99. Your relationship isn’t working. Is that true?

Some years ago I had a friend, Julie, then in her mid-50’s who had been married twice and had recently gone through the painful ending of a two-year relationship. When it ended she said, “I don’t know, maybe I just won’t date again; I know some women my age who have just given up and feel it’s best to stay alone. But I also really want a relationship.” She went on to say, “I do my career well but I don’t do relationships well. I can’t seem to make them work.”

At the time I didn’t know this but now I understand that the label we put on relationships is false. We say this relationship didn’t work. How true is that? Didn’t it work the way it worked? When we have an idea of how it should be, and it doesn’t match that we say it didn’t work. But, according to who? Can we know for sure that any relationship is supposed to be forever?

People often say the same about their marriages: “My marriage failed.” Did it? Or was it supposed to have been exactly as it was; you were supposed to have been together precisely as long as you were, not a minute shorter or longer. How do we know this? Because when we see the reality of life from our own direct experience we can see that this is the way it is. There’s no lesson to be learned, no mystical happening at all. It’s just the simple livingness of life. It has calm and storms, ups and downs, tides going in and out, seasons changing one after another. Nature doesn’t argue with itself or think it should be a different way.

So if you’re in a painful dating relationship what do you do? Actually, nothing. You don’t do anything but you can see life for what it is. No matter what your partner is saying or doing you can be at peace if you simply watch life as it unfolds rather than making stories about how it should be. No relationship has to work in the way we usually mean that term. If your partner causes you to hurt it’s a chance to see what you’re resisting because emotional pain is always about resisting “what is”.

Should your partner be doing what he’s doing? Yes – because he’s doing it. Should it be raining when it’s raining? Yes because it is. Maybe if you drop your judgments about your partner you could see that he’s an innocent little boy, just doing his best. And so are you, no matter what age you are. Life is living through us as us. When we stop trying to be in control and stop believing our thoughts we’re left with just stillness and calm. Action still happens, the work gets done. But we’re then in the natural state of just seeing that we are part of the functioning of life. Nothing to do but float along on the stream, doing the next most obvious thing in front of you while knowing at the same time that you’re really not the doer at all. It’s effortless and peaceful that way.

Copyright © 2006 Chuck Custer