More thoughts on Love

After the Valentine's are over, how do you keep it going?

I’m working on a longer post for next week. One that will give a more in-depth response to what I think about all these fears of an AI takeover. The good news is, it hasn’t happened yet. The bad news is that the whole Terminator post-apocalypse battle between beleaguered human resistance pockets and giant steel mecha-skeletons is happening right now, you just don’t see it because it’s largely metaphysical. But don’t worry, I have some ideas on how to win that I learned from a nineteenth-century philosopher-mystic.

But seeing as how it’s been a week since the most over-romanticized holiday of the year, I thought I’d share some more things I learned about love, this time dealing more with real stories I’ve encountered in my studies and observations.

This stuff I jotted down at one point or another has helped shape my view of relationships and what happens when love is momentarily lost, as happens to all of us.

Hope these help:

The best-selling series, which I would call “How Not to Approach Marriage”

1. Most men will cheat when they’ve replaced the purpose of their marriage with the purpose of their work and they’re presented with the opportunity.

   The question of “why people cheat” is an age-old one. It’s hard to answer because most of us don’t see what happens behind closed doors. Infidelity happens in those moments when couples should be spending time together but they instead are spending that time somewhere else.

   You see this in restaurants, at bars, on bus rides home from whatever date night event was meant to keep things fresh but really just forms the montage of some cliche TV series explaining why it ends. Couples on their phones, couples looking elsewhere, couples doing everything but being present and honest with one another.

   Typically, digital intrusion into date night involves work. You’re responding to emails that are deemed more important because they represent the material survival of the family. If I don’t get this, we may not be able to afford this in the future, so it deserves higher priority.

   Over time, that work becomes physical separation. Business trips, conferences, and late nights at the office. Eventually, as was the case with Herbie Cohen, World’s Greatest Negotiator, the time spent away leads to at least one partner meeting someone new. You could say the weakening of their marriage began with a failure to replace its common project–the raising of their kids–with something else after the kids went to college, but it’s deeper than that. The relationship stagnated because they were never clear on its purpose, and having kids just allow us to delay the discussion of that purpose by 18-20 years.

   Herb’s mistress forced him to squander his savings on expensive trips, threatening to tell his family if he didn’t. Then, when he ran out of money, she told them anyway. There wasn’t much in his son’s book on how to overcome infidelity, other than to admit wrongdoing and throw yourself upon the other’s mercy. Some things can’t be negotiated.

2. A lack of compassion weakens relationships, only compassion will save them.

   When Jackie Chan’s affair was uncovered and an illegitimate daughter revealed, he expected to get into a mighty row with his wife, after which he would say, "I want a divorce" and hang up. This is the attitude of someone not mature enough to handle marriage. Someone still trying to claim that he’s right.

   Instead, he was greeted with compassion. His wife picked up and told him she understood that he had a lot to deal with and to come back to her and his son when he had settled his affairs.

   No screaming, no blaming, just... an understanding that the cheater must also be going through a lot. There's a way for cheating to strengthen a marriage rather than dissolve it. It's not always looked at in popular culture, and it is never for those outside to judge what those going through it should or shouldn’t do, but ultimately, if there’s love then there’s a way.

3. Learn to be self-sufficient, so that you may bring value to the people you depend on.

   We live in a world where it’s basically a given that the strong ought to help the weak. But we don’t spend enough time on how we can all strengthen ourselves so that we don’t rely on those stronger anymore than we must. I believe an unspoken truth about the fallibility of all people is that patience has its limits, ones we test at our own peril. Instead, let us each cultivate our own strength so that we never appear as all burden but instead bring as much value as we receive.

   Psychologist Phil Stutz has a visualization exercise for what to do when someone you care about enrages you he calls “Active Love”. It’s worth trying out so that at the least we don’t rely overly much on others for our emotional stability:

Active Love

1. Concentration

Feel your heart expand to encompass the world of infinite love surrounding you. When your heart contracts back to normal size, it concentrates all this love inside your chest.

2. Transmission

Send all the love from your chest to the other person, holding nothing back.

3. Penetration

When the love enters the other person, don't just watch, feel it enter; sense a oneness with them. Then relax and feel all the energy you gave away return to you.

4. Above all else do not let your children blame themselves for what your faults.

   I believe this to be the most loving thing you could ever do for your family and the world. So much of what’s wrong with our current existence could be fixed if each of us took responsibility for the inheritances we leave to our offspring.

   If we can’t be nice to our spouse, then we should at least work something out for the benefit of our children.