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