Tom Grasso figured out how to be happy in love. And it took ending a miserable marriage to get there.
—
Here I was, searching high and wide for a topic of my very first article for The Good Men Project when, lo and behold, there it was. A simple quote attributed to musical legend (and one of my favorites) Bob Marley came flashing across my Facebook page, and it fed my writing soul.
“The biggest coward is a man who awakens a woman’s love with no intention of loving her”
Really? Have we as individuals become so codependent on one another that we are now blaming others for what we, ourselves, feel?
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not talking about the scoundrel who lies to a woman to get her emotionally tied to him. I’m talking about an honest relationships between a man and a woman to which the man has no present ability to “love” her. Is it really the man’s fault for awakening her “love”? Is he truly a coward for not having the intention of loving her in the way she loves him?
I say no, and I say it with peace and love. Here’s why.
What is love?
First let me officially disclaim this in order to end any arguments before they begin. What I write about is my own experience and observation and may not, in any way, meet you own. I am not very book smart even if I am well read, but I do believe myself extremely wise as a matter of my own experience and observation. Also, I’m going to write about the generalities I’ve experienced and observed. Obviously it would be impossible to discuss each and every individual’s experience in this article, so how about we simply stick to what appears to be the generalities and not get to much into specifics? Thank you.
I think, for many of us, that the very definition of “love” is so skewed that we make our first mistake simply by “falling” in it. Generally speaking, many of us
I hope that in a relationship with me my partner feels free to do as she pleases and, in turn, I do exactly as I please. I should never have to say “no” to my partner if she wishes to do something, and she should never say “no” to me.
|
relate our loving experiences with possessive ownership of another person. Love becomes like an indentured servitude for many, where rules are instituted, policies enacted, and contracts made in order to symbolize the way we truly love one another. In this practice we create a ton of assumptions and expectations which we then use to judge our partner’s value in our lives.
Love is, to me, nothing that requires a vow, or contract, or promise or rule. In fact, the only contract for me is that there will be no contracts, and the only expectation I’ll have is that there will be little-to-no expectations. I hope that in a relationship with me my partner feels free to do as she pleases and, in turn, I do exactly as I please. I should never have to say “no” to my partner if she wishes to do something, and she should never say “no” to me. There simply should be no reason to.
Love is more of a connection to me. It’s a deep feeling that rises up like an eruption that never ends. I feel it in everything, toward everybody, every conscious moment of my life. One day, I realize, I will feel it for a woman in a way that separate her from all of the others. I will desire her in every possible way, and I will feel the shiver of excitement in every touch, in every word, in ever moment of ecstasy. The very thought of her will inspire a new thought within me, and I will listen to that voice with a passion unequaled in other areas of my life.
Love transcends sex, it transcends “relationship”, and it transcends even our most fundamental fears. We can have sex without love, and we can have love without sex. We can, in love, do whatever we want to do. It’s not a box we are put in, it is a field we are free to roam.
Love allows everything. It allows us to be happy, and it allows us to be sad. It allows us to be joyful, and it allows us to be angry. It isn’t jealous, but it allows jealousy. Basically, love is the freedom to be whomever and whatever you happen to be each and every moment you happen to be it.
That is how I see love, and that is what I want in my life if I am to ever rise to love. I realize that it seems a wee bit idealistic, but don’t count me out yet. There is more.
Being in love means engaging the mind.
We all have a mind, and to pretend we can be in love without engaging our minds is absolutely ludicrous. We all have sensitivities and sensibilities that allow us to have the experience we choose to have. We have past experiences in this mind, and we have scars and hurts and injuries within this mind that drive us toward our experience. Our minds create our experience, so we live our lives as square pegs or round pegs or awesomely created triangles. We are those things we think we are, and we must embrace that idea if we are ever able to be happy in how we interact with others.
So, engage the mind like a warp drive and find yourself in another part of the universe before you can blink.
Otherwise, you will be a square peg who believes you’ve fallen for a round hole. You will be so enamored by that round hole that you will pretend to be round yourself, and you will do what you can to appear as round as you can be. What happens then?
Well, it’s simple. When you try to fit a square peg into a round hole you will usually fail, and you will always destroy both the square peg and the round hole. Both will be damaged, and neither will look quite like the remarkable pegs they were before the game began.
The worst part, to me, is that while all of this pretending was going on, both the square pegs and the round holes may have missed out on their perfect match. Our minds forgot who we were in the desire to be more to the other’s liking, and in doing so we we lost a bit of who we were. That is a shame.
We are full of self-loathing.
For many of us, we do not like who we are. Because of this, we often believe we need to sacrifice ourselves on the altar of dysfunctional relationships. I was riddled with self-doubt and self-loathing in my past, and it caused me to only find value in myself through whatever relationship I happened to be in. I’d give up bits of myself as I worked like hell to get the relationship to work. If my lover didn’t like something about me, I’d try to change it. All of this effort only led to one thing: misery.
After my marriage ended, I was led to the realization that something had to change. I began to question everything about my life, and sincerely look at what had led me to that intense bit of suffering I was in. I knew I never wanted to go through that darkness again, and if I was to ever be happy, truly happy, again changes were going to have to take place. After all, if your hand is burning on a hot stove it is best to figure out a way to stop the burning.
Some people decide to turn off the stove or remove their hand, or both and usually not in that order. I decided to keep on burning until I figured out the truth. Here is what I figured out:
1. No one can hurt me but me.
I’m speaking of emotional hurt here. I realized I was in full control of myself, and having that control meant that others were not hurting me. They were being who they needed to be, and the pain I felt wasn’t their fault. The blame, and responsibility, were all mine.
Our suffering in relationships often comes from certain expectations not being met. I expect my partner to be faithful regardless of their ability to be.
I came to realize that each and every emotional hurt that came out of my failed relationship was spawned in an inaccurate expectation from an unreasonable assumption.
|
I expect my partner to be honest even if they haven’t proven they can be. I expect my partner to be insatiable even if I haven’t taken a shower all day. I expect, I expect, I expect, and when those expectations aren’t met I react, and I react in a variety of ways, ways that are often hurtful and not reflective of the love I should feel toward my partner.
Since sex sells, let’s focus on the insatiable part. I’ve been working out in the yard all day in the raging heat of the summer. I finish, and walk in to the “look” my partner has about her. I instantly want her, and I make my patented move that has never failed before.
“Get off me, you stink,” she says. Not the answer I wanted, or was hoping for, and I react.
“Fuck you.”
“Not with that attitude, you won’t,” she screams back.
An argument ensues, and neither of us gets laid for the next few days.
Expectations create an impossible situation if they are not met. And assumptions don’t help. After all, I didn’t smell that bad, did I?
The truth is that scenario never happened. I made it up in my head to prove a point, but it is very realistic.
I know a man and woman who divorced around the same time my marriage was ending. He is, and was, a lifelong flirt, particularly if a pretty woman was involved. His wife knew that about him from the moment they met, but there she’d be, not talking to him for days because he had flirted with a pretty waitress one night.
Why? Well, he isn’t supposed to flirt with women as a married man despite the fact he was born a flirt. He was supposed to change his behavior because he was married, and when he didn’t, or couldn’t, the suffering ensued. His square peg didn’t fit into her round hole.
Why do we do that to ourselves? He wasn’t hurting her, her insecurities were hurting her. He was simply being how he was, who he was. He never hid himself as a flirt, and as many times as he promised her he wouldn’t do it again he failed, which made him a liar as well.
I came to realize that each and every emotional hurt that came out of my failed relationship was spawned in an inaccurate expectation from an unreasonable assumption. Those expectations and assumptions weren’t always directed at my wife, but also directed at me in both expecting and assuming that I could change to be the man she wanted me to be. Of course, I failed.
I began to unravel a secret in this realization. I decide if I’m going to be emotionally hurt or not. I choose to be hurt by the actions of someone else, which means that I can choose not to be as well.
2. Relationships need to promote liberation, not limitation.
This was an amazing, and very scary, realization. Traditionally, I believed that relationships had roles that we all needed to play. My lover was to fit into my idea of who she should be, and I often “fell in love” before I even knew if she could meet those expectations. The relationship would begin based on the primal need for companionship and sex, and then we were to fit into our roles from there.
She was, first and foremost, to be faithful to me. The neat thing about “being faithful” is that we can assign all kinds of caveats to the meaning of that phrase. To some, “being faithful” means no sex outside of the relationship. To others, it means a whole host of other caveats and meanings. I would never consider what her meaning was, only mine, and since we were “in a relationship” she had to meet that demand or hell would have to be paid. I, in turn, would have to meet hers as well.
Today, I have a far different view. Everyone, and I mean everyone is absolutely free to be who they are. I have no expectations of anyone in my life. That does not mean I don’t have certain standards for a serious, committed, loving relationship I may enter into, it just means that I don’t demand that of others. I am patient enough to wait for the one who can fill my needs without having to change herself. “The one” for me is the one who doesn’t need to change a thing in order to be with me.
If my lover wants to have sex outside our relationship, she can, but she can’t be in a relationship with me. The relationship must end because she must be free to find her joy, her happiness, whatever that may mean. She must value her own happiness enough to have the strength to be honest with me, as I must with her.
3. Love is strength.
“A man who loves himself takes the first step toward real love.” ~Osho
One realization I had was that love always starts at home, with me. It sounds cliche to suggest that you can’t really love someone else until you love yourself, but nothing can be truer. Real love demands complete openness, complete honesty, and complete honor, and those ideals can’t be achieved unless you love yourself enough to be true to who you are, and you have to be willing to lose everything in order to honor that love you have for yourself.
Why risk losing everything? Well, if your arms are full with things you acquired through the lies of self-loathing you will never have room to embrace things you attract through real self love. If those you embrace are still there as you become true to yourself, they love you for you. If they aren’t, they don’t.
Love is not only about embracing the things that love you, it is about having the strength to let go of those things that are contrary to how you want to feel and who you want to be. If you love yourself and them, let them go regardless of how much they protest. They deserve to have people in their lives who better reflect their values, and you deserve to have space for others you may attract through you own love of self. Letting go, no matter how painful it may be, is an act of love regardless of how the other person perceives it. Remember, the pain you feel is there because you have chosen it. You can change your mind.
I’ve learned to focus on the positives. If a relationship is not working, I realize I must let it go. From here I have a choice. I can decide to feel sad and pain at the loss, or feel happy and joy in the gain. What gain you may ask? Well, I’m letting someone go so they can find some greener pastures, and I am freeing up space in my own life for someone who will thrive in my presence. There is nothing to feel sad about. It’s all beautiful, and it’s all perfect. It’s not a loss, it’s a wonderful gain, for all involved.
If I truly love the woman in my life, and she says, “Tom, I really need to be with other men. I like variety, and I want to explore that like outside of our relationship,” what should my reaction be? Traditionally, I would likely throw a tantrum and then a pity party for myself. Ideas like “I am not good enough” and “she is a slut” would likely pour out of me, and the exact opposite of love would fill the spaces in my life. I’d be sad, hurt, angry and full of self-loathing.
Now, say I love her and myself truly. I don’t want to be with a committed partner who is not committed, so my love for me would suggest I had to move on. But what about my reaction to her?
I believe that if I love her I wish her well, and hope she gets what she needs. I don’t need to be angry, or sad, for this event is in my both of our best interests. I will be free to find the one for me, and she will be free to pursue her happiness.
Would love demand that I possess her? Would it demand that she hide her needs to fit our “contract” of monogamy? Or would it demand that I let her go, and that she never need change for me in any way?
I choose the second option because I’ve seen the misery of the first one. It is that simple.
Love is strength, and it provides us with great courage. In love, we realize we have nothing to fear just as in fear we believe we have nothing to love. If a man and a woman are truly in love, what do they have to fear?
Exactly.
4. The true cowardice lies within the patterns of our lives.
The patterns in our relationships begin before we even know what a relationship is. We learn from the rights and wrongs of others, and we soon assume the same patterns of those closest to us as we meander through our own lives. We are taught to interact with each other not by learned masters of the art, but by increasingly fallible human beings who often hide their own misery and their own mistakes from those counting on them to teach us better.
In fact, I’d suggest that the one thing we have learned to master best from those around us is the Art of Hiding Our Misery. We also learn, often by subliminal
It takes real courage to try to step outside the patterns. The cliche is correct, life does begin outside our comfort zones, but how many of us will really try to leave our box to explore out there?
|
instruction, that these patterns are unbreakable and we simply must “deal with them.” We are taught exploration is immoral and, as Bob suggests, real men don’t walk away from women who love them.
We become so comfortable in the discomfort of these patterns that we never push their boundaries. We try to find someone who reminds us of our mothers (or fathers in the case of women) and try hard to settle down into the same fairy tale our parents have. Or, worse, we often relive the same mistakes they have, and reach the same broken outcome.
It takes real courage to try to step outside the patterns. The cliche is correct, life does begin outside our comfort zones, but how many of us will really try to leave our box to explore out there? How many of us are content to live in misery, or satisfied with failure after failure, often sacrificing our own sense of joy in order to remain neatly packed in the box we have accepted?
How many women search for marriage because they want to live the fairy tale? How many men seek companionship for fear of dying “alone”? How many of us go into a relationship believing the strain and sacrifice we have to make to remain in it are necessary?
Too many, I’m afraid.
What if we were just patient, and refused to settle for anything less than pure joy? What if we stopped believing that relationships were “work” and, instead, believed them to be effortless? Sure, it would be different than anything most of our parents had tried, but would it work??
I honestly don’t know, but I refuse to repeat the old patterns in my life any longer. Instead, I don’t want to awaken a love in a woman, I want her to understand her own responsibility in awakening it in herself. I don’t want to assume responsibility for her happiness, or her mine, but rather would like to keep that responsibility right where it belongs. I don’t want to demand honesty and faithfulness from her, I want her to demand those traits from herself. I want it all naturally occurring for the two of us so, in the process, we are not working so hard just to be with each other. Then, we can spend that energy on more fruitful endeavors.
Like orgasms.
—
Photo: Flicker/Francisco Orsolo
“If my lover wants to have sex outside our relationship, she can, but she can’t be in a relationship with me. The relationship must end because she must be free to find her joy, her happiness, whatever that may mean.”
This is a very pretty way of describing gun-to-the-head insistence on perfect-monogamy-or-else…but that’s what it is. It looks like you’ve not thought it through nearly as completely or mindfully or realistically as you think you have.
Daniel, it is the way I need to exist in a relationship. It’s only a “gun-to-the-head insistence on perfect-monogamy-or-else” if I am with someone who doesn’t think like me in that regard. Why would I want to be with someone who doesn’t feel like me on this vital issue? Why would she want to be with someone who thinks like me? The issue I see us all having is that we SETTLE for someone (or stay with someone) who does not think like us on key issues that involve how we choose to live our lives. If you want to… Read more »
Daniel, to me it is just the opposite of gun to the head monogamy. I see it as complete freedom for both to choose the type of relationship they want. I’m curious to hear your side tho. If you see that as gun to the head style, what would be your complete, mindful, and realistic attitude?