What is “harmless”?

    There are a lot of definitions of marriage out there.  The meaning of that commitment seems to mean different things to different people, and the details of the contract vary.  I have a first row seat to that truth as a performer – the world of theater, especially of touring theater, seems to be a sort of petri dish for marriage experimentation.  It’s a world in which the line between personal and professional is blurry beyond recognition, where people are extroverted, emotionally driven, and flirtatious, and where being away from one’s spouse is as common (if not more) as being with them.  And I have to admit that the judge and jury in me want to come out sometimes on this issue.  How ok is it to push the boundaries of behavior on the road in the absence of one’s spouse?  Where are the boundaries and what does it mean to push them?  What is actually “harmless”, and what is not only inappropriate, but a dangerous emotional set-up?  Can there be different definitions of what’s ok in marriage, or are there some basic psychological truths about what will and will not work for marital success?

     A strong argument can be made for “harmless flirtations”.  But I guess for me the answer is partly to be found in the question of why we flirt in the first place.  We flirt because it makes us feel good.  It makes us feel attractive, desirable, of interest to someone.  And I can see where, when you have your spouse within reach, this can actually be of some benefit to keeping the fires stoked in marriage – as long as you can always reconnect those feelings to your spouse.  The problem is that we are highly associative creatures.  When we experience certain emotions repeatedly in a certain set of circumstances, or related to a specific person or thing, those emotions become tied tightly to those circumstances, person or thing.  Simply put, having someone other than your spouse be the source of this good feeling is dangerous.  And when your spouse isn’t around to be the ultimate associated release of those feelings, the person with whom you continually act those feelings out, it is exponentially more dangerous.

     I’m trying not to be moralistic about it.  The fact is that moral beliefs have very little power over this very human experience.  It’s hard, though.  For me, I’d love to know that my husband was always behaving in ways I would be comfortable with if I were in the room, and so I try to always use that as a measure of my own behavior – how comfortable would my husband be with my behavior right now if he were able to see me?  This seems right and reasonable to me, and has built into it the idea that different people’s spouses would be comfortable with different things.  In the end, though, I think the more delicate and often overlooked issue isn’t whether our spouses would be ok with what we are doing, but whether we are subjecting ourselves to an unnecessary and painful psychological battle for the sake of feeling good in the moment. 

Honesty isn’t honesty if you’re lying to yourself.

     This thing with actress Katherine Heigl has been bugging me.  Do you know the story?  She decided against submitting her name for Emmy consideration for best featured actress this year, and explained in an interview that “I do not feel I was given the material this season to warrant a nomination.”  The producers and all those involved with Grey’s Anatomy are furious, and are clearly looking for ways for her to get out of her contract.

     I couldn’t figure out what bugged me about this.  First of all, I absolutely agree with her about the material she had been given on the show.  I used to be an avid fan of the show, but stopped watching sometime last season for that very reason – I felt the writing had gotten really poor.  And I can even see her making an argument that her material was particularly bad – I had begun to despise ”Izzy” despite liking the actress and the character very much through several seasons.  And I’m all about honesty.  She was asked the question, and she answered it.  I felt that I should be applauding her in respect for her judgment about the material, and for her willingness to tell the truth even if it meant she would have to leave the show.  Clearly she ought to leave if she is feeling that way, and wanted to leave if she was making these kinds of statements publicly.

     But I found myself siding with the producers on this one.  And though of course it made sense to me that they would be offended and looking to relieve her of her contract, I couldn’t figure out why my sympathies seemed to lie with them.  But then I realized, the Emmy was for “Best Featured Actress”.  The Emmy was NOT for “Best Writing” or “Best Material”.  And though I fully understand the connection between the quality of the performance and the quality of the material, I have also seen many examples of actors rising above crappy material to deliver a stellar performance.  In fact, those performances may be even MORE worthy of award.  If she felt that her acting suffered for the material, that’s fair – I’ve certainly felt that way in my life.  But then let’s be honest about why we aren’t worthy of an Emmy.  Say, “I failed to make it work”, or “the work wasn’t good enough”.  But Heigl withdrew not because she didn’t feel she deserved the Emmy, but because she wanted to make a statement about the material she was being handed on the show.  It was a passive-aggressive decision involving third parties.  And that’s why it seemed an unnecessary and unsavory “throwing under the bus” of the writers.

     What has this got to do with relationships?  This was a private conversation that went public and has destroyed a relationship.  Perhaps because she felt inhibited from having this conversation straight up with the people directly involved (or because of the failure of those conversations), Heigl acted out in a way that ruins any chance for real understanding and a win-win solution without bad feelings, or at least of getting out quietly without residual public negativity.  This is the price of passive-aggression for Heigl, and it may end up having resonating negative affects on her career. 

     Honesty is the best policy…as long as you are being honest to the appropriate parties, and as long as you are being honest to yourself about the role you are playing in any challenging situation.

He’s just not that into you?

     Did you all read this book?  I don’t suppose many of the men did, which is a shame, because this stuff certainly works both ways.  But then again, I wasn’t a huge fan. 

     As any of us who have been in a truly confusing situation with a romantic interest know, it just isn’t that simple.  There are a lot of reasons someone may be giving you mixed signals, and many of them have little or nothing to do with you or their feelings for you.  A guy can be crazy about you, but when he thinks about it working out, he gets completely freaked out about what he feels that would require of him.  A woman may be intrigued, but may be concerned about what she sees as a major incompatibility issue.   It can be about rent, religion or readiness…and yes, it can be that they just aren’t sure how they feel about you.  But the fact of the matter is, and I guess this is what the book was getting at, is that anywhere on this continuum of reasons to excuses, the truth remains – whatever is in the way is bigger than his/her feelings for you.  He’s just not THAT into you, as in, he’s not into you ENOUGH.  And you know what, he (or she) should be.  For it to work, his feelings for you need to be bigger than just about anything else.  And really – don’t you want them to be?  Why would you want to try to make it work with someone whose feelings for you are “LESS than”?

     And if you are on the other end of this, you may do well to ask yourself, doesn’t this person deserve that – someone who feels unequivocally for them?  And if you can’t give it to him (or her), what the hell are you doin?  Get out of the way!

     I’ve had it done to me, and I’ve done that to someone, and I’ll tell you something – those times someone did it to me don’t touch me at all anymore – in fact, I thank them every day for letting me go so I could find the man I was meant to be with.  But I am afraid I will always be somewhat haunted by the time I did it to someone else, and the damage that did both of us. 

You can take it (her/him) with you.

     In many ways, we come to know about ourselves by the choices we make, both on a large scale and in the small interactions of our daily lives. We see how we are behaving, and we identify ourselves as someone who behaves that way. That is why the way one relationship ends has so much resonance for the next one. The baggage we carry with us from one relationship to the next has less to do with what has happened to us than with how we have come to define ourselves through the experience. The fact is, if we truly trust ourselves to handle any situation with self-love, dignity, strength and compassion, we carry no baggage.

     If we leave a relationship as a resentful person, we enter the next relationship looking for a problem. If we leave a relationship as someone who is betrayed or taken advantage of, we enter the next relationship without trust. If we leave a relationship as someone who lacks understanding, we enter the next relationship unable to hear or know our partner. But if we can leave a relationship as someone who hears, understands, and acts out of compassion for both ourselves and our partners, we enter the next relationship ready for love.

     If we can use the challenges of the dissolution of a relationship to define ourselves this way, we can move on freely. If that is not possible (and sometimes it’s not), we can expect to have to use the next one to find that ideal version of ourselves, and be prepared to do the work. So be mindful of who you are being as you end your relationship – you take her with you.

Easier said than done, but something to consider.

There’s a fine line between wanting to be right and wanting to be understood in any argument and they can often look like very much the same thing.  We push and push and push to get our point across, relentlessly pursuing a concession.  A concession, yes, but of what kind, exactly? 

 

I push because I assume you don’t understand my point.  After all, I think, if you truly understood, you couldn’t possibly still believe I was wrong and you were right.  But then what if you demonstrated you absolutely understood?  What if you took a moment to not only acknowledge what I was saying, but that you understood why I was saying it, why it made sense to me?  What if you did all that, and then told me why you STILL disagree?  I suppose I would have to listen to what you were saying, or at least stop pushing my point.

 

And who knows, maybe if I truly understood what you were saying, if I took the time to demonstrate I absolutely understood, maybe I wouldn’t still believe I was right.  Or maybe I just wouldn’t care so much about being right anymore.  Either way, it’s worth a try. 

Time heals…nothing. By itself.

     I am having occasion to check in (yet again) on a process of forgiveness that seems to be taking forever.  The hurt involves betrayal, manipulation, depletion and humiliation.  The forgiveness is two-fold, as it tends to be.  I have to forgive him, and I have to forgive me for allowing him.  And I am seeing that time alone heals nothing.  In time, the universe tends to give you opportunities to heal through experience, but if you are failing to see the opportunity, you may have to create one.   

      In the process of forgiving, I let time go by, waiting for myself to simply let it go.  I felt that if I were the kind of person I wanted to be, I would just let it go and move forward.  Then I woke up 3 years later and realized that I was, simply, NOT letting it go, despite my best intentions.  And worse, that I had come to define myself by the experience, so it was contaminating my new and potentially joyful experiences with distrust.  I needed an experience that would help me redefine myself.  So I invited the past back in, so that I could at least write a slightly different “last” chapter.  So I could finally take some action.  And there was definitely some healing.

     But now there is a new occasion to examine how far I have come regarding this long-ago hurt.  The past is making an appearance in the present.  And I see that it no longer has any power over my new experiences, that is, my experiences that have no ties to the old ones.  But having been given the possibility of experiences that bridge the two, I see that I still feel the sting of humiliation and anger.  And I see the opportunity the universe is giving me.  There is a reason the past is working it’s way into my present.  There is more to my process of forgiveness and letting go, and healing is to be found in the new choices I can make, in the person I can now choose to be.  I’m nervous about it, but ready to see how far forward I can move.

     It’s interesting, though – now that I have come to see this Personal Evolution aspect of the marriage relationship, I am seeing all of my relationships in this light. 

     Maybe it’s because I’ve never been good at casual friendships.  I’ve never been the popular type – capable of chatting without intruding on people’s personal experiences, joking casually and cleverly, good for a good time.  Not that I’m a total bore.  I’m very capable of laughing and having a good time, and I’m a terrific audience for the clever.  I like to play, do, and try.  But my sense of humor has always come out most strongly in the process of exploring the depths – I am very good at finding the funny in what is deeply personal and deeply TRUE.  So my friendships have always had an element of this kind of exploration, of grasping for understanding, of trying to learn from it all. 

     So that’s ok.  I struggled with that for a long time in junior high and high school when that was a source of some real self-esteem issues, but as an adult, I have learned to embrace it and focus on the richness those relationships provide me.  And as an adult I am seeing that if my friendships are going to be about this, then they can be about so much more than a friend who is loyal and understanding, and who seems to like me.  I can choose my friends for what they inspire me to reach for.  I can choose them for my own Personal Evolution.

      And then I can look at my other relationships – the one’s I haven’t chosen, the one’s I am stuck with - and I can see them the same way.  These relationships, too, provide me with opportunities to be better than I am currently being.  Every interaction is a scene in which I have a part to play, and I chose who I will be in it – will I be a good listener, will I be compassionate, will I be self-respecting, will I be honest, will I be curious… will I handle this the way I’d like to handle this?  And hopefully, in this way, I will become more and more joyful in my life, as the gap between who I am being and who I’d like to be closes, as I become my best version of myself. 

Why would anyone want to promise THAT?

     So then how does that apply in the case of a marriage, where walking away is not supposed to be an option?  That’s the whole point of my last entry, isn’t it, that it’s easier to love and respect yourself and your partner equally when walking away is a viable option.  You can negotiate towards your mutual happiness, or you can decide it’s not possible and let the relationship go.  Does that mean it is only possible to sustain this level of mutual love and respect outside of marriage?  Does it necessarily all fall apart once we say “I do”?

     This is the challenge that marriage presents us.  It is (or at least can be) a voluntary promise to consistently work towards yours and your spouse’s mutual happiness, NO MATTER WHAT, for walking away is no longer an option.  But why on earth would anyone want to promise THAT? 

    Personally, I saw it as a tremendous opportunity for Personal Evolution.  Marriage creates an imperative for stretching yourself as a person to include this other person you have chosen.  It requires you to strive to equally consider your own needs with the needs of another.  And, in theory, marriage provides you with a safe place to try, fail and grow, because your partner has made the same promise to you.  The reward, in addition to your personal and spiritual growth, is the benefit of everything this other person brings to the table.  A partner in this world.

     So for me, much of the question of my readiness for marriage was about two things. 

     First, how ready am I to equally consider my needs with the needs of another?  For a long time, I struggled to consider my own needs.  I had a tendency to give it away.  Some I know struggle more to consider the needs of another, they tend to hold it too tight.  The truth is that this is an erroneous dichotomy, it is not actually an either/or prospect.  So I needed to feel confident in my size as a human being, to understand my capacity for simultaneous and infinite generosity. 

     And second, have I met a man who will make this process a joyful one?  I needed to feel confident that I had found a partner with whom it might actually be POSSIBLE to always find the win/win in any given situation.  And I needed a man who deeply inspired me with everything he brought to the table; who therefore made the “work” of growing together a happy career. 

     I consider myself truly lucky that I was able to make this decision so consciously, and truly blessed with a marriage in which I never think of questioning why anyone would want to promise “THAT”.

Allow? What do you mean, “Allow”?

     I said something last time about no one being able to do anything to hurt me that I “simply did not allow”.  In retrospect, I am a bit uncomfortable with the word “allow”.  It’s a loaded word.  How is it possible, in a relationship between equals, for one to allow or not allow another to behave in any particular way?

     Relationships take work, we all know that.  You’re willingness to hang in there and negotiate through some difficult conflicts is a huge key to lasting and loving relationships, romantic or otherwise.  But what I didn’t really understand for a long time is that so much about a healthy dating relationship has to do with your willingness to walk away.  Your willingess to simply not accept less than what will make you happy.  And your willingness to lovingly and respectfully let someone else be who they are, choose their own path, even if that path takes them away from you. 

      I was not willing to walk away.  For some reason, walking away never felt like an option I could live with.  So then every negotiation was a fight, where I had to “stand up for myself”, and not “allow” them to hurt me.  I had to convince my partners to make me happy, because walking away was not seen as an alternative.  Sometimes the problem was that I should have walked away and didn’t.  But sometimes the relationship itself may have been more successful had I not actually walked away, but simply been willing to. 

     How would our relationship conflicts be handled differently if we were open to the possibility of letting the relationship go?   If we are able to recognize that if someone is, with full awareness, choosing not to make us happy, we should trust what they are telling us about themselves?  That we should respect, even if we can’t understand, their reasons behind their choices?  And that we could either negotiate towards mutual happiness, or accept that we can’t and move on?   How might my partners’ feelings towards me have been different without the relentless disrespect of my need to convince, to change their minds?  For in a relationship between EQUALS, there is no “allow”.

The trouble with evidence is…

     Happy New Year, everyone.  I wanted to pick up close to where I left off with the story of how my husband and I met.  I was talking about how timid my previous online dating profile was when it came to asking for what I wanted.  And I briefly explained that I probably didn’t believe I could actually get what I wanted.  Well, why would I think that?  What was I basing this very limiting belief on?  Evidence.

     I had a horrible relationship history.  A history involving men with substance abuse issues, sexual preference issues, and lying and stealing issues.  A history of getting less than I deserved from my relationships, and a history of putting up with it.  Add to that one failed engagement and the fact that the statistics on women my age finding a mate were disheartening at best, and it was easy to come to the conclusion that there weren’t any good guys out there, and that, even if there were, he probably wouldn’t be finding his way to me. 

     Fact was, I felt like a victim.  And I was playing that role to it’s fullest.  But these weren’t just things that had HAPPENED to me.  I was the one who held on to painful situations too long – long enough to do damage to my self-esteem and outlook.  And I was the one who accepted less than what I said I wanted, what I said I deserved, until it was hard to even know what that was.  It was time to admit – it was insanity to take my willingness to hold onto pain as an indication of my readiness for joy.  It was lunacy to consider my willingness to accept less as a sign of my readiness for more.  There was work to be done, and it started with me. 

     It started with me realizing the malignance of making the opposite sex my enemy.  It started with opening myself to the possibility that I didn’t know what was out there, but I knew what I wanted and what I deserved.  And it started with trusting myself not to accept less.  There was nothing anyone could do to me that I simply didn’t allow.  “Evidence” was holding me hostage because I bought into its power.  But there was nothing in my past experience or understanding of “how things are” that could account for my personal potential for growth and change.

     The trouble with evidence is that it doesn’t speak to who you can be, and how that can change everything.