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Thoughts on Relationships

I have been thinking about the ways in which I try to fill that gaping hole that resides as ego in my mind. When I was young I tried alcohol and drugs but don’t have a taste for them. Shopping was a popular choice for a long time even though it never really did the job for more than an hour or two and left destruction in its wake in the form of mounting debt and finally bankruptsy. Food has been a lifetime device for gaining brief moments of relief or at least distraction.

The ego solution that has been the hardest for me to release is relationships. Ego is so desolate and loveless that it is desperate for relief and the promise of love is irresistable. Of course ego love comes with its own special sacrifice as do all ego gifts. I want from someone what I think I don’t have and so I steal it from them. I tell myself that it is a trade as I give to them what they want, and yet if I had anything valuable I would not need them, so I carry that secret guilt.

These special people become my love/hate objects and my hope of having my neediness fulfilled -  but it never happens. The most I can hope for are more moments of satisfaction than moments of pain and suffering. How could I expect anything good to come of something that is stolen and guilt laden? Even my children are not free of this unholy bargain, for surely I love them most when they are fulfilling my need to be loved, respected, and needed.

I love the Course. I love that it is helping me to recognize the uselessness of special relationships. Since I am not in a relationship with a man now, I am using the parent/child relationship to do this work. One of the most helpful things about the Course is that it is uncompromising. I look at the special relationship with my child and see that as long as I use my children to fulfill my needs I don’t love them. I don’t even know what it is to love them. That is very hard for me to say, but unless I am truly willing to go there, I will never experience healing and so will never experience love.

Once I accept that neediness is not love, it becomes easier. It is like that understanding is a gentle wind that blows away the fog and I can see clearly what I have been doing. I look in my relationships for need. Do I need my kids to call me? Do I need them to respect my opinion? Do I need them to agree with me? On anything? No matter how obvious it seems that I am right? Or that it is for their own good? Because if I do, then that is NEED, not love. And need is just another way to say use. When I say I need them, I am saying that I use them. It is a very ugly situation when I really look at it and I find myself motivated to take the next and final step as I choose to be healed.

When I first discovered the truth about my “love” relationships, I felt hopeless and confused. I tried to love differently. I tried to set aside my needs. It felt sacrificial and I was conflicted. I wanted my love to be pure but I didn’t want to give up what I knew. Maybe it was unsatisfactory and unstable, but it was familiar and I knew how to do it. Trying to have a holy relationship seemed to be beyond my abilities. It was a very uncomfortable stage of undoing.

What is happening for me right now is that I have stopped trying to have a holy relationship. Now I notice the specialness in my relationships. I look at it full in the face with a willingness to see how lacking in love they are. Then I make my choice. Am I ready to let them go? Would I be willing to trust God that there is something better? If I am truly willing to let go of the specialness, I ask the Holy Spirit to take the specialness from this relationship and leave it holy. Actually, I do that even when I am not fully willing to have it done. I need the practice. (smile)

I have reached the point that I want healing more than I want my specialness. Well, much of the time this is true. And each time I am willing to give my relationship to the Holy Spirit for purification, my trust grows and the next time it is easier to make that happier choice. I am discovering that I don’t really need my children to agree with me, and that I am no longer using them for that purpose. I am perfectly comfortable with all four of them being where they are, knowing they have their own Master within and don’t need my help. I don’t need them to be where I am either.

Yesterday I was thinking about my oldest daughter. She has a boyfriend now for the first time in several years. Suddenly she is unavailable to me and I noticed a twinge of resentment, and a feeling of sadness. That is like the tip of an iceburg. I offered to look deeper and see what was under the tip. I know that sadness is just a quiet temper tantrum so really I am angry. I know that a twinge of resentment is just a veil thrown over rage. So the ego says I am sad because the one I love is no longer sharing her time with me. How wrong she is to be that way, and how mistreated I am. I love her so much and she treats me like this.

Ha ha ha. I can only laugh at this now. How could I have ever bought this ridiculous story? How could I have ever called that love? The truth is I think I have an emptiness in me because I think I am separate from God. I am trying to use this woman to fill that emptiness and she doesn’t seem to want to be used by me. Holy Spirit, please remove this specialness from my relationship with my daughter that I may love her truly with the love of God.

My experience has been that the only way this works is to make no exceptions. If it looks like need, smells like need, tastes like need, then its not love. Period.

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