“I have to live with such an idiot!” resounds across the bar. Everyone should hear how badly the speaker is doing, trapped with such a person. Everything tenses up inside me and I duck my head. Even if it doesn’t concern me. It affects me. It’s not the first and won’t be the last time I’ve experienced something like this. Mutual devaluation of people in a relationship, an intimate love affair in public. Everyone should hear it. Then they go home, close the door behind them and are alone. Then… Yes, then what? Do you ignore these statements or do you take it for granted because that’s the way it is when you’ve been together for so long? First the insult, then the confession, one loves the other, anyway. Why anyway?
It’s the way it is and has to be, I’m told. It has to be like that, I have to put up with you, is that supposed to be love?
Stay out of it, this is their relationship and everyone handles their relationship differently. Is that so? Are there actually relationships in which mutual devaluation is seen as beneficial?
It may be that it is perceived as normal and not tragic, the beatings, the ongoing reproaches and accusations. It may be accepted that way, but I don’t want that.
Relationship, a form of togetherness in which I relate to you, just as you relate to me. I let mindfulness prevail, in dealing, in speaking, in doing, towards you, just as you towards me, so that we do not limit the possibilities of life, but create them, you for me and I for you, life and development opportunities, so that we grow together and not wither, wither, wither. Isn’t it much nicer when we give ourselves the freedom to find out what’s inside of us. Experimenting with the potentials that are in us. To encourage each other to discover and live out what is dormant in us. That’s why I’ll take you by the hand and we’ll walk together, exchange ideas, open up our thoughts to each other, rethink and supplement, so that I understand more and more about you as you do about me. To be careful, also in our judgement, in our assessment, if it is necessary at all. It is enough to acknowledge without presuming. To be free in the community that promotes and invigorates. Being yourself, not having to hide anything, because we can be sure that we will treat each other with care and healing.
Relationship is where I experience the aliveness and the laughter, the talking to each other and the common silence, where the grief and the pain are accepted, lived through and overcome.
Living relationship is appreciation, thoughtfulness, understanding, acceptance, trust and intimacy.
Wherever I feel I have to devalue the other in order to feel bigger, better, or smarter myself, the partner is circumcised, constrained, and imprisoned more and more until there is no air to breathe and nothing remains but deadness.
That’s why I take you by the hand. We could have an ice cream or just walk hand in hand, hold and strengthen each other, be there for each other and enjoy each other. Then we will be more together than we would be without each other, in a living, life-giving and expanding, loving and responsible relationship.