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Introduction Excerpt
Alice and I have a magnificent relationship. It is my crowning achievement, the accomplishment in my life of which I am most proud. There's nothing I have devoted so much attention to, nothing that is more important for me to perfect. And there is nothing that has provided me greater rewards than my relationship with Alice.
We are considered by the people who know us, to be models of a perfect couple. Even total strangers sense and comment on our obvious love for each other. Alice and I are best friends, each other’s ardent admirers, cheerleaders, and helpmates. We invariably enjoy each other’s company, settle our rare conflicts fairly and harmoniously, and wake up every morning happy to see that old face on the pillow next to us. We are as passionately in love with each other now as when we first met, fell in love, and married over three decades ago. For years our friends and acquaintances have been urging us to reveal the “secrets” of our loving, harmonious relationship. And so, with Alice’s help and support, I have written this book.
The book you hold in your hands is many things. It is a thoughtful inquiry, a love story, a self-help book, a love poem to my cherished wife. Primarily, LOVING PROMISES is about our relationship. It is about the ways Alice and I are with each other. I have used our relationship as a laboratory to investigate love. The book contains no scientific studies, questionnaires, or clinical narratives. I wrote it through long hours of contemplation on the way Alice and I live together, play together and work together, trying to understand the elements that make our loving partnership so beautiful. I have attempted to communicate these elements as clearly and succinctly as I can, without distracting detail and analysis. I am not simply imparting information here or parroting what I have read in books. I am sharing our life experience. Alice and I are actually living what I have written here. This is what gives these words authenticity and power.
CHAPTER ONE
Growing a Magnificent Relationship
The Longing for Love
Let’s start out with a question. This is probably one of the most essential questions that can be asked of you. What is your life’s purpose? Why were you born? Were you born simply to survive by satisfying biological needs for air, water, food, elimination? Were you born to reproduce in order to insure the continuation of the species? Were you born to work, to provide food, shelter and protection for yourself and your loved ones? Were you born to enjoy sense pleasures, to savor delicious food, possess beautiful objects and engage in sensual delights, to be entertained by your favorite TV. program? Survival, procreation, security, enjoyment – all are good answers, and all important aspects of a well-rounded life, but incomplete.
I believe we each have a yearning to fully express our unique selves. Every one of us comes into the world with innate talents and abilities, which we can cultivate or allow to lie fallow. We also have deficiencies that hold us back and with which we can live or strive to overcome. To fulfill our promise and grow into the person we are meant to be, to maximize our gifts and overcome our deficits, and to take our rightful place in the world–those are what gives us a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment. But, that is not all; that is not enough. For most of us, life can never be complete; we can never be fulfilled without an additional ingredient. The quintessential ingredient that alone makes life delicious, is love.
Love cannot be seen or heard or touched or tasted. It cannot be perceived or understood through the mind. Like everything in life that is essential, love can only be known through the heart. The heart I am referring to is not the physical organ located in the chest. Rather, the heart is a reservoir of energy, an energy that both receives and broadcasts our deepest feelings. It is all feeling, no mind. It intuits and knows without conscious thought. Our heart tells us when we love someone and when someone loves us. It provides us the sense of connection with those we love. It guides us as to when and how we express our love. Our heart is home.
With the exception of the rare hermit or the person with severe mental and emotional disabilities, every human being’s physical, psychological and spiritual well-being is dependent on the presence of love in their lives. Without giving and receiving love, life can be barren, empty. We can have riches, fame and the admiration of multitudes, but what is it worth if at the end of the day we come home to a cold and loveless house? Could it be that our frantic pursuits, our mad addiction to prestige, success, power, money and sex, are but shallow substitutes for love that is lacking? Healthy, heartfelt love is a balm for loneliness. A deep intimate connection with another makes it possible for us to break out of our separate universe and touch (however briefly and tentatively) the separate universe of another being. That loving touch marks the end of loneliness and the possibility of the beginning of a sense of kinship with all beings.
Our heart opens through love. We feel so good when we love and are loved. Love cradles us in its beckoning embrace. Around our beloved we feel warm, full, engaged, connected, at ease, safe, open, happy. We feel good about ourselves, valued and valuable. We can be relaxed, at home with who we are, not having to play act at presenting a phony image. We are able to feel more alive because love awakens us and brings us into the present. Loving and being loved brings us joy.
As sweet as love can be, we can never know the full extent of its sweetness and preciousness until we lack it or until it has abandoned us. The emptiness, the loneliness we experience from love lost proves how central love is to our wellbeing. Nothing shows us the importance of love in our life more than its absence.
Even though living immersed in love is so delicious and so nourishing, and living without love leaves us so hungry, true love usually doesn’t come easily to most people. Few of us are able to escape our past without experiencing deep scars from a difficult childhood, a tortured love affair, or a betrayal of trust ... scars that can leave us sour, cautious, unwilling to risk giving our heart to another. Giving of our vulnerable heart, however, is the very thing that heals us. Yet giving our heart and opening ourselves to yearning for another is the very thing that is most difficult for us to do. It exposes us to the potential danger of being hurt. It brings up our deepest fears and clenching, resistant defenses. These can be primal issues.
Those fortunate among us who were welcomed at birth into a safe, supportive environment may find it easier to make trusting connections with others. (I remember graham crackers and milk waiting for me when I returned home, and being carried to bed, half asleep in my father’s strong arms.) These lucky ones like myself tend to encounter fewer obstacles on the path to love. Others entered life in an environment of neglect and abuse. (My friend remembers fists, screaming arguments and the sound of breaking glass.) These unfortunate ones like my friend tend to develop an orientation of fear, and face greater obstacles. The distance they must travel on the path to a magnificent relationship is greater and the way can be more challenging. However, the challenges are not impossible to overcome.
Whether our past has left us with superficial scars or deep, unhealed ones, it should be remembered—we are all wounded in some way. No matter how well put together we may seem on the surface, every one of us has a sad, scared little child somewhere inside us, a child in need of love and comfort. Though we are usually tuned in to our own wounds and imperfections, remembering that our partner also carries their own wounds and imperfections will help us look upon our lover with more patience and forbearance. As we maintain the awareness of our partner’s vulnerable inner child, we are more apt to offer empathy, kindness, forgiveness, praise and support, all elements which bring about their healing. Through the process of offering our healing energy, we also bring about our own healing.
There are many arenas where anyone can offer their heart and take up the challenges of learning how to love more deeply. People can give of themselves through raising a child, ministering to aging or ailing parents or providing ongoing care and support for friends or strangers in need. Giving oneself in love and service to family and strangers is noble training for love. However, the most comprehensive, difficult and confounding arena for learning to love is intimate couple relationships. There is no more difficult practice for the learning of love than the day-in and day-out demands of two adults, usually of different gender, different upbringing, different education, different values, different beliefs, different habits and different likes and dislikes, who are living together in close proximity, trying to slog through conflicting needs and desires. Their task is to work through their differences, live and work together peacefully, share graciously, communicate clearly and appreciate and support one another. Not an easy thing to do.
Intimate relationship is a hard taskmaster. It is very demanding. It demands that we be vulnerable, that we expose our fears and weaknesses and our undefended hearts and put our fragile egos on the line. In intimacy, we give our partners the power to reject us and hurt us. We hold the same power over them, yet we both must refuse to abuse that power. Intimacy demands, even if we feel threatened and uncomfortable, that we accept our partner just as they are, without trying to change them into our image of who they should be. Intimacy demands we break out of our selfishness and share of ourselves, even at times when we feel like hoarding – especially the times we feel like hoarding. Intimacy demands we compromise, remain flexible and accommodate our time, habits and preferences to the needs and desires of our partner. These are not things that normally inhabit our comfort zone. It can sometimes necessitate grueling effort over an extended period to become comfortable with the requirements demanded by a close, loving relationship.
If we take up the challenges that intimate relationships demand of us, it can transform us. Love’s power is explosive. The force of love and the strength of attachment is so powerful that it can rattle our world. The love we have for a partner can touch us so deeply and envelop us so completely that it becomes an earthquake that shakes what we thought were the solid foundations of our life. The tremors can transport us to heaven and the next moment send us crashing down to a hell of pain, jealousy and frustration. Love’s seismic shockwave can destroy, but the destruction can be beneficial. It can take down outmoded, detrimental ego structures and begin to erect robust and healthy ones.
Because of the difficult terrain, the path of close partnership can be daunting. It is no wonder that many of us, either through ignorance or fear, do as I did for many years and take the easy way out. We tune out, hide our true feelings, acquiesce to avoid conflict, and attempt to manipulate or control the other. Or, we give up the challenge and separate or divorce. By not working through our obstacles to feeling and expressing our loving heart, we sentence ourselves and our partners to half-loved lives. We play-act at love, never tasting the real sweetness of an open-hearted and loving partnership. What a loss.
Though the challenges of intimate partnership can be demanding, many couples are willing to undertake those challenges. We ask ourselves "Why have we chosen to be together? What is the purpose of our relationship? What are its rewards?" I think Alice’s and my answers echo every loving couple.
We enjoy each other. We got together in the first place because it feels good to be in each other's company. We laugh and have fun doing exciting things and making love; in general, we delight in being together.
We share life's burdens. Our life is easy and more manageable when we have a helpmate who nurtures us, helps carry our load and comforts us when we are down. Even the simple act of making our bed is so much easier with two than with one.
We grow together. Living with this other being who has divergent tastes, habits and perspectives, expands our universe. We illuminate each other through our diversity. In theprocess, we discover how to be ourselves.
We learn to love. By enjoying each other, sharing life's burdens and growing together, we learn how to love. That education is the most important thing life has to teach us. We bring that love out into our world and share it with everyone we meet.