Marriage Actually - An honest look at marriage

Fear This! Image vs. Reality

by Bald Man on July 31st, 2007

I’m working through a book on marriage Kate recommended a while back, If The Buddha Married, by Charlotte Kasl. Lots of interesting and good stuff to pick out of there. It isn’t due back at the library for another couple weeks, so I hope to share a few more thoughts in the coming days.

For now, I’d like to ruminate on this tidbit from chapter 17:

…images can’t have relationships (71)

Questions: How much effort is wasted evading our own feelings and opinions? How much time is lost circling back over and over until we finally speak honestly into a situation? How much pain is caused and trust is lost stripping away the layers of image that cover over our true identity?

While I can only give an accounting from my own experience, I’d venture to say that that the answers are, in order, “lots” and “lots” and “lots.”

Too often, for reasons that may or may not be justifiable, the driving emotion in a relationship is fear. He is afraid of being alone. She is afraid she won’t be accepted if she speaks her mind. He is afraid of confrontation. She is afraid to stand her ground.

Fear drives us in opposite directions at once. It causes us to reach out with our left hand grasping after our partners, terrified that they will get away; while at the same time it causes us to push away with our right hand in a desperate attempt to protect and hide ourselves from ever being seen for who we really are.

In this way fear eats at our souls. The more successful we are at drawing our partner in, the greater our fear of being known. And the more successfully we protect ourselves, the greater our fear of being alone. Pushing and pulling… pulling and pushing… until we are torn asunder both within and without.

John the Evangelist reminds us that: “There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear.”

I’ll close with a few more questions:

Do you love enough to speak honestly about your feelings, opinions and perceptions… even when that honesty may cause pain? Do you love enough to stand naked, as it were, before your spouse with your true identity in full view? Do you love enough to see your spouse honestly, as they are, and not as you imagine them?

images: woman in corner | woman turned away | gate & lock

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POSTED IN: Pontification