Strength: Judging Others, Judging Self

… father is out in the boat / riding the water / riding the waves on the sea
~ Peter Gabriel, Mercy Street

My father died yesterday afternoon. We weren’t very close but for the past few years everyone, including he himself, knew he was going to die sometime soon; we both had every opportunity to say everything we wanted and we said it. He died well, without pain, with my mother nearby.

Yet the source of our estrangement never dissipated; my childhood had many issues all stemming from the choices my parents made and their general continued unhappiness, an unhappiness they never quite recognized, never quite rectified. I give them credit mind you; they lived life on their own terms and were strong in their defiance of societal norms, but their unhappiness was infectious and dangerous, to themselves and their children. The past decade or so I’ve spent avoiding my family’s toxicity, and though they have found me less for my choice, I remain unrepentant — it’s a sad choice but one I’m unrepentant about.

Because strength can be a relative thing. Most in my family think I am weak or petty for removing myself from their lives, but I think I’m the only one who demonstrated the strength to say ‘enough, no more, I refuse to blight my life with your negativities, blood though you may be‘. I believe there’s only so much any one person can handle, and I think my parents pushed everyone in our entire family past what they could handle. Even though I am certain they never meant to hurt anyone, once again I’ll say that they never quite recognized it, never quite rectified it. Strength can be a relative thing.

But so also can judgment be a relative thing. For a long time I was very angry with my parents even while trying to reconcile with them; it was only after I quit trying that I began to see their pursuit of meaning behind their madness. Once they weren’t perfect but at least understandable, I could sympathize and pity them. They weren’t any better than I, just different, with different choices, different consequences. I’ve lived well with this knowledge the past decade, but yesterday when I spoke with my mother I realized that though I understood and forgave them years ago, I never ceased wanting them to be different than they were. They never quite rectified things partially because they couldn’t; my judgment wanted them to be better than they were. I never accepted them – as say in the manner I uxoriously accept and love my wife – foibles and all. Judgment can be a relative thing.

And so now I’m left to judge myself, whether I have the strength to reach out and not only accept my mother as she is but also give her that acceptance - an acceptance I never gave my father, a strength I’m not sure I have.

Where Does It End?

Here’s something ’introspectively confrontational’.

I.

I want.

I want to feel.

I want to feel you.

I want to always feel you.

I want (to always feel) you.

I want (to always feel) you want.

I want (to always feel) you wanting.

I want (to always feel) you wanting me.

I want (to always feel) you always wanting me.

I want (to always feel) you (always) wanting me.

I want (to always feel) you (always) wanting me to fulfill you.

I want (to always feel) you (always) wanting me to fulfill your wants.

I want (to always feel) you (always) wanting me to do what you want me to do.

I want (to always feel) you (always) wanting to make me do what you want me to do.

I want (to always feel) you (always) wanting to make me do what you tell me to do.

I want you to make me do what you tell me to do right now.

I just want you to tell me what to do. 

Tell me what to do please.

Please love me.

Please show me you love me.

Please show me you do love me.

Please show me how much you love me.

Please show me (how much) you love and care about me.

Please show me (how much) you want to love and care about me.

Please show me (how much) you will love and will care about me.

Please show me (how much) you will want to love and care about me.

Please show me (how much) you will want to love and care about me by telling me what to do.

Please show me (how much) you want to love and care about me by telling me what to do now.

Please show me (how much) you love me and care about me and I’ll do what you tell me to do.

Show me (how much) you love me and care about me then I’ll do what you want me to do.

Show me you love me by demanding I obey then I’ll do what you want me to do.

Show me you love me by demanding I obey then I’ll do whatever you want.

When you love me by demanding I obey then I’ll do whatever you want.

When you demand me, you love me, and I obey what you want.

When you command me, you love me, so I’m happy obeying you.

When you command me, you love me, so I obey you.

Since you love by commanding me, I obey.

Since you love commanding me, I obey.

You love command; I obey.

You command; I obey.

You command me.

You command.

You.

Gendered Passion

You’re like the girl in this relationship. ~ My Wife

My wife said this ages ago now, but not because I’m a stay at home father and house husband, but rather because in our relationship I’m often more emotionally sensitive and demanding. In context she clearly had no wish to insult, demean or degrade, she wasn’t exasperated either; she just once again made the realization I’m more likely than she is to behave in manners traditionally and stereotypically ascribed to an (over)emotionally attached woman. Not that either one of us wish to perpetuate gender stereotypes, but she has a point, a point she reiterated last night and one I’ll grant I was clearly exemplifying, when I wanted a few minutes of snuggling but she just wanted to go to sleep.

Well, we happily compromised on the immediate issue while she laughingly gave me other (fairly accurate) examples of my behaviors as more indicative a starstruck and (over)emotionally attached woman. I’m well able to laugh at myself and this was good natured fun, but at the end of it I thought of this response: If I’m the girl in this relationship then I’m your girl and I wouldn’t want to have it any other way.

And this morning I realized just how true my response is and just how little any of it has to do with gender at all: I am unashamed, unrepentant and even proud of my emotionally intense attachment, of my being deeply in love and of my loving passionately – partially because I believe in passion as way of finding meaning in life (here, here and here), but also partially because I’m just romantically inclined – a reason also why I had such difficulty understanding the definition of uxorious, an excessive fondness for one’s wife, as having a negative connotation. The negativity arises solely from gender association, gender stereotyping, gender shame and gender taboo.

~

Update: We continue to receive good test numbers from the hospital, my wife is doing much better and hopefully we’ve put the worst of these health issues behind us. We’re coping better too, both with what the world dishes and with helping and supporting one another. I can once again say We’re happier than we’ve ever been.

Coping with Difference

As wonderful and as similar as couple may be, I’m willing to bet everyone in a relationship eventually needs to cope with the fact that their partner is just different than they are. Whether it is different passions, different desires, different dreams, different ideas – the fact is people are different. And problems will arise when we want our partner to be as involved in something as we are. Perhaps we’re passionate about the outdoors and want to go camping together, perhaps we love to travel and want to travel together, or perhaps we want a certain sexual kink or a female led relationship - our partner might passionately want something just different enough and voila, problems and tension. The question is – if compatibility of interior desires and passions is never perfect in any relationship and “there’s always going to be something”, then ultimately – the question is: what does one do with unreciprocated passion?

Yes, there are deal-breakers and everyone’s deal-breakers are going to be different, because, well, people are different. But though a person can walk away and start a new relationship wherein some passion(s) are more equally met, there is again the stark fact there’s still going to be some wants, desires and passions unmet because people are just different – it’s the nature of existence, the nature of people, etc. One may jump from relationship to relationship for valid or invalid reasons, but if one ever wants a relationship to retain long term viability they have to find a way of coping with whatever difference there is, a way useful positive to both self and partner.

And yes, there are always the questions of degree in these matters: how different the difference is, how important the difference is to you, how passionate you are about that thing, how much is that passion is a part of you are and how well do you cope with difference in a relationship. People can change themselves somewhat; if their desire and passion is not too essential to who they as a person, they might change themselves to they desire something different. But this is not going to work with a person’s desires and passions that they can’t change, whether too difficult or too unworthwhile – after all it’s debatable whether some essential self changes are a good idea even if a person could change. And moreover, our desires change and some desires and passions just seem to keep on increasing so that what was ‘good enough’ one day isn’t the next. If everything is subject to change, and change and difference are inevitably going to happen – what does one do with such unmatched passion and desire?

I honestly think the question of degree with the most potential to change the bottom line is how well a person copes with difference. It is true that different people’s effective methods of coping are going to be different because people are different, but I think all methods deal with one essential problem. On one hand, no one can indefinitely keep hope alive for their desire and passion to someday be adequately met without some sort of progress to sustain that hope; essential self passions without adequate progress for hope will inevitably succumb to depression and despair. But on the other hand, one has to have an effective and positive method of diverting the energy of unmet desires and passion that doesn’t deaden that interior part of the self the passion springs from, because our passions, whether they are met or unmet, are still a part of who we are.

So – what does one do with unreciprocated passion? We learn to cope – better. How? Well frankly I, along with probably every other person on the planet, am open to suggestions.

‘Yours’: Ownership & Freedom

… the mother-son or parent-child dynamic has often been linked with female led relationships and I’ve written about this many times (see here, here, here, here and here). ~ OH, Earth Abides

Lately I’ve been thinking and talking with my wife about some similarities and differences between the dynamic I want for us and a parent child dynamic. As a measure of intimacy, I have often thought about this similarity and difference as whether I ‘occupy a space on her interior’, a place past the defenses and distance normally found in relationships, even intimate ones. It’s an admittedly vague and incalculable, incomparable scale subject only to experience and how one feels, but I think this ‘occupying a space on another’s interior’ is what’s somehow ineffably similar in manner to the parent child relationship. I think the similarity may be because in both these kinds of relationships control of that interior space is retained though it’s occupied by another, but I am uncertain because I have no accurate contrast for the similarities in these dynamics. Perhaps the most significant difference and similarity is my ‘discovery’ about why I want what I want.

This is a mash-up of what I’ve said, and not quite managed to say, yet.

I want to feel I am yours, I want to feel as if I live inside your fences and on your land, on your property as a happy and willingly tenant who is subject to you, though it is not quite true that ’I am your property’. I want to feel ‘conquered by you’, or better yet I want to feel ‘ruled by you’, ruled (hemmed in, bounded) by your personality, by your love, by your person. I want to feel I ‘belong‘ to you, ‘belong’ as in under your rule though not quite ‘your property’, ‘belong’ as in fate, destiny, ‘meant-ed-ness’, and ’functional, emotional fitted-ness‘.

I want to feel I am ‘yours’ as you might say ‘my child’, for a parent of a child admits to a kind of ’ownership’ of another free willed person. It’s an uneasy balance that’s more than the mere identification of ’having a relationship or being in possession of a relationship with’, but it’s still yet less than the objectified owning of a thing that has no will of it’s own, i.e. ‘property’. And if similar yet different, for I do not want to be someone you are responsible for ‘raising’ and ‘teaching’ in the manner of a child.

I want to feel I am ‘yours’ as another (free) person is (freely) ‘yours’, ‘meant’ for you and ‘fit’ for you, someone who chooses that you should do with them and be with them as you please, a free willed someone who willingly desires you to love, command and direct them as you desire, according to your desire and to your passion’s fire - this is how I am already and ready to be ‘yours’.