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Dear Dishwasher,
I have been married for 25 years. During this time we have had 3 kids,
bought a house, sold the house, opened a business, closed a business and
went through various life struggles as most people do. We survived as a
marriage by choosing not to deal with many issues in our relationship
and feelings did not get expressed. I suspect they didn’t go away, just
lay dormant.
Then I became seriously ill with cancer and after
years of a difficult and long recovery I got a job 6 hours away and just
left. My husband tried to come with me but I wouldn’t let him.
Eventually I felt too guilty and we got back together. In the separation
we both had other relationships that are over. I feel like I’m trying to
hold on to marriage because of all the time invested, maybe, or maybe I
love him. I don’t know. Should I keep trying?
Confused
Dearest Confusion,
You need to choose to live life to the fullest, not to be married or
not. You can choose to work on marriage or not, there's no right or
wrong answer. Each path will define your life in a particular way. Both
are right, only one will be yours. Using your intellect, however, to
sort it out is the wrong tool. Use that for choosing the right plumber
for a job or what to do with an investment. The mind collects evidence
weighs pros and cons, your heart only knows how to live your life and
with whom.
When people loose touch with their hearts, it is
usually the result of too much routine and lack of play and spontaneity
combined with the tremendous emphasis in our culture on consuming. The
seemingly harmless activity of shopping actually participates in the
reprogramming of our spiritual minds to depend on material acquisition
as a source of happiness. Creating, making, producing, which nourishes
our souls, has been replaced by acquiring -buying -owning. Another
assault on the heart felt life comes from the trivializing of the human
condition in the constant repetitive juxtaposition of tragedy and
giddiness in television. The mixture of fake and real disrupts our
hearts natural responses of empathy and compassion, like pressing the
emotional gas and brakes over and over again…we give up and close up.
Feeling lost and unable to know what we want is the hazard of the good
life we have achieved here in Western society.
You need to find your heart. I would suggest not
making marriage your goal. Forget marriage and concentrate on a much
simpler task: play. Take each day, each week, one at a time and make it
a commitment to live the fullest you can. (pretend you only have 6
months to live) you take the initiative, simply do things together, see
movies, go on picnics, see a play, cook together, none of this has to
cost a lot of money, be creative, do it cheaply. This practice of play
has no goal and certainly not intended to romanticize him, but to open
up your heart, to energize your neurological pathways for joy to become
a new habit in your life. Believe me, the decision to stay married will
come naturally, the two of you will decide later. Above all else
absolutely no TV - do not engage in any mutual passive activities that
trivialize life. You have to first choose the kind of life you want for
yourself before you can really know how to be with someone else.
(something you probably did not do before you first got married)
Yours,
The Dishwasher
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