283. What happens in mature dating is never painful except for our thoughts about it

All the heartache, disappointment, despair, loneliness and pain of mature dating comes and goes, have you noticed? Even in the midst of deep hurt there are moments of no hurt at all, such as when you stub your toe and your thoughts instantly go to that physical pain. Meanwhile your heartache just disappears – poof!

Where does it go? Was it real? Or was all that hurt just a thought? Since it can disappear in an instant what could the pain be except a fleeting thought? That’s why it makes sense to question thoughts and beliefs. While we hold a thought it feels physically real. Let’s say Ron’s thought is, “I want Adele to love me.” The more that thought is nurtured and fed the more Ron hurts.

But is it true that Adele should love Ron? Can he positively know that would be best for him? With that thought he’s in a world of hurt. Without it he’s just living life and watching things happen. When he doesn’t know for sure what should happen he’s open to what is. And with his focus off the thought what happens to the pain? It disappears in the simple awareness that Ron’s strongly held belief may not be true.

Thoughts seem to have great power to create pain for us. But in actuality they have no power at all because there’s nothing real about them. Thoughts are as fleeting as a lightning flash and as real as a shadow. Meanwhile, every moment a painful thought-illusion occupies us we’re not only hurting but we’re missing the only living there ever is, the life that happens in the present. And that present-moment life is not suffering at all.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

247. You'll never succeed in dealing with the ghost under the bed

Pete was 67 and Alice was a few years younger when they met. There was immediate chemistry and they began seeing a lot of each other. After a few months, however, Pete began to notice some disturbing things about Alice. She seemed to be constantly picking at him in little ways, wanting him to change. This continued and Pete became increasingly unhappy. Friends asked why he didn’t move on and meet other women and he’d say, “Because she’s so sweet. When we first met I just knew I’d met the love for the rest of my life. I don’t want to let go of the woman I know is so right for me.”

When two people first get together one or both of them are often on their best behavior. They may not be very authentic in the beginning. But then with some time they become their real selves, and sometimes that’s not so endearing. Yet people stay in bad relationships, partly because the mind is so tenacious in its belief that it’s right. It doesn’t want to admit that it fell in love with an image, not the real Alice. Yes she was wonderful when she wanted Pete and was showing her best side. But there was also the other side – the critical, judgmental, controlling side that Pete hadn’t seen until later.

It’s painful to be in a relationship that isn’t kind and we often stay because we’ve believed an illusion created only in our minds. We’re not looking deep enough to see the truth. We want to believe we’re right.

The way out of these kinds of mind-entrapments is the way out of any kind of emotional suffering – inquire within and be honest. Ask yourself, for instance, was the Alice I met the real Alice? When I now see the entire picture of who Alice is do I still want to be with her?

When you’re hurting or uncomfortable in a relationship, and if you want to know the truth about it, you have to forget being right. Holding onto old concepts is holding onto pain. Being free of pain means seeing reality as it is, not the way you wish it was or think it should be. When we stop believing our concepts and see life as it really is we can deal with reality. We can never successfully deal with false images. That’s like trying to deal with the ghost under the bed.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

228. It's hopeless to want someone to like what we like, yet we do it all the time

When we’re feeling hurt about our romantic relationship we naturally want to tell our partners. Actually, we usually want to blame our partners. If they would just be the way we think they should be everything would be fine.

But they are who they are, just as we are who we are. To expect them to change to meet our demands is hopeless. Let’s say you want them to like going to the symphony with you and they don’t. They have natural preferences for life just as you do. What if they asked you to like going to the fights and you don’t? Can you change what you like? Well, they can't either.

Freedom in a relationship means we’re free to be as we are, without getting verbally pummeled by a partner who thinks we should like what we don’t. In freedom, he goes off to the fights, alone or with a friend, and she heads for the symphony the same way, each wishing the other a happy time.

Reality always wins, and when we see that the real world is just the way it is, our hopes, dreams and fantasies naturally disappear, They were just wispy, misguided thoughts in the first place. Seeing life as it is, is happiness. It's also love... wanting your partner to want what he wants, and being at peace yourself when you don't argue with reality. That's called self-love.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

224. Make-believe isn’t just for children, it’s rampant in mature dating too

Expectations in a mature dating relationship can kill the relationship – and hurt like hell. Expecting is laying our imaginary picture on an imaginary future. For example, you meet someone and you begin to fantasize who they are and how they’ll make you happy. I know of a man in his later 70s who recently met a woman after having been widowed about three years ago. He’d been deeply mourning the loss of his life-long companion and then a new woman comes into his life and suddenly life turns for him.

He begins to feel young and alive and within weeks he’s planning trips with her and giving her all kinds of gifts, some very intimate and romantic. He tells her how much she means to him and it’s clear he’s fallen in love. But without realizing it, he’s fallen in love with his image of this woman and his make-believe picture of their future together. No matter how wonderful she is, he couldn’t have fallen in love with her because he doesn’t know her. He only knows his picture of her after being with her a short few weeks.

The mind is tricky and can run all sorts of games of fantasy and illusion, as when you work yourself into a frenzy worrying that someone hasn’t come home on time. Thoughts come on their own and we can’t stop them. But we don’t have to pay attention to them either. Instead, we can step back into the pure, simple awareness that sees thoughts come and go. That awareness is never affected by the thoughts that show up, any more than the sun is affected by clouds appearing in the sky.

Clear awareness just sees life as it is. That’s reality. Without our made-up stories reality is never painful. It just is. But let the fairy tales run and you’re probably in for a world of hurt because reality eventually becomes clear and our dreamy expectations rarely match it. Reality always wins because it’s simply what is. When we don't add our fantasies life is smooth.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

218. Mature dating is a pleasant stroll when you don’t have to make it go your way

All the worry, stress and discomfort of mature dating can evaporate if we’re willing to give up what we think we know about life and see what our direct experience tells us. I’m talking not about beliefs, which are always learned from someone else, but knowing. When you know, belief is no longer necessary. If you know how to swim you don’t say, “I believe I can swim.” Belief is wiped out with the knowing.

What I’ve come to know by studying the teachings from a number of wise ones with a clear understanding of life is that Life is living us. Functioning of a body we call “me” is happening by itself. When you look deeply you can’t find anything with an independent nature you can call “me”. Your very life isn’t under your control at all. “Me” is only an idea, a thought. You can check that out if you’re interested.

The problem is that “me” seems so real. We say I walk, I talk, I am the doer of my life. But when you take a look you’ll see from your own experience that you can’t locate a “me”. But then you’ll say, “Well then, who’s walking, for instance, if it’s not me?” Good question. I suggest you look and see. Are you walking? When you’re walking along and having a conversation with someone are you consciously moving each leg and setting your foot down with each step? Do you even know how to move your leg? Isn’t walking just happening?

Are you actually responsible for blinking your eyes? Do you wave your hands and arms around consciously as you talk, to help express yourself? Or do they move without your even realizing it until someone points it out? Do you grow yourself from childhood to adulthood? Have you made your hair turn gray and added wrinkles to your face in these mature dating years?

A chameleon changes color as a camouflage to protect itself. An octopus not only changes colors but can also change its “skin” from smooth to rough or variegated to match its surroundings so it can’t be seen. Do you think these animals consciously make that happen? Or is it just the way nature functions? Would the Life Force function in what we call the animal world but not for you in your human world?

When we realize that we’re also part of nature, just as an octopus, and that we’re being lived in the same way a natural relaxing into life happens. We no longer have that self-centered reference point – that filter that everything passes through – as we ask ourselves: How do I like this? How does this affect me? The me-idea that’s been the center of our universe can just drop away and the natural functioning, that’s been going on all the time, will be at the forefront instead of in the background.

Thinking we have to make life go our way to be happy is a mental habit that causes us a lot of pain. Realizing that Life knows what it’s doing and just relaxing into that knowing is freedom, peace, and happiness. All the emotional turmoil of mature dating can just evaporate in that knowing. What’s left? Just the joy of “being” as we move spontaneously and effortlessly in the dating world and in all other areas of life.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

217. It’s freedom not marriage that makes us happy and healthy

When I talk about good relationships I think of freedom. To me that’s what a happy romantic relationship is about, the freedom both people feel to be themselves without sensing that their partner is judging them or trying to change them. Now comes a recent essay in Time magazine about marriage, saying: "There's good evidence that it is freedom that makes us healthy and happy, not the bonds of marriage."

The article, by John Cloud in the February 8, 2007 issue, cites some interesting facts from a recent book titled, Singled Out: How Singles Are Stereotyped, Stigmatized, and Ignored, and Still Live Happily Ever After, by Bella DePaulo. One study, she says, cites the fact that married people are only 0.115 points happier in life on a 0 to 10 scale than singles. But the researchers couldn’t tell which came first, the marriage or the happiness. Maybe, Cloud points out, happy people are more apt to marry because they’re more social.

DePaulo cites another study that concludes, "It is better to have no relationship than to be in a bad relationship." That’s probably not much of a surprise to anyone.

In general, what all the studies show, Cloud says, is that we tend to feel better when we can mate up and then end it when things go bad. And we feel worse when we can't find a partner or when we feel trapped by a bad partner. Thus the conclusion that it’s freedom that makes us happy, not marriage.

As we’ve been pointing out in these articles, we make assumptions about how finding a mate would make us happy in these mature years of our lives. But do we really know? Wouldn’t senior or mature dating be more pleasant and easier if we didn’t hold onto the idea that we’re absolutely sure we need a mate? The stress could end.

When we expect experiences to bring us happiness we haven’t noticed that all experiences repeat themselves endlessly and never bring lasting joy. We’re always on to the next experience, looking again for satisfaction. Yet the Source that makes all those experiences possible is never striving, searching, or stressed at all.

That non-judgmental Source, or awareness, is the changeless background that all experiences show up in. It’s that knowing that lets us say, “I had an experience.” When we live from that awareness, where we simply witness life, we’re like the movie screen, unaffected by the drama showing on it. We see life as it is rather than suffering the pain of want and need, trying to get what we don’t have.

Maybe, as the article points out, what we don’t have isn’t better and we’re just stuck with our own idea that it is. Trusting that Source can end the entire struggle. Whether you have a relationship or not will happen or it won’t. Why not go with the flow of life as nature does and just be happy now rather than living for that day “when”?

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

200. Authentic mature dating relationships aren’t built on fantasy and illusion

In the dating world have you noticed how easy it is for people to fall in love with their romantic fantasies? I met a woman several years ago who was saying, “Let’s go to France! Let’s go to Branson, Missouri!” after we’d only seen each other a couple of times, for coffee and lunch. I told her I didn’t know her well enough to even consider trips like that at such an early time in our friendship, and a few weeks later I chose to stop seeing her because I knew she was dealing in fantasies that would eventually bite me.

A Zen master is quoted as having said, “Do not seek the truth; simply cease cherishing illusions.” Whether his words are applied to seeking a spiritual truth or to dating relationships they’re right on. We too often fall in love with our images and fantasies and when the air clears and we see reality we wonder why things didn’t work. The amazing thing is that the red flags appear to always be there. Over the last dozen years or so I’ve dated a number of women who have told stories of disillusionment with past relationships, where they eventually felt hurt and deceived. I’ve literally asked almost all of them, “As you look back now were there any red flags that you didn’t pay attention to at the time?” And the answer I’ve gotten every single time is, “Oh yes, there were flags; I just didn’t want to pay attention to them.” They were in love with their cherished illusions, not reality.

You see that lived out in cases where women who are physically abused continue to stay with their partners, apparently not able to see that reality says, After being abused one or two times it’s time to leave. Instead, they appear to believe their cherished illusion that this time the guy will really change, and sometimes they die for that belief.

What I’ve learned is that any time someone thinks you’re a princess or a prince – or you think that of someone else – you’re almost certainly dealing in illusion. In the nitty-gritty of everyday life, which is where we live when all the fancies and fantasies are finished, life isn’t about a fairy tale. It’s about loving someone as they are, not as we imagine them to be. Fantasies never last long. Reality lasts because it’s authentic and real. It has the soul-satisfying depth of truth and honest love.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer