Men in Marriage - Part Three
Men in Marriage – Part Three – Learning to Love: Readiness is the First Step
Before we men can love the other, we must love ourselves. I don’t mean in a narcissistic sense, but in a manner of self-acceptance, a basic joy level, and a good understanding of who and whose you are; but I am getting ahead of myself.
The late Thomas Merton, America’s preeminent sage, mystic, and national spiritual guide, quipped, “…Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone; we find it with one another”. The word “find” appears twice in Merton’s wise statement about the all-encompassing reach of love. The American Heritage College dictionary says this about the word find, “…to find is to come upon, often by accident; or to come upon after a search”. Many other meanings are nuanced into descriptions concerning finding, such as to find a result, after consideration or experience, something worthy of being found. The daunting task I feel with Merton’s insistence that love is our ultimate destiny, and we must live in community, is the fact many men (myself very included) have a long history of loneliness and to some degree, isolation. In fact, many men do not think we are deserving of love. In my case, I yearned to be found by a special someone, and to be cherished, held, and yes, loved dearly. And to be honest, I built barriers just to see who might care enough to dare to breech into my very private inner sanctum. And as I hide deeply inside those self-created isolation chambers, hoping to be discovered, what I did find, back to that word, was my loneliness shouted the loudest and dominated all thoughts and presence. Simon and Garfunkel said it best:
“I’ve built walls,
A fortress deep and mighty
That none can penetrate.
I have no need for friendship.
Friendship causes pain
It’s laughter and it’s loving I disdain.
I am a rock. I am an island,
….and a rock feels no pain,
And an island never cries”. (I am a Rock)
In my youth and much of my adult years, I felt like I knew how an island might feel. I lived my childhood on a beach in Florida. I distinctly remember the hundreds of walks by the sea, my special place in nature and the surrender to safety and welcome isolation. I was not a particularly happy child as I avoided social engagements for curiosity and alone time on the beach; I was often interiorized and isolated. I had friends to be sure, but winning any imagined popularity contests was not any experience I wanted. I do remember being chosen by teachers to represent fellow students at school events or to give a talk at student presentations. However, I was always sensitive and protective of my random wounds and shame concerning doubts of not being good enough and to some of the issues at home with my parents and their fighting each other. I was okay in sports (Baseball, Catcher) but better at reading history or researching material for a science project. I felt torn by my need for seclusion as opposed to my perceived understanding of the expectations of being a friendly and outgoing model person, juxtaposed with expectations for ambition and success. I welcomed personal challenges but shied away from competition with classmates. I played team sports but preferred more individualized sports such as swimming and track.
My early adult years were a continuation of the issues and realities of my youth, albeit on a larger stage and with more people. So, when I recently re-heard Simon and Garfunkel’s song, “I Am a Rock”, I knew the emotional territory as presented by the lyrics. And I have pondered a lifetime of learning and chronicled the hits and misses of my aspiring to understand the many variations of myself over the years: career success, disappointing personal relationships, too much grandiosity, being friendly but having few intimate friends, and the big one, feeling alone. I finally summoned an essential first question: “…Why have I decided to limit my friendships, and what was I protecting”? The answers to those questions were the beginning of my readiness preparation to learn how to love and feel – myself, and then others; I wanted to learn to love fully, completely, with no holding back. Things had to change!
The changes happen gradually and have continued to the present. The Side-by-Side Project helped me to examine my readiness for relational fitness with Caryl, and with the ones I love. Sometime during the project, I wrote in my notes, “…In this time of my life, my goals value depth over knowledge, humility over arrogance or grandiosity, experimentation over security, growth over comfort, meaning of mellowness, and love over sadness. Simply I wanted to move from isolation to interdependence.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote in 1774, “…All that is alive tends toward color, individuality, specificity, effectiveness, and opacity. All that is finished with life inclines toward knowledge, abstraction, and generality”. Goethe’s romantic individual constituted his ideas for “readiness” for love as an immersion of body, mind, and spirit; to be fully aware of feelings and experience. How could one feel alone in such a world as Goethe imagined? He was saying that thinking is never enough as the Enlightenment had promised. To fully participate in nature men had to experience the depths of sensitivity. Getting out of our heads, turning down the volume knob of our own importance, and daring to imagine the lives of others through engagement is the real preparation and antidote for loneliness and isolation, and a life of wholeness and meaning. Had America’s philosopher, John Dewey, cut loose with his feelings and emotions, the father of pragmatism could have morphed into a “DIVA” of American Romanticism! Just think of the possible history we could have had over the last century.
Looking back today (7-14-2023), the day of our 22nd wedding anniversary, I feel I continue to be a work in progress, and my readiness for love has developed enough momentum to keep my capacity for self-sabotage mostly at bay.
Next installment will highlight two of my favorite artists: Japan’s Katsushika Hokusai, and the Netherland’s Rembrandt, both men suffered dearly with matters of the heart, and surprisingly, have a lot to teach contemporary men.
I am adding a “Thoughts” section with each blog piece I write. This week it is:
We too often limit ourselves by defining
ourselves…..