Tex Norman

Thoughts on Relationships and Love



Posted: Sunday, February 07, 2010

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Somehow, I got in my head some odd ideas about relationships and love. I still cling to some of these odd ideas. I want to list them so I can examine these ideas.

Love is a decision of the mind.

I got this idea that the term "falling in love" was wrong, it was bad. The term "falling in love" reminds me of those pit traps. You know, someone digs a big hole, puts pointy sticks in the bottom pointing upward, and then covers the opening with brush and twigs. That just could not be what a loving relationship was all about. The term Falling In Love sounded like a trap. Who wants to be in a trap. The term also implies that love happens, through no will (or fault) of your own, that you have no choice about that love-relationship because falling is something that just happens to you. I decided around the age of 16 that what most people were calling love was sexual attraction, and LOVE was a purposeful commitment that was apart from sexual desire. I hoped, of course, that sexual intercourse was still an option, but the sex was just a side benefit, that love was love with or without the sex.

LOVE is wanting the highest good to happen to the person you love.

I got this idea in my brain that if I really love someone then I want them to be happy and that means that even if something makes me unhappy, or miserable, or is psychologically crushing, I will endure that IF that is what it takes to make the other person happy.

This idea is not totally unique to me. The singing group BREAD has a song called IT DON'T MATTER TO ME:

It don't matter to me

If you take up with

Someone who's better than me

'Cause your happiness is all I want

For you to find

Peace ... your peace of mind

Bread

This lyric and this idea lead to some odd positions in a relationship. For example, if you really believe that the other person matters more to you than you matter to yourself then they have all the power in the relationship. Believe this enough and you will accept the person you love loving someone else. If their happiness is ALL that matters then if they leave, or want to have an affair or spend all your money that's OK because their happiness is all that matters.

I believe that MARRIAGE is a covenant and not a contract.

A prenuptial agreement is a contract. A prenup protects what you have from the person you are marrying. A contract looks after your own interests, your own assets and protects your personal property and wealth from your spouse. In marriage the two people pledge to look out for the interests of the other person. A covenant has a lot of religious connections, but a covenant can exist outside of religious rites. Think of the movie version of marital vows.

Will you love her, comfort her, honor and keep her, in sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer, for better, for worse, in sadness and in joy, to cherish and continually bestow upon her your heart's deepest devotion, forsaking all others, keep yourself only unto her as long as you both shall live?

Notice, there is no escape clause in this vow. If you say I WILL (in the movies it is I DO, but that's wrong) then you are committing yourself to looking out for the other person no matter what happens next.

What if the other person breaks the vow? What if she doesn't cherish and continually bestow upon you your heart's deepest devotion? What if she doesn't forsake all others? What if she doesn't keep herself only unto you for as long as you both shall live?

In my mind, that means she broke the vow and that is all it means. My vow doesn't break just because she broke hers. Regardless of what happens after the "I now pronounce you husband and wife" you made a vow, you made this conscious purposeful commitment, and there is no escape clause even if your spouse does not reciprocate.

"LOVE: The irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired."

Mark Twain

I may be all wrong about love and marriage. I think Mr. Twain is on to something. The thing I wanted most in marriage was to be irresistibly desired. What I yearn for in unconditional love. While I am more than willing to cherish and continually bestow upon my wife my heart's deepest devotion, and I'm willing to honor that commitment even if it is not reciprocal, that is not really getting me to where I want to be. I want to be loved. I have an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired. I'm not worthy. I'm not particularly attractive. I have no money. I'm not a person with qualities that other women are drawn to, and I'm pretty sure that is true of all women, and all humans on earth. Because I am not desirable, it is to be expected that I have never and will never be irresistibly desired. I'm not plan A. I am not plan B. I may not even qualify for plan Q.

I saw a great scene on the old Barney Miller TV show. Barney goes to see one of his detectives that was home after killing some bank robbers. There is a lot of awkward him-hawing as neither man knows what to say. Just before Barney leaves he asks the other guy if he know that the Blue Whale, the largest animal on earth has a throat about this big (Barney holds up a hand and makes a little circle a little larger than the diameter of a quarter.) Barney next says, Because that's the way it is, and there is nothing anybody can do about it.

I'd like to redefine love. I'd like to calibrate my relationship meter. I'd like to be cherished, but I am the cherish-er, that is my role in this life, and that is just the way it is and there is nothing anybody can do about it.

Tex Norman is a social worker, currently working at the Oklahoma DHS Abuse and Neglect hotline. He interviews people reporting abuse and/or neglect of children and vulnerable adults and writes a narrative. The narratives (and demographics) are used to initiate investigations of the allegations. He says it is like writing 8 to 10 stories a day. In August 2012, he will have been married to Kathie for 40 years. He has a son Ryan who earned a PhD from Princeton and he is now a scientist doing research in molecular biology. Tex spends his free time working as an artist and writer. He has one art site, and a blog that might be of interest: http://tex-norman.artistwebsites.com/ and http://collagepoetrybytex.blogspot.com/
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