Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Relationships


When i used to work at the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire in the cast, every year there would always be someone who would arrive in cast that was in a relationship that they really did not want to be in anymore. The significant other was somewhere far away and they were staring at not seeing each other for long stretches of time. Usually they were just out of college and just arrived in a place full of attractive and talented interesting people. The conversations were always very similar. Usually the person would go on about how hard they had tried and all of the reasons why it was not going to work out that they usually blame on the other person. There was usually also lip service to how they wished they could make it work. Those of us who had been there awhile knew they had about 1-3 weeks before the inevitable break up. This drama would drag on for awhile when the healthy thing to do would be to end it. Usually they would start falling for a co-worker in this time and often times someone would get hurt.

The person doing the talking, the side we heard while living with them was done with the relationship. They had already decided the relationship was over, but instead of admitting that, they wait to find some kind of justification. They usually can not stand their partner. Other people start looking a lot more interesting. In that kind of situation, they do not want to admit that they want to hook up with other people, they would rather drag things on until they can convince themselves that it is the other person's fault. I have heard people say, even recently that their mate will not go to counseling, but then when you suggest something that may help, they make up excuses why that would never work. The common one is to say something like, "my partner would never go for that." Their world view says that it is hopeless. They have convinced themselves. It is sad to see.

I am not sure why people get mean to the people that they should love the most. It seems pretty common in our culture to hate your spouse or girlfriend. We make jokes about it all the time. My grandfather had a joke, "i did not know what happiness was til i was married, and by then it was too late." We laugh at this kind of thing. We are so trapped in our own issues and our egos are so fragile, we can not look at and see what we do wrong. When relationships crash, it is rarely one person's fault. We need to learn to really love.

I think a lot of this stems from the way we typically get into relationships in the first place. We kind of think in our society that life is pretty miserable. Most people get to go to a job they do not like for the great majority of their time and the only happy we think we are going to get is love. People rush to it, they fly to it and they are miserable when they do not have a special relationship. People in college, even high school lament that they will never find someone. They feel empty and alone so instead of finding a person that is right for them, they settle for whoever will get involved.

We need to find our own happiness. Life can be awesome, with or without someone. If you can not be happy with yourself, no one is going to deliver that to you. It is also often when we stop looking that the right thing comes along. I had given up on love when Bethany showed up. Ironic that we find that special someone when we stop looking. Both of us are complete in ourselves. We both could be happy on our own, but she still enhances my happiness, mainly because i do not NEED her to.

If you find yourself in a relationship where you can not stand the person you are with, ask yourself what you like about that person, why did you get involved with them? Do not allow yourself to wallow in the stuff that they do wrong for a whole week. If you can remember, if you can stop being mad for a minute and think of wonderful things about your significant other, maybe there is something there to save. If you can not do that, save us all the drama and leave. Do not pretend it is all their fault and make a rationalization of why you are the victim. Also accept that YOU want to leave. YOU do not like them anymore. Take responsibility of the parts that are your fault and be an adult about it. We all mess up. I have been the king of being horrible at relationships in the past but i have also learned a thing or two over the years.

I understand also that every relationship and human situation is unique but i have seen this sort of thing many times. I think there is a pattern there and to find health and prepare yourself for the next person, you need to get past the pattern because it is a bad pattern and it is a pretty rotten thing to do to someone you claim that you once loved. If you do still love them, it is also great to get past this way of dealing someone.

Everybody have a great day and embrace your love. If you do what you do from a perspective of love, you can not go wrong and maybe people could stop being mean to each other.

Namaste.

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