V. The Holy Instant and Special Relationships, P 6
6 Any relationship you would substitute for another has not been offered to the Holy Spirit for His use. There is no substitute for love. If you would attempt to substitute one aspect of love for another, you have placed less value on one and more on the other. You have not only separated them, but you have also judged against both. Yet you have judged against yourself first, or you would never have imagined that you needed your brothers as they were not. Unless you had seen yourself as without love, you could not have judged them so like you in lack.
Journal
When we are lost in our neediness, we don’t love and appreciate our friends and lovers, we use them. We feel lonely and so call a friend to keep us company. If the friend doesn’t show up for us we feel abandoned and so reject that one. Thinking she isn’t a good friend, we look for someone to take her place. We feel attacked by someone and we look to our friends to take our side, and if they don’t do this for us, we look for new friends who better suit our purpose.
We choose our mates to provide for us what we think we need, a faithful lover, a good listener, someone who puts us first, someone who believes in us. Maybe we are looking for a good provider or a good parent for our children. Maybe we just want someone who will see in us what we fail to see in ourselves. And at the same time, they are looking for certain attributes in us and when two find this perfect match, they say they are in love. They stay in love until one or the other fails to provide what they thought they needed. When the bargain is broken the other feels betrayed and begins his or her search again.
What if we fulfill our own needs? We can do this through A Course in Miracles. We can learn that we are sufficient and eventually learn that we have no needs because we were created perfect and this has not changed. We can learn that we can’t be abandoned or betrayed. All of this can be learned through the relationship if we give it to the Holy Spirit for His use instead of throwing it away and looking for the relationship that provides for us what we are unwilling to give ourselves.
Sometimes circumstances are such that a relationship must end, at least in form. But all relationships must be healed, and they can be healed whether the partners are together or apart because the relationship is the mind. However, judging against the partner or friend and so trading one for another in the hope that another is the special one that is going to fulfill imagined needs is not the solution.
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