Hard Choice

One common theme I’m often thinking about is the interior/exterior point of “letting go”: “accepting one’s passionate uxorious self” in relationship dynamic with progressive “surrendering” or “submitting” to one’s partner as a matter of priority and freedom.

For me the hardest thing was an ‘interior surrender’ – though I hesitate to say ‘of control’. What I had to let go of was the idea that I had to or ought to do anything in a relationship any specific way. To some extent this was letting go of some stereotypic egoistic macho gender role ideas, you know: I as a man should do “men things”, she as a woman should do “woman things”.

Realizing and accepting that I didn’t really want to do just only those prescribed “men things” (however ill conceived and poorly defined) was hard because I would then need to commit to going against the accepted social grain – defining myself in a way and an area I didn’t originally expect to and wasn’t originally prepared to.

But far and away more difficult – before I could allow my self to commit to just doing whatever my wife wanted, I had to accept the reality that I loved her enough, that I actually loved her so much, that I really would do anything for her that I could. Well, anything I could do while still remaining me of course – but I also realized at the time the difficulty this was going to present because that self definition was going to be under significantly more self revision than I originally expected.

It is surprisingly hard to explain that interior point but – before I could pursue her the way I realized I wanted to (and needed to if I were ever ‘have’ her), before I could follow after her (that is follow my love for her and allow my love for her to lead me after her) I had accept the reality that (by outwardly following through on my choice to follow my interior love and passion for her) I had to commit myself to a lifetime of such a choice. I had to accept that I was committing to forever choosing to allow how my love for her was going to always put her first – her happiness, her wants, her desire, her passions, yes even her choices and decisions.

I know this sounds an awful lot like normal ‘vanilla’ ‘commitment issues’ regarding one’s interior choice, intention and plan for harmonizing and balancing one’s self with one’s partner, and perhaps that all my uxory stems from such a vanilla interior point speaks volumes. But I think there is a little twist of control and self determination issues in here too, and once I made my choice on this interior point… Well, then my exterior actions lined up with my (apparently naturally) uxorious interior and everything after has only been increasingly easier. And it’s only ever been easier perhaps because I’ve ever since then I’ve been the happiest I’ve ever been and I’ve never regretted making this choice, that day or every day since.