I'm chiming in here.....
a few things to say about you guy's last posts.
Firstly...... I want to say there are different ways to have reciprocity in relationships. The fault, I find, is when we over value someone's contribtions over those of other's...... say..... when we value money over companionship/keeping a home/creating sacred space/BEING home for two people, particularly when one of those people, typically the one with money, is in seeking/avoidance space, searching and searching for relief from feeling lost in the world through achievement and hoarding money.
In both my marriages, husbands held the same belief system...... being productive was about making money. There was no value in anything else, for either of them, at least not that they'd own up to. That I made more money than the first husband meant he was more cruel, more judgmental, more driven to drive me into the dirt like a beach donkey....... make me insane, then point to the insanity and threaten to have me institutionalized, which
made
me
angry.
Which
was
the
turning point for him and my willingness to sit, mute, and listen to his raging every morning about how I'd tricked him into marriage, blah blah blah... fine. Once I SAW it, it was over and that was enough for me. Confusion gave way to constructive.... NO.
Confusion gave way to "productive" emotions.
Productive. We disagreed about the definition of production, in both my marriages. I wish I'd have focused on what I valued, what I believed and what my minimum standards for relationship would BE.
Clearly, I'd failed to identify my minimum, set boundaries and set consquences......which is what I'd do now. Honestly, I think I DID that, but after committment took place, things changed with the men. Not with me, but I was trusthworthy and assumed they were too, which was my bad. Not theirs. That's why taking M to a T, who could LOOKat him WITHyou, Hops.... seemed really prudent to me. Someone else observing and SEEING what was there, or not there...... a shared advocate for each of you and for you as a couple.
I'm noticing I'm frustrated with what I wrote,bc I wrote about what I was raised with.... traditional roles I no longer value or want to SEE, or live my life by. It's a trap. It's a dream taking my atttention away from what's behind it.... what's really going on.... secrets I want to find and know and explore.
I've been the things I wrote about....I've been a doting mate..... I've been a pleasure to feed amazing meals and I typically dance in my seat, so I'm overtly pleased and demonstratively fun to eat with, or so I've been told.
The thing about BEING anything in a relationship is, it's dangreous to judge or label anything,IME. The idea...the imagined "perfect" relationship isn't ever perfect or enough..... I think. We have to be enough, on our own, I think. The other has to be enough on their own.... I think. THEN there can be harmonious union, disagreement and harmonious union coming back into focus again. Yup yup yup. I believe that.
I, for one, didn't require a lot of tending to. I likely would be considered a "cheap date" Amber, bc I honestly thrive on having time, space and adventure on my own, separate from mates....... I don't have high expectations for reciprocity, as a very introverted human who gets a lot of energy from my internal world. I'm often INSIDE my own head when with others, or in public and that's what it is.
The grass is green, the sky is blue.... sometimes. Not always and that's OK too.
My point is.....Hops.... I could SEE you with M, earlier on in the relationship. I could envision you spending more time with your friends, making new friends, maybe M's friends would become yours and you would form a new language around dealing with M successfully, feel kinship and light humor shared without judgment or cruelty.... just.... the grass is green, the sky is blue and M is doing his very best... can do no more..... there's peace around his limits and strengths..... it's all OK. NOT requiring he meet you where you were would have required you meet your own needs or find other companionship to meet them and that's always an option. It's always OK. It's not traditional and I want to be clear...... it's possible "traditional" doesn't actually exist, IMO. It's possible we have ideas and unconscious beliefs about what romantic reciprocal relationship IS,. has to BE, must DO in our lives before we FEEL at peace, serene, calm and at home in our skin, always, bc we're enough and we always have been.
Having your own life, coming together with M at dinner time..... traveling a bit...... enjoying his family....... then going back to your friend group for needs M could never fill and that being OK with you and your idea of what "relationship" was, or could be, should be.... just being OK with it. At peace. Serene. I could see that for you. I didn't know if you could see it for yourself.
Adding another human being, no matter who it is, should be finding someone bc we want to find them... not bc we need to find them, kwim?
The whole..... game playing in relationships...thing..... is...... for people who don't feel at home in their skin as they are. It's for people who react to the carelessly lobbed phrase.... "you're self absorbed" by someone who truly IS self absorbed, but unable to SEE it, understand it...... know what they've done, what they did, IME.
So, whatever comes of the dating scene...... Hops is OK. Will be OK. Has always been OK. Hops remembers that, or doesn't, but she's still OK... you're still OK, Hops. Always.
When you enter relationship from that point, you're free from so much gamesmanship and limitating ideas of what SHOULD be. Free from limits, I think. More choice. Less shoulds.
I'm ready to see relationsbhip through a fresh lense...... free from societal rules and unspoken agreements about what's worthy..... worth more..... valued, not of value.
My brother's fruend pops into my head as I'm writing. He was bitterly divorced and SUPER bitter while my brother was divorcing.
Then brother and bitter guy dated together for a while.... dated women from Miami..... maybe women from S. America, but the whole thing was about having fun. Bitter fruend was dating a gal from..... another Country. She was behaving like his wife, but my brother would report Bitter Fruend would NEVER ever ever marry her. She was selling real estate. BF was sending her work, maybe bought her a condo.... she was raising kids... but he was NEVER going to marry her. THAT was certain.
Fast forward a bit and there's wedding pictures. Bitter frruend and gal pal have a huge lavish weddig.....she's decorating his huge home and redoing the kitchen as his wife... they bought a place in Mexico and her entire large family has surrounded BF, he lives in the midst of many many people and looks happier than I've ever seen him look and this is AFTER he had a heart attack.
What changed, you might ask.
He had a heart attack.
She was there for him, helped him, nursed him, it's assumed. He had a change of heart about the things he valued, it's assumed, bc they are all over the place traveling, living life together, enjoying their shared families and that looked like WINNING to me.
And I wonder what my brother thinks about his friend's change of heart, no pun intended. We haven't spoken about it, but there will come a day when what my brother values most may change. He's very traditional, imo.
His 3 weeks of Covid might have him questioning what he feels is most important in his life... maybe not. I hope he's open to finding reciprocal relationship with an equal and by equal I mean someone who compliments HIM.... and he compliments her. He's lived a life of "Hot trumps crazy" for years. His ex wife..... going back to her again and again...... "Hot trumps crazy" was brother's mantra and I didn't understand it, but I didn't need to. I just knew crazy TRUMPS EVERYTHING in my life. I will never ever ever consider crazy something I should or could put up with for even a minute...... for what? Sex? Showing off a pretty person so my perceived worth goes up in THIS world? Maybe my brother's idea of relationship has to be...... woman has to be HOT, and that's the important thing. With that said, he's not screening out CRAZY by that metric. It's not the only metric. The women he dates are always smart and overtly competent, which means good and bad things for my brother, IME. Will see. I wish him happy relationship. He might have to spend some time alone.... endure dark nights of the soul before he changes his understanding of relationship and what he wants going forward.
I'm trying to get OUT of the world where value and worth are found in material thing... in collecting things.... in hoarding things of value or controlling other people. I've dated pretty people. VAPID pretty people. I've played with pretty people. I've been controlled pretty person and I've been an equal in relationship...... part of me still mourns that loss. Maybe part of me believes I'll never have it again, but I realize......
I don't think Ican go back to traditional relationship, even if I find it. There's been too much ugliness and trauma and bald face KNOWING.... SEEING what's there and what's not.
What I might want.... or be willing to accept..... is likely something I've never experienced or imagined. I'm still too limited by the rules and societal ideas.
I'd settle for what I always settled for.... someone with a good sense of humor, who gets my sense of humor..... a person who's secure and unlikely to have breaks with reality. And then the judgements start up...... HAS to be uber competent, like all the men in my family. That is just..... so judgy and limiting and I SEE it for what it is, but it's still lodged in my gullet.
It's easier to stay above it, untouched by it, unbothered, bc I'm cool with it. Cooler now than I've ever been, bc I'm not driven to feel guilty for NOTproviding a father for my children any more. They're grown.
I blathered on, but will close with gratitude for the poem, Hops.
Lighter
