136. Can you truly say “I love you” when your actions are hurtful?

As we date in these later years of life what are we really seeking? Most mature daters I’ve talked to say they want to share love – to give it and feel it coming back from someone they’re close to. But what actually is this thing we call love? Is it a thought, an emotion? Do we know we love someone when we can’t get enough of them and love is new?

How do we actually measure love? The age-worn statement “Actions speak louder than words” may be a good way. Words are easy to say but they’re not a very good measuring stick. Another cliché: “What you are speaks so loudly I can’t hear what you say” also applies here I think. Both these statements refer to the fact that words that aren’t lived out in action aren’t worth much. So if we were to look at behavior to get a picture of love what would that look like?

You’d probably agree that the picture of loving behavior wouldn’t be a picture of someone purposely hurting another person, either in words or actions. We couldn’t expect people to believe us if we say we love someone then treat them badly. Yet that’s what happens in a lot of ‘love’ relationships. Sometimes there’s physical abuse but more often there’s emotional abuse, in the form of words and manipulative actions such as disapproving frowns, raised eyebrows, screaming voices, or no voice at all – withholding communication. All these ways are aimed at punishing our dating partner. The aim is to hurt. We think if they hurt enough they’ll do what we want, or stop doing what we don’t want.

But is that love? Isn’t love when we don’t judge our partner, when we’re not trying to force them to become who we want them to be? Aren’t the words, “I love you” meaningless if they’re not backed up with actions that, in fact, speak a lot louder? We may think that because this person is our partner we have the right to try to change them so the relationship will work better. After all, we’re not happy with the way they are. But is it someone else’s job to make us happy? Isn’t it their job just to be themselves?

Instead of trying to change someone, which is never caring and loving, maybe we could see the alternative, which is to accept them as they are even if we choose not to be with them. After all, we don’t have to stay in a relationship. We can find someone else better suited to us.

Realizing we’re free to leave can put a whole new angle on our relationship. When we don’t feel like a victim we might even be able to see that our partners are really just fine the way they are. We can be happy without the need for anyone else to change at all. All we need to do is stop thinking they have the power to make or break our happiness. When we’re not trying to change reality (in this case who another person is) we feel peaceful inside. We realize we don’t have to hurt someone so we can be happy.

When we’re not judging we feel relaxed and at ease. You can see in your own direct experience that nonjudgment is our natural state. It’s called just being. That’s how babies can be so serene and content. They’re just being. To me that’s love

Copyright © 2006 Chuck Custer

135. You can’t solve dating problems by assigning blame and finding fault

At this stage of life we probably all know that having disagreements in a relationship is just what happens. Each partner comes from a different background so it’s natural we won’t always see things the same way. A disagreement, however, is not a conflict unless one or both people makes judgments about the other. Then there’s discomfort and unease, for whoever is making judgments. And someone definitely is, otherwise there wouldn’t be a conflict.

When conflict starts it’s not uncommon for someone to start talking about who’s wrong and who’s at fault. Generally, the idea is to pin blame; it’s a right/wrong game. Each partner often wants to be right and blame the other for being the cause of the problem. It’s unrealistic to talk about a problem as though it’s a problem with the relationship, though, because a relationship isn’t an entity and it can’t have a problem. ‘Relationship’ is just a word that describes the interaction between two people.

Yet if there’s a problem in a relationship what does that mean? Simply stated it just means that one or both people are suffering. So rather than try to assign right and wrong to someone it makes more sense to just ask yourself: Am I hurting? If so, I’ve got a problem. Does the other person have a problem too? That’s not our business and we couldn’t solve it even if we knew the answer.

No matter what we’re unhappy with in life – whether it’s about dating or feeling left out by our grown kids – the problem is always our problem. After all, we’re the one who’s hurting and we’re the only one who can fix the hurt. How do you do that? The answer is to look and see what we’re making judgments about. Emotional pain is always about judging, which is thinking something should be different from the way it is. You can check your own life to find out that’s true.

When you’re hurting emotionally investigate your beliefs. What are you sure you have the right answer for? Drop the judgments and let life be the way it is and immediately you’re free of pain. And Voila! All of a sudden there’s no problem in the relationship.

Copyright © 2006 Chuck Custer

134. In a conflict with your date do you deal in truth or lies?

Have you noticed that we know intuitively what’s the ‘right’ thing for us to do in our dating relationships? By ‘right’ I don’t mean morally right but what feels peaceful and gives us a sense of ease and serenity. In other words, we know the truth for ourselves.

Spiritual leaders with a clear understanding of life have been teaching for centuries that truth is love. Anything other than truth doesn’t feel peaceful. When we feel most relaxed, at ease and happy it’s pretty easy to know that must be our natural state. So non-truth is obviously not our real nature. When we have conflict in our dating life, however, how many times do we rely on what’s not true in our communication? It’s fairly common to say things that are cutting or hurtful that aren’t true. There’s no love in that, and we know it inside because immediately we feel tight and stressed. It’s pretty simple to see that in such situations not telling the truth doesn’t work for us.

Yet because we somehow have learned that hurting someone or putting them down will make us feel better, we tell lies that we know aren’t true for us. We might say things such as, “You’re the sorriest excuse for a man I’ve ever seen” or “You never communicate honestly.” Or we might throw in some real zingers such as, “I can’t stand you” or “Why don’t you just leave since you’re always flirting with other men?”

When those statements aren’t true do we really feel better? Investigation usually reveals we don’t. We feel miserable. Our habit of lashing out in anger over our hurt feelings isn’t dealing in truth. Truth might be to tell our partner that we’re feeling hurt right now. Not to make our partner responsible for our hurt but just to acknowledge the truth.

Then, if we want, we can investigate the thoughts that led to our hurt feelings and see where we made judgments – where we hold interpretations or opinions that caused us to hurt. Our emotional hurt is always about us. It’s never about the other person. When we realize our suffering has nothing to do with our partner we can be loving and nonjudgmental toward them. We don’t need to say and do hurtful, unkind things. The result is we havent added to our pain by telling lies, and we haven’t damaged the relationship.

Copyright © 2006 Chuck Custer

133. Is your relationship behavior based on what you know or what you believe?

When we believe anything that belief becomes our master, and we become its slave. In dating let’s say you’re a man who believes that women cry to get their way. The woman you’re dating may cry out of real hurt or frustration but if you believe her tears are always manipulation your actions will be colored by that. You’re a slave to that belief.

Or maybe you’re a woman who believes that all men are just after sex. You may treat a man who genuinely cares about you and shows warm affection as though he was some sort of degenerate because you ‘believe’ he only wants to use you. Beliefs like that may be almost unconscious but whatever you think is true will have to be true for you, and color your every word and action.

Not only do our beliefs become the foundation for our actions and reactions, we nearly always project something onto someone else based on our self-belief. For instance, if I think I’m unworthy I’ll be easily hurt by anything anyone says that feels like a put-down to me. Someone might say, “Isn’t she pretty?” and an unworthy-feeling person will immediately say, “Oh, so you think I’m not, huh!” Our beliefs become our self-reference point and all our thoughts then spring from that.

Just what is a belief? One dictionary defines it as “a vague idea in which some confidence is placed”. Yet most of us cling to our beliefs as though they were real and solid, not the made-up wisp of thought they really are. We give them center stage and build our lives around them.

Knowing, on the other hand, is a great deal different from a belief. Knowing is factual. Knowing is just what is, period. It’s what’s happening right now, without our story because ‘story’ is back to belief again. Let’s say your new date tells you he’ll call. Three days go by and you haven’t heard. Now you’re angry because you ‘know’ if he hasn’t called by now he’s a deceitful liar. That’s your belief, and it could be right. But maybe you find he had an emergency and didn’t have a chance to call. On the other hand if you just notice he isn’t calling, and don’t add your interpretations and beliefs you can be at ease.

Most of us live in a false world much of the time. It’s a world of our own creation, usually based on beliefs about life that aren’t true. We don’t see life as it is. We see our belief about it and then live from that. Usually that results in a lot of painful judgments. Instead, we can stop and ask ourselves if our beliefs and thoughts are actually true? How does the world really work? Do things happen the way we think they should happen or do they happen the way they do? Is it actually true men just want to use women for sex? Do we really know all women manipulate men with tears?

When we argue with ‘what is’ we never win – ever! When we build our lives on beliefs that have no more stability than shifting sand we’re always going to be confused and stressed. When we simply go with the knowing of life as it is our stress and pain can disappear.

Copyright © 2006 Chuck Custer

132. You’ll have fun mature dating adventures if you don’t need more, bigger, better experiences

Part of the fun of mature dating is the new experiences it brings us. Maybe we meet someone who kayaks and we’ve never kayaked before and here’s our chance. Or we simply have the experience of being with a person we’re getting to know or that we’ve dated for some time and just enjoy being with.

For most of us we’ve spent our lives looking for new, bigger or better experiences. There’s nothing wrong with that unless that becomes our driving force, as it does in subtle or gross ways for most of us. We think life isn’t good unless we have more, faster, newer or better experiences, and the search is never-ending and stressful. The interesting fact about experiences is that while they come, they also go. The newness and excitement wears off. So we can never rest. We’re always on the prowl, always unsatisfied.

Instead of wanting experiences what I’ve seen is that what we’re really looking for is peace or happiness, and we think new experiences will give it to us. Yet when we stop to look we realize they never have – only for a short time. There is a place where you can always find ease and happiness, however. That’s when we simply relax into the beingness that is the background for all experiences. We could call that beingness the experiencING that allows all experiences to happen.

As an explanation consider seeing. When we see something we unwittingly split that up into the seer (us) and the seen (the object). We focus on the seen and the seer but we forget that the unwavering background of seeING itself comes first. It’s what allows anything to be seen. The seer and the seen flow out of seeING itself. There’s the appearance of three but it’s actually one.

In the same way experiencING comes before the experiencer or the experienced. The experiences always happen because first there was experiencING. Not a single experience could happen without that experiencing essence, just like there could be no furniture in the room you’re sitting in right now without the space that allows anything to be.

So while experiences come and go, that experiencing essence is always there. It’s who we are, that simple beingness or presence that is aware of itself. If I ask if you are present and aware you automatically say yes. You don’t have to think about it and no one has to tell you. That being/essence is who you are and you know it without question.

All experiences or events are the content (the furniture) in that space-like beingness or experiencing. As we enjoy experiences without being attached to them or having a need for new and bigger ones we can simply focus on the experiencING that watches all experiences. In words, we start any description of ourselves with “I am….”

When we relax into that ‘I amness’, that experiencing essence, we feel one with that because it’s our true nature. There’s a subtle warmth and ease, or sense of well-being in that. That’s constantly with us, always stable, always without stress. So no matter how many unsettling dating experiences we may have that can feel painful we’re always able to just relax back into our real nature and see that it’s not affected by any experience, good or bad. It needs nothing. It’s the calm background of experiencing or pure, space-like awareness. It’s like the screen a movie appears on, never affected at all by the movie, no matter how sad or painful it is.

Copyright © 2006 Chuck Custer

131. Childish emotions can run you right out of a relationship you want

In many ways as we’ve grown older we’ve become wiser through our experiences. We know that even on a warm day there can be a cool breeze off the ocean, for instance, so we might bring along a light jacket. We don’t do the things kids do inadvertently that cause them to regularly knock over and spill things. We’ve learned a few things about living through the years.

Yet the programming we’ve had since we were small often stays with us and controls our behavior right into our 50s, 60s and beyond unless we challenge old beliefs and assumptions. Left uninvestigated that programming can cause us a huge pile of hurt in our dating. For instance you might have learned along the way as a kid that when you get angry you yell. We may have seen people say hurtful things to others in some wild emotion that they wouldn’t otherwise say.

But if you find yourself letting angry or jealous or hurtful emotions run right off the end of your tongue in words you later realize aren’t true there’s something you can do about it. Grow up! That’s kid stuff, after all. Childish behavior isn’t changed by will power. But it can drop by itself if we’ve got the courage to see the truth about life.

All we have to do is stop and take a look at our emotions and we can see how fickle they are. They’re up and down and sideways and backwards. One minute we feel this way, another moment we feel that way. How believable can our emotions be when they change so readily? One minute we say, “I can’t stand you” and five minutes later we say, “I love you.” Which one is it? The changes are so rapid, do we really want to be guided by that fickle nonsense? Yet we often live as though our emotions are solid and real. Our emotions bark silent orders to us and we jerk around like puppets – all because we’ve never looked at the lies those emotions tell.

We say something one night, for instance, that we clearly recognize the next morning isn’t true for us and never was. In a burst of anger we might say, “I hate you” or “You’re a liar” and even when you say the words you know deep down they’re not true. We don’t really believe that about this person we profess to care about. Yet the lies come sturtting off our tongues like cocky roosters.

Instead of letting feelings control our words we can investigate and see just how true are these emotions we make into little gods and then let them dictate our actions. If we continue to operate from the lies and conditioned responses that have run our lives we’ll probably find ourselves in a lot of pain. We might also find ourselves right flat out of a relationship we really wanted.

Yes, it’s true that we may feel really angry or jealous at our date at any moment, but is it true we really don’t love her at that time? Is love, after all, just an emotion that comes and goes? Have a look and see if you really want to believe the emotional lies that pop up when you’re feeling hurt or neglected. Our feelings may not feel very loving at the time but our deeper being will give us the truth if we just stop and take a minute to listen to it.

Copyright © 2006 Chuck Custer

130. Her unexamined assumption caused her a lot of grief

A description in a book I’ve been reading told how a guy learned there was no Santa Claus when he was a kid. He said he saw his parents putting presents under the tree, and in that instant his belief in Santa was gone forever. His story reminded me how our assumptions and basic false beliefs lead us into so much emotional struggle. And how just seeing reality as it is breaks that mold and frees us from our pain.

When this guy saw there was no Santa his belief in Santa was gone forever – in an instant. He didn’t have to go around reminding himself regularly that there was no Santa after all. He didn’t have to use any will power to stop worrying about Santa being wedged in someone’s chimney and not getting to his house. He simply saw reality as it is and all the thoughts and concepts associated with his false belief dropped on their own because they were based on the false premise that he now saw through. It’s like cutting a tree at the root. You don’t have to cut the limbs from it. All the limbs and leaves fall too.

In life – and it comes up a lot in dating at this age I’ve noticed – we suffer often from false, unexamined assumptions and beliefs. We haven’t learned to question those basic, untrue beliefs, and as we believe them we live by them and therein lies our hurt. Making assumptions and interpretations is one of the major ways we tend to live by faulty beliefs and suffer as a result. Here’s an example. Some years ago Del, a friend of mine, was in a committed relationship with Sally, a woman he’d known several years. Together they were looking at beach property Del was considering buying. As they talked with the sales agent Del introduced Sally as “my friend.” Immediately Sally said, “Well, I hope I’m more than just a friend,” and the sales agent looked kind of awkward as he glanced from Del to Sally and back again, probably wondering what was coming next. The conversation continued.

Later when they were alone Sally confronted Del. “Why did you have to tell him I was your friend? Aren’t I more than that to you? Was it even his business to know anything about our relationship?” Del explained that he was simply introducing her to the sales person to be polite and so the salesman could understand her role there. He pointed out that he could have called her his ‘very best’ friend, or use some other descriptive term but he felt ‘friend’ was all that was needed in this situation where they would be talking to a sales agent for no more than 15 minutes.

After a long and sometimes heated discussion it finally turned out that Sally was actually upset because she thought Del was putting her in her place. “I think the real reason you called me only your friend was to let me know buying property was your decision and I wasn’t included,” she said. Del was taken aback. That hadn’t even occurred to him. For him the introduction was just that, a simple statement of their relationship, following social custom.

Later, after she investigated her angry reaction Sally came back to Del and admitted that she really did want to be his friend. It was only her assumption that he was giving her a message through his introduction to the sales agent that had caused her all the pain she felt. From that assumption she had built her own story about how Del didn’t care for her as much as she’d thought, how he wants to keep her at arm’s length, and on and on and on.

Del saw Sally as a fine person, a woman in her 60s who had raised a good family and was now widowed. She was probably unaware that her fear of losing a relationship was so strong and that it would show itself in such an eruptive and spontaneous way based on a simple comment.

Most of us don’t get riled up instantly because we consciously choose that. In my experience it happens because we’ve got unexamined assumptions about life, and they pop up and seemingly control us. We can’t think straight because all our thoughts are based on a faulty foundation. What we can do, however, is not be so quick to believe our emotions. Instead we can take a look and see what is the underlying thought that brings on that strong emotion. Is that thought accurate? Do we really know that what we think is true? Is it possible we’ve jumped to an erroneous conclusion – in the case of Del and Sally was it true that Del was trying to put her in her place? If she had asked him she’d have known.

When you see there’s not really a Santa Claus you no longer worry if he’s going to get to your house. All worries drop when the belief is gone. When you see your assumptions as just thoughts that could be wrong, all the subsequent thoughts and emotions built on that lie fall away at the same time. It isn’t an act of will power. You don’t go around saying, “I will not get upset again. I will not get upset again.” No, you simply investigate your basic belief and see if it’s true. If you see that it’s not true nothing else is needed, just as you no longer grab a pail and head to a mirage for water after you’ve once examined a mirage and seen its unreality.

Copyright © 2006 Chuck Custer