I heard Paul Potts, of mobile salesman to opera star fame, talking about his relationship with his wife. He has a degree, with a philosophy component. My understanding of what he said about marriage was very interesting. He said that his marriage consisted of three elements, Paul as an individual with his own life, Julz, his wife with her own life as an individual, and a third component, where they are part of a couple, who do things together.
This started me thinking, and then a friend told me how he loved his sons as fellow human beings and as his sons. He also said, his desire was to have a relationship, where two individuals, who had their own lives, connected as a couple.
Suddenly, I realised what was wrong in my relationship with my mother. There was Pam, my mother, and Kim, a child but there was no mother-daughter relationship. She found it impossible to have this mother-daughter because she thought she was in competition with this child. She didn’t see it as an equal relationship where we could share emotions and thoughts but rather she saw it as a relationship where she had to dominate. Her own insecurity about who she was as a person made her think, that this child was a threat.
The relationship with my sister, was also based on her as an individual, me as an individual, and lots of jockeying for position in the race for affection from our mother. Other relationships, I have had show the same pattern, only two aspects are functioning. Besides the relationships with two Narc men, there was the relationship with my son, Nick. There was no mother-son relationship, there was only Kim, the mother as an individual and Nick, the son as an individual. There was no mother-son relationship. However, since, I wrote him the letter telling him how much I loved him, and how I feared for his safety, if he continued to behave as he was, we now have a proper mother -son relationship. He hangs around the house a lot more, he talks to me about issues, and we both realise how empty our lives were, when we didn’t complete the triangle of mother as an individual, son, as an individual, and mother and son, as an entity.
I have been looking around at relationships, which work well and it seems that no relationship will flourish if only two parts of the triangle are complete.
Let me know what you think. I might be on the wrong track but it makes sense to me. It is hard to explain, I must admit.
Kim in Oz
