Lessons on relationships I learned racing sports cars

In sports car racing, there are times when your intuition fails you.  This issue is greatly compounded during the fast-moving and confusing situation of a near or actual crash.  I’ve been reflecting on relationship dynamics tonight and their similarity to race car dynamics.  This is especially poignant as tonight it appears that one of my relationships is crashing and burning…

Racing Lesson #1

When you lose control and leave the track, your instincts might be to slam on the brakes.  Instead, you should keep steady and begin to slow down gradually.  Major deceleration will upset the car when on an uneven surface and will likely result in a full-scale spinout.

Relationship application: This strategy initially worked very well.  Slowed things down a bit.  Had lots of conversations about the foundation.   Along the way, we uncovered miscommunications that resulted in resentment.  We worked on our ability to communicate difficult things with less acrimony.  We were even able to accelerate once we got back on track. (more…)

A Foolish Consistency?

We’ve all made a set of decisions or hold a set of assumptions about what works for you; how you’ve constructed a life.  In this, we’ve all made different choices.  For some, their primary dedication is to their career or a cause.  Others dedicate themselves to the family that surrounds them.  Some choose to not have children.  There are many, many large and small decisions that we make that we expect to be more or less persistent.  These so-called life choices frame a lot of  our life’s experience.  Who we primarily interact with, whom we love, and the character of the challenges we more or less intentionally face.  There are times when it’s really hard to sort out whether sticking to one of these life choices is a mark of foolish consistency or a wise application of what one knows works.

Sometimes life serves up challenges to our choices.  They can shake you to your foundation.  And, even though we view these principles as the rock upon which our lives are built, we may find that our foundations are easily cracked. I honestly don’t know if reinforcing and re-cementing the cracks is the wise action or letting things break apart.  With my old construction of my life, I found that the patch works were too extensive.  I had no choice but to tear down the ramparts and start again seated firmly on fresh soil.

And… and then I fell in love.  Yes, again.  But, sometimes head does in fact flip over heels.  Unfortunately, that relationship fell apart under the weight of polyamory. A rare and special love had to end because she’s monogamish and I’m a flaming polymore. We tried mightily to build a bridge across that divide. A crazy love bridge to support and cradle our hearts high above the rapids below. We never made it across.  But, somewhere in the middle, the bridge clearly collapsing, I wondered “if poly can cause me this much pain, is it really the right thing? Am I sticking to something that sounds good in the vague hope that something just right will come along while ignoring the bounty in front of me?” (more…)