The realization that ‘falling in love’ is actually a choice of convenience is not something to be ashamed of. There’s shame there because we bought the fairytale. The movie idea of love. The romantic, steamy, everything you ever wanted kind of love. The kind of love that everyone pretends to have and shows off. That love is a dream, an idea. And it sets entire cultures of people up for disappointment. Because real life has nothing to do with these kinds of dreams. And these kinds of dreams can make real life feel like a total let down.
The idea and pressure that someone can fulfill you and love you for the rest of your life is a lie and a very tall order. A lie we tell ourselves to cover up our wounds. Our loneliness. Our mortality. Our fleetingness. Our fears and aches. This is not cynicism. This is an inevitability that comes from being unfulfilled by everything outside of you and from being fed lies.
‘Marriage’ has developed so many strategies (lies) to cover up, outrun, or deny the truth of this. It’s made relationship into a fantasy; an idealistic make-believe story that we are continuously fed through rom-com’s and fairytales. The flip side of that being a very dark underbelly – only discovered once you’re on the other side of the marriage door. That darkness is a pretense of realism (hard-earned “wisdom” from parents and married peers) emphasizing things like compromise, the importance of having kids and of tradition.
There’s nothing wrong with any of these things in and of themselves but when they’re used as strategies to avoid deeper truths – it’s hell in the making. Compromise in that context is not real compromise, it’s not the kind of compromise that keeps your sense of agency and integrity intact. It’s a bargain, a barter; leaving you robbed of your own life, your own sovereignty.
And in our innocence, we are trying to live up to these dreams, these ideals, these fantasies. And failing miserably. Putting an enormity of pressure on our partners and on ourselves and feeling enormously let down. Because we can’t make dreams and ideals into reality. We can’t translate the should’s and could’s and ‘this is what you do when this happens‘ into real time because it’s out of sync. So then we fantasize. We fantasize about the what if’s and what went wrong and how did I end up here. And we project that maybe out there somewhere is the perfect person, the perfect life just waiting for me.
We look upon our lives with contempt and disdain for it hasn’t lived up to the fantasy. And in our limbo, we look upon our partners to find fault and blame. To make it somehow tolerable and to justify our anger and rage at how could this be. Brought face-to-face with our gaping wounds and forsaken dreams. Made to question why and who and what we are and what on earth could make us happy. That’s if we haven’t bolted and moved onto the next thing already.
And so there is something to holding yourself to the limbo and not bolting. Holding yourself to the gaping wounds and to the forsaken dreams. If you can withstand the pain and the constant reflection from the world that your “holding” and not bolting is a thing of madness.
Because when you’re not adhering to the guidelines; not using strategies to cover up your unhappiness. Not having the kids, not bargaining and bartering, not doing the dance of a married couple – you stick out like a sore thumb. And you can start getting back this reflection from the ‘world’ or everyone doing the dance that there’s something seriously wrong with you.
That you’re settling for “less than you deserve”. That your ‘holding’ is living a life of misery. That it may be even an act of cowardice to hold. That ‘brave’ people, “bite the bullet”, end things and end up finding what or who they’re really looking for. That being unhappy is a sign ‘the relationship’ isn’t working. That something needs to be done about this.
But in the holding and not bolting, not doing, you’re actually learning. Learning to trust yourself. To trust that you have it in you to hold and be held. To have everything come to sway and entice you. To make you feel a failure, to shame you, to make you a travesty.
In that holding, you learn to discern. In that holding, you grow in patience. In that holding you go into yourself more and more and more and more. In that holding and in the frustration that inevitably arises and encircles you, you learn to let go of the answer coming from outside of you.
From the one who knows. The teacher, the parents, the culture, those who look like they got their shit together – all of it. You learn by way of being forced to let go. Let go of everyone else, everything else, the whole world and everything in it.