The Lady in Number 6 is an Oscar-winning documentary and a love story. But not the usual kind of love story.
It’s a film about Alice Herz-Sommer, a Jewish Holocaust survivor who died at the age of 110 in 2013. An accomplished pianist, Alice survived her time in a concentration camp by playing classical music for Nazi officers. She called music her greatest love, the thing in life that meant everything to her, and her God.
Her unflagging optimism and positive outlook, despite a life filled with devastating loss, was inspiring. But neither that, nor her unbridled love of music, is what struck me most about the film. It was a short scene in which she described her marriage to an amateur violinist named Leopold Sommer.
When Alice agreed to marry Leopold, she told him that he would surely meet other women, more beautiful and younger than she, and that he would be tempted. And that if he ever felt he wanted to leave her, she would be very sad, but she was giving him permission to go.
With those words, and that gesture, she set him free. She loved him so much, she was willing to let Leopold live his life as he chose, allowing space for his dreams and greatest happiness, even if he found that fulfillment apart from her.
She was totally committed to this promise and as I watched Alice self-assuredly tell this story, I thought that this is the definition of true love — a love without conditions.
Most interestingly for me was that once Leopold had permission to leave, he never did and never came close. Isn’t that how it is for us? It is not so much the freedom we want, it is the option to have our freedom. Once we have that, there is no longer any reason to stray.
Sting’s hit song from 1985, If You Love Somebody Set Them Free, melodically touches on this same sentiment; that authentic love is not about restraining, controlling, or possessing another, but the opposite. It is about fully respecting your partner’s sovereignty and celebrating the unlimited expression of her or his gifts and greatness.
This can be difficult to do, particularly for men. The patriarchal template which many of us, consciously or not, still live by holds archaic ideas about relationships that don’t support an “enlightened” promise like the one Alice made to Leopold.
I suspect that some of Alice’s willingness and easy readiness to preemptively release Leopold was the reassurance and security she found in her first marriage—the one to her music. As long as she had that, she knew she would never feel lonely or lost.
I don’t think I have the courage or self-confidence yet to unselfishly point my partner to the exit, should she choose to use it. But now, in my sixties, I do have a sense of inviolable passion and purpose that tempers any need to make a partner responsible for filling my emotional gaps. I can see now that setting her free is the key, with expansive benefits to both of us.
Going forward, I will work to love a woman (and myself) so much, I can unselfishly show her to the door. Because I believe now that this the most loving and generous way to keep her in my life and by my side.
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock
