155. She suffers from her self-created “sweet and sour” relationship

I got an email today from Muriel, a woman in her mid-60s that I’ve written about before. She’s had an on and off relationship with Jeff for four or five years and lives in a lot of pain because she apparently doesn’t see reality.

Today she wrote that she and Jeff have many things in common, and she listed many of them. “But.” she says, “when we start talking seriously about a future together he freezes up and goes into his cave. He says he loves me, but why can’t we just be friends.” She adds that that doesn’t make sense to her, then goes on to ask my view.

Muriel is in what I’d call a self-created sweet and sour relationship – sweet in the pleasure she gets from being with him and sour in the suffering she endures because he won’t commit to the kind of relationship she wants.

To resolve her suffering Muriel puts a lot of energy into trying to understand why Jeff feels the way he does about her. Of course what she really wants is to be happy, and she feels that understanding will bring that happiness. But in trying to understand we put ourselves in the role of victim because we can never really fully understand why another thinks or feels as they do. So all the time that we’re waiting and agonizing over not understanding we’re a victim, suffering. When we drop the idea that we need to understand, and just see and accept reality instead, we can be out of our agony.

If Muriel would stop looking “out there” for the answer and instead check inside herself she might notice that without her story of what “should be” she could simply see what is: Jeff only wants to be friends – period. From that clear seeing, without judging him, she might notice that her actions would flow naturally and effortlessly.

One option would be to settle in with a friendship. Then she could probably spend time with him freely and without the longing for more. She could also stop nagging and manipulating him, which happens when they start “talking seriously about a future together.” Obviously if he wants only a friendship he isn’t the one who brings up that subject, which can only be Muriel’s attempt to pressure him to move forward when he doesn’t want to. There’s no love in that. That’s manipulation borne of self-interest.

Reality in this situation is to simply see that Jeff is just being who Jeff is. He’s not deceiving her. He’s not using her. He’s not trying to change her. And he’s not manipulating her. She, on the other hand, is trying to manipulate him, and in the process creating a lot of pain for herself by not living in harmony with what is. If she doesn’t want to be just a friend she could move out of the relationship. But she wouldn’t need to do it in anger; she could do it with love. Whether she stayed as a friend or moved away from him, in both cases she wouldn’t be trying to control him and she could be free of pain by just living in reality.

When we think we need a partner or date to change we’re the ones who need to change, and the change we need is to see that the loving thing to do in a relationship is to let the other be who they are. They have as much right to live their way as we have.

Any time – any time – we want another person to change it’s because we feel if they change we’ll be happier. In effect we’re saying, “I want you to change even when you don’t want to because I really don’t care about your happiness. I just want my happiness.” Now, I recognize that sounds pretty harsh and you may be saying to yourself, “No, I want her to be happy too and I know she’ll be happier if she does it my way.” But isn’t that justification for self-centered behavior that we may not have noticed about ourselves until we really look?

If you really want your dating partner to be happy you could just leave him alone. And if you really want to be happy yourself why not skip the middle man (the person you think should change and give you what you want) and give yourself happiness by just flowing with life the way it is rather than deciding how it should be and fighting it. After all, do you really know how life should be? Until you let your dating or romantic partner be who they are you’re starting a war with them. I don’t see love in starting a war. But I see total love in acceptance and nonjudgment.

Copyright © 2006 Chuck Custer