Control and letting go. Self-worth. Respect. Resentment. Trust. Objectification. Privacy and personal space. Emotional needs. Language and communication versus behaviour. Interpretation. Awareness. The minefield that is a relationship.

I just finished reading that love languages book and it has a little of Thich Nhat Hanh's mindfulness approach coming through to me. Apparently being aware, or taking an active interest in being aware of your partners needs etc is essential to communicating and living together. The "duh" factor is huge, but for some reason people lose sight of this so often - including yours truly. I guess we get too close, too caught up in how we feel to think about what others are feeling. We resent because the other's not fulfilling their part of the bargain - because a relationship is a bit like a bargain: I'll love you, if you'll love me. ('course, in a perfect world there wouldn't even be that condition.) You enter into it because the other person can meet, or is supposed to meet an emotional need. No one person can be the everything for someone else and that would be unfair and unrealistic to expect that of someone, however, it's not unfair to expect support from the one person you decide to have as your partner.

So. You fall in love. For a while that person can do no wrong. You think it's cute he/she wants to spend every second with you and you even allow it because, well, let's face it, you love him/her! But eventually, when the omg-I-love-you phase fades you tend to revert back to your real self. (I think it's weird that we alter our behaviour in the first place - which makes me think that biologically we weren't meant to be monogamous, because otherwise the hormone/headrush in-love part wouldn't cause us to lose sight of our self the way it does. But we're supposed to be beyond biology, aren't we?) Anyway, that's when the conflicts begin, if they haven't already. One wants some alone time and the other feels hurt because her partner doesn't want to spend time with her anymore. Fight. One slips up and the other feels like he's losing his mate and thus tries to influence or control her behaviour in an attempt to keep her and ends up suffocating her right out of his life. Fight.

For Mr. Chapman it's all because we overlook what it is the other is really asking for. The first wants quality time and so his partner should choose to work to give some of that to her partner in order for him to be able to respect her need for privacy and personal space. Following? In the second instance Chapman would say the first was not giving his spouse space to win back his love and trust, which perhaps she was missing from him in the first place because he was failing to identify what it was she really needed to feel those things from him. So as a result they were both destroying each other's self-worth because at least one of them was taking the other for granted.

I might even go so far as to say that taking someone for granted is a form of abuse. It's abuse because it's neglect. Abuse is anything that makes a person feel worthless, unappreciated, insignificant, etc. Somewhere, someone's not holding up their part of the bargain by being oblivious, not taking the time to realise that the other person is suffering and the person who is suffering may not even be able to articulate what's wrong because he or she may not be able to focus on where the feeling is coming from. They may even be afraid to bring it up for fear of ridicule or other emotional blackmail. i.e "You're only saying that to make me feel sorry for you," or some such crap.

So one of them takes a step back and says: "hey, I fell in love with you for a reason, let's try and fix this." He/she sits his partner down and requests that they work on things and maybe even has some suggestions, but that's not going to go anywhere unless both actually do the work. Because it is work. I think that's the one thing that the tribe, the friends and the books all agreed on. It is work and half of that is identifying things in your self that may not be all that comfortable for you (he, she, it, I) to deal with.

The one thing Mr. Chapman missed was baggage. Everyone has it. Some are more proficient/willing/able to deal with it than others. Some baggage can directly affect how a you (he she etc..) interacts with other people and even if your partner is the most supportive, loving person on the planet, you are not going to start treating that person right until you've figured out why what you're doing is wrong - not only for him/her, but for you. Perhaps an example. Say you grow up with no real emotional support network. Your parents fight all the time, often coming to blows and really have no time for you. They criticize you, and each other, they never seem to appreciate you or manage to express that they value you. Maybe you even leave home at a young age to escape the situation. Then you meet someone you click with - how do you express love? What are your models? Your parents and perhaps what you've witnessed elsewhere, but in all honesty it probably comes down to what you first encountered. If you are not aware of where that comes from, not aware how those first experiences affected you and your current behaviour, you are not going to be a proficient lover of your partner and are perhaps destined for the same kind of relationship your parents experienced. I'm not saying this is 100% true, but the fact remains that ignoring your past experience as the mold for your current behaviour/self is like ignoring the lump you find one day in the shower. Leave it too long and it gets to be too late. Part of the work here is learning new behaviours for expressing how/what you feel/need.

I may edit later... now, I need groceries...

I'm thinking out loud. I'm playing magpie with facts and theories and emotions. If you feel the need to add, argue or suggest, please do.

listening to: Sia - Breathe Me
today's project: the kitchen, boxes, groceries
pet peeve of the day: having to wash the sink before washing the dishes
eating: tortilla chips
word count: dismal
word of the day: ardor
reading: Ariel - Sylvia Plath
lyric of the day: "see myself in the pouring rain/i watch hope come over me" (Moby - South Side)
watching: Baz Luhrmann's version of Romeo and Juliet (last night that is. It's still in my head. "Quarrel! I will back thee!")
feeling: thoughtful
mental space: somewhere between epiphany and a slip over the edge

Labels: brainfarts, explorations, obsessobsessobsess, think