Another conversation with my friend about relationships

Personal Diary, 8 March 2006:

Another thing I learnt from the conversation with my friend the other way was that it takes true courage and maturity to decide what kind of relationship you want to be in, to keep those that nourish and strengthen you, and give up on those that diminish and impoverish you.

It is all too easy to remain in a bad relationship, pretending that somehow things will eventually work out fine. But they rarely do. It is all too easy to shut your eyes to the truth and numb yourself to the reality of the situation, thinking that if you were patient enough your problems would somehow vanish into thin air. But such intellectual and emotional dishonesty can only lead to despair, hopelessness and powerlessness.

You cannot create reality by faking reality. You cannot change the circumstances of your life by pulling the wool over your eyes and refusing to see the truth that is laid before you. You cannot take charge of your own reality if you are forever evading it and pretending that you can escape the consequences. You cannot look if your refuse to see, and you cannot listen if you refuse to hear.

Even when there is a child involved in the marriage or relationship, it is sometimes still best to go separate ways. All too often, couples force themselves to remain in a hurtful or even abusive marriage for the sake of giving their child an intact family to grow up with. But this course of action is sadly misguided. You have to tend to your own needs first before you can tend to the needs of others. You have to look after your own interests and be secure in your own power first before you can take care of others and help them find their own strength.

The appropriate analogy that comes to mind is the instruction to adult passengers in an airplane that in the event of an emergency in which there is loss of cabin pressure, they are to fit themselves with the oxygen mask first before helping their children with theirs. The same principle applies here. You have to take care of your own needs first before you can take care of your child.

Many women especially force themselves to remain in a bad marriage thinking that they are serving the best interests of their children. But their children grow up feeling their powerlessness and their vulnerability. Their children sense their unhappiness and lack of self esteem. They feel less because their parents feel less. They may grow up learning that it is right and proper to sacrifice their own interest and sense of self worth for the sake of people they love.

Futility and guilt in relation to my family

I can't help feeling a sense of futility with regards to what has happened in my family all these years.

Despite all my mum's efforts at trying to keep the family intact and create an atmosphere of peace and harmony, she and my dad have not really had any personal growth. They have not developed the soft skills of navigating each others' beliefs, of developing empathy, tact and understanding. They are still stuck in their old frameworks of beliefs about each other, which invariably colours all their experience with each other. They have not learnt how to grow out of those limiting frameworks.

But it is clear that they have long since grown out of each other. Yet they still have to be together as that is what they decided to do. That itself is a courageous decision, yet sad at the same time as that same decision has stifled their growth as individuals all these years.

Is it worth it? Bravely remaining in a relationship of this nature, but in the end sacrificing your personal growth and value fulfillment?

They stayed in the marriage all for my sake, because they wanted to give me an intact family unit and a safe place to grow. That was my role, to provide them the motivation to stay together and give them an opportunity to grow together. The sense of futility and guilt I have comes from knowing that while they stayed together, they did not grow together. In that sense, I feel responsible for having caused their personal development and fulfillment to be stifled and less than it could have been.

Futility. Guilt. These are on my mind now.

My relationships and what I learnt

From my personal diary, dated Wednesday, December 14, 2005

To be sure, my two relationships that took place over the past 5 years created all financial ruin that I am currently experiencing. But then again darkness cannot exist without light, and within the sphere of darkness that envelopes the past 5 years of financial bankruptcy and despair, I must search for that glimmer of light, no matter how small or faint. And I must focus on the light rather than the darkness that so threatens to consume and utterly destroy me.

If I had brought warmth, comfort, even learning into another person's life, then I must trust that I have done some good, and that this adds to my own character. I must trust that in spite of all my mistakes and failures, I must have done some things that are right, truthful and enlightened, and brought goodness into another person's life. Perhaps then this is the small, faint spark of light that I should focus on if I want to navigate my way out of the darkness.

If I can give strength and energy to another in times of need, then I have done well.

An enlightening conversation on love

From my personal diary, dated Thursday, March 02, 2006

Today I had quite an enlightening conversation with my friend and colleague whom I started working together with recently.

In my previous postings I mentioned that love is not merely an emotion or feeling, but a journey undertaken by two mature people who are secure in their own power, who are able to complement and add to each other’s life and work.

My colleague pointed out a slightly different dimension to our concept of love --- a view that gels very nicely what I’ve been reading from C.S. Lewis’ book Mere Christianity. To be sure, the initial emotions of infatuation, romantic desire and sexual interest will eventually fade with the passage of time, no matter how strong they once were. Even physical beauty always succumbs to time’s relentless arrow. Like shifting sands that come and go with the tides, these merely transient attributes will never form the basis of a wholesome and lasting relationship.

Instead lifelong unions and romantic partnerships are always held together by the Will. The couple must decide to be with each other permanently, through thick and thin, joy and sorrow. They must hold their relationship, their union, firmly together by their will and resolve. It is only through this deep commitment and perseverance that their relationship will stand up to the test of time. Their partnership must be founded on the power within translated to the power without.

In the book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis writes that the sexual passions and instincts must eventually be let go off and a higher purpose embraced. The dying away of the initial thrill will be compensated for by a quieter and more lasting kind of interest. And it is precisely those individuals who are ready to let go off the steamy infatuations and excitements and settle down for the more sober work of putting together a mature and responsible partnership who are most likely to find new joys and thrills.

Love is a choice, not merely a feeling. It is a journey, not merely a collection of promises made in the heat of passion. Indeed, to experience true love, one must learn to let go of that which is fleeting and transient, and embrace the higher infinite.