When a relationship is a tomb
I need a reason to let go
An intervention, a lullaby
Something to cure me
Please believe me
I’m trying to find truth in words
In rhymes and notes
In all the things I wish I wrote
‘Cause I feel like I’ve been losing you – The Format
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Today is Day 53.
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One of my very favorite pieces of creative nonfiction is “When Marriage is a Tomb” by Jill Patterson, printed in Image literary journal. It’s about a woman and her failing marriage, particularly about the expectations the church has for marriage and how it’s often unrealistic. Sometimes going to conferences and talking through issues just don’t work.
This essay haunts me. There’s a scene where the husband takes credit for the baklava his wife spent all night making. It’s a silly scene, but it upsets me so much. I made Nate read the essay last spring, and he promised he’d never do that. He’d never take credit for the baklava.
I see that Nate’s and my relationship often resembled the tomb Patterson described. I get why it was like that too, at least from my end.
From very early on in my relationship I believed Nate owed me something more than mutual affection, and once the L-word came up, love.
What he owed me changed all the time. At first I believed he owed me vulnerability. He is such a private person, and I believed that because we made out as much as we did (this was week 3 of our relationship – we made out A LOT), he should open up to me more. Later I believed he owed me more attention. He owed me time away from his friends. He owed it to me to stop smoking.
OK, relationships don’t function well like this.
What our relationship lacked was freedom, the freedom to love each other with no strings attached. We both loved each other so much, but I was unable to shake the belief that he owed me something. I had certain expectations from the get-go that screwed us over.
I think about my relationship with God. He doesn’t say I owe him. And on a good day I realize he doesn’t owe me anything either. When I’m truly at peace with God I recognize that his love is all I need, and my love is all he needs or desires. I don’t think it’s much different for a man-woman relationship either.
There’s a reason St. Paul compares Christ and the Church to a husband/wife relationship. Maybe we’re too apt to look at that metaphor from one direction and not the other. We say we should love Christ the way a man loves his wife. But what if we looked at it the other way: we’re supposed to love our spouse/lover the way Christ loves his church?
God’s love for us is full of grace. It’s without crazy expectations or I.O.U’s. (I’m in my preachy voice, I know.)
Maybe if I was able to view Nathan the same way I view God – as someone who loves me, who owes me nothing but love – our relationship would have ended differently. Or not at all.
Or maybe Nathan would have something completely different to say. Haha.
All I know is every issue that the two of us had was rooted in my belief that Nathan owed me something.
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Strike up the band,
Deprive my sleep,
‘Cause there’s no love
Like apathy
January 2, 2012