Committed to you… on fluidity in relationships

I  value people over relationships. “Wait, what? That actually makes no sense. Aren’t our relationships just another way to describe people in our lives?” you might reasonably ask. The short answer is yes, no and maybe. The answer is yes because at any point in time we understand the mesh of people in our lives by how they are in relation to us. Boyfriend and wife are just shorthand. The answer is also no because everyone is more than the sum of their status vis-a-vis others. It’s the “maybe” that really screws with our minds… and hearts. “Maybe” describes two challenges of our hearts in transition and how our expectations foul our capacity to deal with reality. The first is when there’s an unequal desire to increase intimacy. It’s unrequited love or the dreaded “friend zone.” The second situation is when there’s an unequal desire to decrease intimacy… the breakup. They are both felt as rejections. They can hurt like hell. We write our best songs, dramas, and comedies about them.

We aim to survive and recover from them but can we do better? Can we deal with these transitions in ways that actually bring us closer together? I believe we can. We can, that is, if we can value people over relationships. For me, doing so is based on three principles and three commitments.

Three principles:

  • Feelings don’t require getting. It’s okay to want.
  • Compatibility is complex. Don’t take it personally even though it is.
  • Relationships are a team sport. By definition, they can’t be more than any one person desires.

It is painfully obvious that feelings aren’t facts. Yet, when it comes to love we believe that our feelings require of us certain actions and necessitate certain outcomes. If I’m “in love” I must express that love romantically. And, the subject of my ardor must reciprocate my feelings with similar intensity to validate that they are real. Your feelings are real. They don’t require anyone else to feel, do, or be anything. Loving someone who does not return that love with similar intensity and focus is only a tragedy if you insist on making it so. Loving friendships are real relationships too. I choose to feel no less intensely for my friends than I do for my lovers. I can love them fully, intensely without needing them to fill a specific role. Nor do I need them to return my feelings in kind. My loving friendships frequently reflect romantic feelings, acts of care, and other expressions of deep affection.  

desire by CBW on sloetry.org
by CBW on sloetry.org

Compatibility is complex and the ways in which you mesh and don’t are hard to predict. De-personalizing attraction and compatibility helps us move past those moments when things don’t go as we wish. Yes, it is personal in that it is about you. But, it is also not about you because there’s a whole history of life shaping other’s wants, desires, and needs. Those are in no way specifically about you. How your unique combination of attributes does or does not mesh with their unique combination of attributes is as much a quirk of fate as whether it was a full moon when you first met. Unless you’re an asshole, of course. Indeed, you can get feedback that compatibility isn’t so much the problem as some habits that hurt others. Those are worthy of taking personally and seeking personal growth. If you’re an asshole, take it personally. Otherwise, it’s not just about you.

Relationships are a team sport. Any relationship of any kind is as much an ongoing agreement as it is a set of mutual feelings. By definition then, it can’t hold unless there’s mutual agreement on what it is. This goes well beyond feelings into a shared view of who you are when together. And, what is the best version of that “together” involves identity, goals, and practical realities like available time. It follows that relationships can only take the forms wherein mutual agreement exists. Pressuring someone to stay in a relationship with you is a particularly well-accepted form of consent violation. It is viewed as romantic, a true sign of deep commitment. It isn’t. In the vast majority of situations, it’s a desire to avoid pain. This is just as unjustifiable as pressuring someone to form a relationship because of the intensity of your feelings. Everyone has exclusive, non-transferable, and irrevocable rights to enter, exit, or seek to renegotiate any aspect of their relationships, at any time. None of your relationships can be more than any one person desires it to be. Don’t forget this when you’re in pain (or in NRE). Relationships are a team sport. Don’t be an asshole when someone exercises the right to quit the field with integrity and care.

Three commitments are the principles in action…

  • Truly respect other people’s choices and feelings
  • Seek deep connection. Re-invent the conduit for that connection as needed.
  • Accept the emotional complexity of maintaining deep connection. That means pain isn’t a problem to avoid but a path to what’s possible.

A few years ago, an ex-girlfriend once told me that I was cold. She was upset that I seemed to have just “moved on” after she ended our romantic relationship. She assumed that I didn’t grieve our breakup because I didn’t try to win her back. I cried when we broke up. I cried both in front of her and in the car driving home. I cried a few months later during and after lunch with her. I cried a lot and wrote poems. She couldn’t have missed my distress over the breakup. Yet, that visible and unrestrained distress was less meaningful without pleas for her to take me back. I firmly hold that I cannot convince anyone to be my romantic partner. Neither can I convince anyone to stay as my romantic partner. They must be convinced of it themselves. My commitment is that I’ll respect your choices and feelings. My feelings don’t require anything of you. My pain is not an excuse to ignore your feelings and decisions. I won’t use my emotional pain to hold you hostage. Beautiful possibilities exist when you love people so that letting go can mean staying connected.

I start relationships with the intent to value people over relationships. So, I tell people that I don’t date. Dating is a terrible way to make and keep deep connections. Dating tends to build relationships that are explicitly disposable when they don’t meet the criteria for the next step. The people I invite into my life aren’t disposable. I refuse to treat them as such. Instead, I seek deep connections with people, some of those deep connections become romantic, and some of those romantic connections become physically intimate. Some of those connections follow other paths across that spectrum. I seek those people committed to fluidity in relationships, who understand that a change in relationship form does not mean an end to a loving connection. I’m experiencing this change right now. After a hard but loving conversation, one of my relationships very recently transitioned from girlfriend to good friend. I would’ve preferred a different outcome but that wasn’t what was right for us, right now. My commitment to her has not changed. My commitment is that I value my connection with her more than the specific form that it takes. We both recommitted to growing our connection. Call it a friendship, a romantic friendship, or call it something else. It doesn’t really matter. I call it the true face of love.

The breakup was not without pain. We cried. We talked and acknowledged feelings, unmet needs, and possibilities. We held hands and cried some more. All that pain is unavoidable in a breakup. Yet, I’m not afraid of the heartache. Heartaches aren’t the problem. Attempting to avoid pain by clinging would be a bigger problem. It prolongs and deepens heartache. The biggest problem of all is needing to toss someone out of your life because of an unwillingness to sit with and feel that pain. So, I have tried to walk a different path. I have committed myself to accept the emotional complexity of maintaining deep connection. I have to be willing to experience the pain of loss simultaneously with the joy of a connection still in flight. That joy does not invalidate the pain. Neither is there a need to allow the pain to mask the joy. On the other end of the spectrum, I must also be willing to experience the pangs of unmet desire or “the romance that cannot be” while simultaneously experiencing the love of friendship. My commitment is to staying open to emotionally complex and intense moments as a path to growing deep connections irrespective of form. Isn’t that the real goal after all? Feelings of deep connection and love? It is for me.

All I Want by CBW on sloetry.org
by CBW on sloetry.org

So many wonderful people have taught me these lessons on friendship and love and commitment. I have tried to capture here a small slice of how my experiences loving them have shaped me. It is a reflection of my heart commitment to them over whatever label currently describes our relationship. Bone deep security flows from experiencing loving connections that stay strong and deepen despite those relationships changing in form in ways I cannot predict. I am committed to you. I am deeply grateful for your commitment to me.

Grab a Shovel

I have come to realize that I’m an inveterate optimist. I also accept my contradictions as a pragmatic idealist. These orientations keep me from going insane. They are the wellspring of any equanimity I possess. They create the space for me to take action and risk being known.

Those are the pretty words I use in polite company. The reality is that it feels like shoveling shit. You remember the old joke don’t you? It goes like this:

Worried that their son was too optimistic, the parents of a little boy took him to a psychiatrist. In an attempt to dampen the boy’s spirits, the psychiatrist showed him into a room piled high with nothing but horse manure. Instead of displaying distaste, the little boy clambered to the top of the pile and began digging.

“What are you doing?” the psychiatrist asked.

“With all this manure” the little boy replied, beaming, “there must be a pony in here somewhere.”

You see… instead of a room filled with horse manure, my shit is everywhere, piled high and deep. And, if that weren’t enough, other people throw shit at me too. Lots of it. Sometimes they’re shoveling their shit on top of my shit. <sigh> So, I pick up my shovel and get to work. I have never found a pony. I probably never will. I’m not sure that I would know what to do with a pony if I found one. But, there I am shoveling away. I shovel because of what I have found.

I’ve found all manner of things that I never expected. I have found creative ideas. I’ve found that clearing a path through is not a means to escape but a route to connection. I’ve discovered that other people will shovel shit with you and thereby become dear friends. I have found love in the middle of a shit show. Most importantly, I found myself by way of my own excrement. I figured out how to own my shit. I learned that I could produce less and shovel more. I found peace knowing my back is strong, my shovel is wide and my friends are willing.

And so, I shovel shit. No, it’s not easy. It stinks. It hurts my back. It’s exhausting. What makes me an optimist is that I believe my efforts are effective even when I can’t see over my pile. I’m a pragmatic idealist because I smell the excrement fully, I understand that it’s not a pile of roses, and yet I know from balls to bones that wading in with shovel in hand is necessary to joyful living. I will even carry my shovel to your shit pile. We can uncover the joy that comes with struggling through life together.

Tenderhearted

There are some days when tears rest easy on the eyes.  Days when I can’t seem to grab my emotional equilibrium.  Sometimes that emotional tenderness lasts for many days.  It all started when I breezed into my therapist’s office all cocksure as if I had the world figured out.  Well, of course, you know how this ends.  His probing and probative questions did their job well.  They opened me up.  But, by doing so, they also landed me squarely on uncertain ground.  I have yet to regain my emotional footing.  And so, tears rest easy on my eyes, neither spilling forward nor retreating.

“When things are shaky and nothing is working, we might realize that we are on the verge of something.  We might realize that this is a very vulnerable and tender place, and that tenderness can go either way.  We can shut down and feel resentful or we can touch in on that throbbing quality. ”    ―  Pema Chödrön

But, the particulars of this shifting sand aren’t really the point of me telling you this story.  It is about how intensely alone I feel at these moments.  And, the reality that it is somewhat self-inflicted.  You see, this shaky tenderness is where I feel most frightened, vulnerable. A spot where I have an excess of feeling and few answers.  It is a place where my analytical, problem solving mind has no facts from which to derive an appropriate solution.  It is even a struggle to describe the nature of the problem itself.  Words fail me.  In essence, my IQ is of little use and my EQ is unprepared, a weak muscle unaccustomed to exercise.  And so, I’m left in a battle with myself mostly unarmed. (more…)