that I wanted was best found by being the person that I was looking for. In other words, trying to make myself that person rather than looking outside makes the most sense. Doing this single thing has made it possible for the loneliness to abate; even without a partner I am able to at last be happy. I can appreciate the beauty outside my window, I can make art, or write about it, I can make crafts that reflect my sensibilities, I can garden, I can cook and I can care for my mother and myself. These satisfactions soothe the constant sense of something missing that I've lived with most of my life.
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| Littlewing; hand knit for my daughter. |
I don't have much money -- I gave up my job to move here. I do have happiness, and I found it in the last place I thought to look -- inside my own heart.
Whether you are in a secure relationship or on your own, I offer these thoughts for your consideration, humbly and with love.
11 comments:
Kia ora VJ,
Beautiful and honest words and perhaps a reflection of all of us really.
Your post strikes me very deeply as I am struggling in my relationship with my oldest son, and always have I guess, and at the same time that has been wrapped around my lovely partners struggle with her father, stepmother and real mother. After 30 years she wanted to change the dynamics of her real mother being excluded and her having to feel guilty and shamed about having her in her life. Her courage and strength in doing that to these family "norms" was frankly stunning to me. The result has been her virtually disownment from her father and step mother, and the fact our son is living with them now has just been strange and weird. But rather than pull us apart it has brought her and I closer, even though it has taught us the we are still individuals very much capable of living on our own as well if we are completely honest. If I have learned anything it is simply to listen and be there for Tara and not try to solve issues I can't, or are just simply out of my depth.
It seems we are a product of our childhoods and the expectations we carry from there. Ripples on the pond. But I guess the beauty in your words and honesty VJ is that at the very least you are pondering these things, growing, and learning to love in a real and meaningful way. It gives me hope. Kia kaha e hoa.
Aroha,
Robb
Thank you, Robb for your response. It means a lot that this writing touched someone, because it was difficult to do. I hoped for just this -- that it could help others think about love and what it means to them.
We all struggle in our relationships with family, I think. Having been a step-parent I'm well aware of the dynamics in those relationships, but it does seem a pity when parents can't overlook their differences, even at a minimal level, for the sake of the rest of the family. Why couldn't there be some accommodation, like taking turns going to family events, if they can't stand to be in the same room? Anyway, like you said, you can't solve every problem but standing by with love and support is so very important. You and Tara are indeed lucky to have that in each other.
Some problems with adolescents stem from their "age and stage" -- the great work of learning to be a separate individual. I would just remain loving and give it a bit of time. From the person I think that you are, I doubt that he could fail to love and appreciate you and probably will be able to show that more once he matures.
Since we're on the topic, love to you and your family. May the Dragon's breath burn up all the bad old vapours in 2012 and clear the way for fresh hope.
:)
i, too, appreciate your writing this post and doing it so eloquently. rest assured it will resonate in others as well.
this inspires me to try and return to the track of writing about difficult issues in my blog every now and then. a topic has been brewing in my mind for a few days already...
thanks again for the link.
sylvi:
Thanks so much. Happy about the inspiration -- you inspire me every time I visit your blog. And this one might have borrowed a bit from you, too.
:)
Hi VegetableJ, it's been a while. Good to read a post such as this again.
I often wonder if this Victorian, romantic notion that has dominated the western world and infiltrated into other cultures through the popular media, has done more damage than good. The idea that there is a "true love" partner out there isn't very different from the way different cultures create their idea of a god or gods... there's something very wishful and unrealistic about it. Despite all evidence to the contrary, we cling to the idea that there is one person out there who will fulfill all our dreams. That's the absurdity. If you yourself can't fulfill your sense of fullness and well-being, how in the world will another person be able to do that for you?
I think the break up of so many relationships these days is based on this false hope. Rather than go look for someone whom you just feel yourself with, people go out of their way to feel that "chemistry", to the point of being unsustainable. And, as you said, putting forth a marker that is impossible for your partner to ever reach. Part of the reason I am so frustrated with feminism these days is that the women are getting furious about everything men do, and there is no direction that doesn't seem to fall short of their expectations. It's simply impossible to be all the idealistic things these women want. A few of them even call for the non-existence of men. Well, that is definitely not something I can live up to!
I've finally reached a point in my life where trying to find a lifelong partner no longer dominates my thoughts. Finally, like when I was a young teenager, I can focus on the things I love and develop my skills and knowledge, enjoy life. I, too, could have avoided a lot of heartache if I had been more honest and practical.
Westerners seek out and overly criticize the way Japanese married couples are "unequal", but I think they see what they want to see. I find that Japanese couples tend to stay together and are much happier in general (happy as in "shiawase... content, not the glowing rapture that westerners seem to associate with long-lasting love) far longer than western couples, and therefore break up far less often. Young women are not getting married in part because they are unhappy with the attitudes of men (a lot of which I can understand!), but it is also because of this unrealistic expectation of romantic love and this unrealistic picture of what constitutes the ideal male (so many Japanese worn pine for western white men, though few of them know anything about them). Many Japanese women often ask, "Why can't Japanese treat women like "ladies" the way western men do?" Aside from the strange idea that western men are more gentlemanly, there are also the two strange ideas of what a "lady" is (why in the world should women be coddled like that, just because they are women?) and why it is that Japanese men should act like western men. Certainly the Japanese women don't go out of their way to act more western!
So why did so many people in Asia do so well in their marriages without the western idea of romantic love? Perhaps because love is something that has to be earned and takes time and involves acceptance of the humanness of the partner?
I was always very critical of the attitude of Meryl Streep's depiction of Karen Blixen in the movie "Out of Africa" (the book was very different... Blixen didn't carry those PC modern attitudes that were so popular in movies of the 80's) where she criticizes and condemns her lover Denys Finch Hatton for not settling down with her, with the movie treating it as a sexist attitude on Finch-Hatton's part. It always irked me that the two were very happy together, both being able to be themselves with one another, including Hatton's need to have time alone and to wander... it was his nature... and yet the movie persona turned him into a selfish man who disrespected the needs of women.
I always thought, THAT is one great reason why relationships fall apart... when people won't let their partner just be themselves.
Hmmm, butuki, a lot of thoughts to ponder in _two_ comments. Not that I'm complaining, mind. :)
There are a few knots in the western vs Japanese way of thinking thesis. Culturally, there is a definite difference, but I wonder if there is much difference in what people really want. Though it is not practical to think that a partner should be able to fulfill all one's ideals, I think we all feel we want to be able to respect our partner and feel that we are special in some way to each other, at the least. I don't think that's pushing expectations too far.
Japanese women may have absorbed some of that Hollywood /Victorian romanticism that is unrealistic, and centered it around a few catch-phrases like "ladies first" but I know from talking to a lot of them that what they are longing for is just a bit more intellectual companionship and courtesy from their partners. I was not very impressed about how much time some businessmen spent escaping all family duties to go drinking with their coworkers and I can't tell you how many times I was pushed aside when trying to get on the train, for example. Common courtesy is not coddling. And I have to say that the women of the world are rarely "coddled" by men except in the case of when they are being wooed, and that soon wears off. Men, however, are coddled by women in many countries for much of their lives, so much so that men have come to take it as their due and no longer are even aware or especially appreciative of the fact that their partners often act as their servants.
I do agree that marriages based on practicality may last longer, but in Japan, where careers for women are so limited and low-paid, what choice do women have other than to be partnered with a wage-earner and stay in that partnership? Then, too, we have the antiquated custody laws that make it impossible for some divorced people to see their children. That alone is a powerful deterrent to divorce.
I think you may be a little behind the times in your image of western feminism. What you are describing is the phase of apartheid probably more descriptive of the movement in the 70s and 80s. I think it is a phase of any disenfranchised movement as it moves forward. One might think of a parallel in the Black Power movement in the US. In the feminist movement it served to create safe spaces where women could communicate without being derailed by other agendas.
Most feminists in the west have embraced men's participation and are working more within the system to effect change, as they have come to get a measure of positions of influence. I'm not saying there aren't some that are still angry with men in general, but probably most have directed their anger to specific powers (often these happen to be white men) in government and business that have garnered a big share of the pie to the detriment of the rest of us, whether we be women, men, or children.
I haven't read Out of Africa, though I'd love to, to compare it with the movie. If you have a copy that you are willing to donate you could email me for my address. :)
Thanks for your comments; it's great to get a good discussion going. If you want to respond again, please feel free.
Wonderful post!
Cha-chan! Wonderful to hear from you. I dropped over to your blog last week to catch up-- how are you liking this mild eastern winter?
Kia ora VJ,
Just an update. I was home the other day lying on the couch and there was a quiet knock on the door and then it opened. I jumped up to see Taylor standing there. I had not seen him in over 3 months. We had a big cuddle and a few tears, didn't talk about anything real deep but just glad to see him in front of me. When he left he said he wants to go back into the mountains, that we have some unfinished business there from our last experience. I know he has a long way to go, so do I, but I feel like a bit of weight has been taken off me. Hope you are well e hoa. Mauri ora!
Aroha,
Robb
Robb:
So happy for you and Taylor! He probably needs a bit of space and is looking for the right balance (I know from experience that parents want to see children more often than the other way around). He sounds like a good boy so I wouldn't worry too much. ( Like father, like son.)
:)
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