http://www.care2.com/greenliving/waiting-for-the-spring.html
Waiting for the Spring
The goal of making a relationship sustainable should not just be to stay, but rather, to find and cultivate the places in the relationship that are worth staying for. Re-imagining your commitment into a healthy curiosity about the mystery of the other person and allowing for the ebb and flow of intimacy that is a normal part of loving relationships. Here are a few thoughts to help you explore where to look for what can sustain your connections.
The other day I ran into an old friend while dropping off my son for a basketball practice. The last time we talked had been over a year ago, when she was celebrating her first anniversary to her second husband. After a tragic ending to her first marriage, she seemed radiant - they both did. Her boys were in transition but welcomed having a father again. Now just a year later, she was in the final stages of divorce. I asked her what had happened. She said that it was a difficult transition for him. He wasn’t happy not long after they were married. Marriage and her ready made growing family had taken a toll on his music career, and they both decided it would be easier to split. I expressed my sorrow for her, but she replied, almost cheerfully, she was fine, better actually than when they were struggling to make it work.
I left that encounter with sadness and resolve. What could I learn from all the leaving that I see going on around me? When should relationships be ended? What amount of time and work constitutes enough? These are the questions that encircle many of my conversations with friends in various stages of leaving their relationships.
Two things come to mind when I talk to my friends about these endings - First, the quote I have hanging on my wall “You never fail until you quit.” This has been a primary premise in maintaining all of my relationships. If communication is the currency of relationships than walking away from the communication is certainly its death. My husband and I went for years to counselors who taught us to speak to each other so we could hear one another. It is not a skill that most people have- especially across genders, each sex having entirely different ways of communicating and hearing. (For more info on this read Why Men Never Remember and Women Never Forget by M. Legato). Painful as it can often be, the work of learning to listen and speak lovingly is at its base the promise we make to stay.
The second thing that occurs to me, all the more so, at the onset of spring, as all of nature’s little miracles show themselves, reinventing the cycle of birth and renewal is that sustaining love, and not only romantic love- requires acknowledging and accepting all of the “seasons” of a relationship as they come to you. It isn’t reasonable to walk away from the winters in love - not the snuggly by the fire winter, but the barren emptiness of wondering how you could have said yes to this. Sustaining love is about learning to wait for the spring - trusting that it will come, sowing the seeds that will help the thaw to begin. Largely, this is a decision to give up the fantasy that relationships exist to make us happy - they have moments of deep and profound joy - like a jump in the lake on a hot summer day. But that is not what they are there for. They exist to teach us to love.
Wendy Strgar, the owner and founder of Good Clean Love, manufacturer of all natural love and intimacy products. She is a sex educator focusing on “Making Love Sustainable,” a green philosophy of relationships which teaches the importance of valuing the renewable resources of love and family. She has learned that physical intimacy is an important component of sustaining healthy loving relationships through her own marriage of over 25 years.
related stories
-
(1 comment)
- wendy
-
(4 comments)
Robyn
Melissa
Deepak
Eric
Dave
Dr. Brent
Isha
Susan
Delia
Michelle
Wendy
Megan
Hilary
Ann
Judi
Ronnie
Kelly
Lily
Terri
Betsy
Cait
Andrew
Jana
Annie B.
Veronica
10 comments
add your comment »thanks...
Kabin
Konteyner
send green star
why is this inappropriate?
Thank you Wendy for your inspiring words. I too believe that love is not a fairy tale, and that there are ebbs and flows, like there are springs and winters. I am currently in a situation where my spouse just gave up and walked out on me, because he was not "happy". Unfortunately he did not have the courage to stick out the tough times and reap the rewards that spring time can bring!
send green star
why is this inappropriate?
Thank you Wendy for writing about such matters in a way that is easily understood by everyone. You have quite clearly written from the heart in an honest and empathic way that comes from real life experience. (I have to say that I much prefer your style to those who prefer to be technically perfect but communicate only from their heads!)
Relationships do ebb and flow like the Seasons, and part of being a grown up is to stick to your commitment and not run at the first sign of trouble. We have weathered some lows but when the 'Spring' returns it is always more magnificent than the last time and most definitely worth it. And yes, there are those relationships where sadly you have to decide that the effort is just not worth it and move on.
Keep talking and keep loving everyone.
Blessings
www.GrassdancerEssences.com - Healing Energy from Nature
send green star
why is this inappropriate?
Relationships definitely take two people to keep them going. There is nothing quite so lonely as being in a one-sided relationship and not free to enjoy other people. I finally found a mutually loving relationship and when it got in trouble both of us were eager to go to a marriage counselor. That's all anyone can ask for, two willing people.
send green star
why is this inappropriate?
Jeez, I'm glad I don't write for Care2. Anything that gets posted is inevitably ripped apart in the commentary.
send green star
why is this inappropriate?
Hi Wendy,
First,a comment on your writing style; it seems you have buried the hook. It seems that the story should come first, then paragraph three, then the first paragraph. I hope this is helpful to you, and if not, disregard it.
Second, I must agree with you that 'Love' in modern society is evolving towards an unrealistic ideal in which the other person is to make your life fulfilling and happy. This image is portrayed ad nauseum in the mass media, leading to a generally unrealistic set of expectations going into a marriage on behalf of both partners: the husband expects the wife to look like a beauty queen for the rest of her life; she expects him to be the romantic hero she has seen so many times on TV, larger-than-life and greater than human.
Third, I must disagree with you about despairing a failing relationship. As you say, relationships are to teach us how to love, to create better people out of us. Yet sometimes there is only so far you can go with a person before you have learned what you can from each other; I think the important thing here is ensuring that neither person suffers unnecessarily, as separation from love can be painful. Nature moves through death and rebirth, and it would be arrogant to think we humans are above this cycle, even in our highest aspects. More harm can be done maintaining a dead relationship than letting go.
send green star
why is this inappropriate?
While I agree with Lynx that it may take two people to keep a relationship going, I also think that much of the difficulty in a relationship, or resistance to it, often comes from defensiveness. And I see communication, defensive and non-defensive, as one of those small boats in which, when one person shifts position, the other person must move somehow - even with small moves - to balance the boat.
To me, communication is the key; like it or not, we're always communicating with each other; and I see non-defensive communication as a process - and a way of life, even - that can help both people feel safer with each other, little by little. I've found this can help with being kinder to oneself, as Alice says, as well as with being kinder and clearer with one's partner. Sharon Ellison's method for this (PNDC) is my favorite, by a long mile. She writes about this in Taking the War Out of Our Words. Given the way I hear us talking to each other, most of the time - even the way we talk to our friends and children - I don't find it surprising that we often see our dearest friends and family as enemies.
I hung in with my first husband through a few years of tension and distance, mainly out of a kind of inertia on my part. I can't take much credit for that, but when I found a therapist who could help us come to feel safe together, I was glad I'd stayed. We were happily married when he died a couple of years later. I know this isn't everyone's right answer, but it worked for us.
send green star
why is this inappropriate?
While I agree with Lynx that it may take two people to keep a relationship going, I also think that much of the difficulty in a relationship, or resistance to it, often comes from defensiveness. And I see communication, defensive and non-defensive, as one of those small boats in which, when one person shifts position, the other person must move somehow - even with small moves - to balance the boat.
To me, communication is the key; like it or not, we're always communicating with each other; and I see non-defensive communication as a process - and a way of life, even - that can help both people feel safer with each other, little by little. I've found this can help with being kinder to oneself, as Alice says, as well as with being kinder and clearer with one's partner. Sharon Ellison's method for this (PNDC) is my favorite, by a long mile. She writes about this in Taking the War Out of Our Words. Given the way I hear us talking to each other, most of the time - even the way we talk to our friends and children - I don't find it surprising that we often see our dearest friends and family as enemies.
I hung in with my first husband through a few years of tension and distance, mainly out of a kind of inertia on my part. I can't take much credit for that, but when I found a therapist who could help us come to feel safe together, I was glad I'd stayed. We were happily married when he died a couple of years later. This isn't everyone's right answer, but it was good for us.
send green star
why is this inappropriate?
It is hard for human beings to avoid cruelty - in their own behaviors, or in terms of what they elicit from others i.e. self-flagellation by proxy. (Abuse is not what I'm talking about.) Being kinder to oneself is a prerequisite for making changes in relationship dynamics - this is a "simple" truth: not so easy to apply, but necessary to learn to do.
send green star
why is this inappropriate?
An interesting perspective, but the problem with the "You never fail until you quit” philosophy, where relationships are concerned, is that it takes two to keep them going. No matter how determined you may be work through issues and stay together, if your partner doesn't want to, you can't force them to stay...
send green star
why is this inappropriate?
Facebook account: