As young people going through life we soon learn how false our initial childhood idea of friendship is. We pretty quickly figure out that we can have more than one “best friend.” In fact our lives are far richer if we are able to cultivate many friends over the years as our lives twist and turn. Adding someone new to the collection in our heart doesn’t diminish the others already there. What we learn is that our own capacity to connect with other souls is only limited by our own expectations.
Likewise, as parents we learn another lesson. Our capacity to love our children expands as our family expands. Adding another child, whether through birth or adoption, we are always surprised by the sudden love we feel for another in our care. First-born children may grow jealous of a new addition, but every parent quickly realizes that while attention may be divided, the love expands and fills us.
So why is it that when we look at our romantic lives we expect to meet and marry our “one and only?” Is it possible to have more than one true love? Anyone in the midst of a flourishing second marriage would say, “Of course!” Maybe what happens to the luckiest among us is they find a true love for each of the selves they evolve into over their life span. In extraordinary circumstances I believe that the several selves of each of the two partners may develop in ways that continue to compliment each other. Thus they not only stay together, but are actually truly happy doing so. In my experience, however, this is not the norm for most. The soulmate you meet (and marry?) in your twenties or thirties is often quite different from your match decades down the road. In addition, personal trauma, tragedy, and inner upheaval change who we are profoundly. After any such change it is likely that once again a new self seeks to find its mate. Is it any wonder we tend toward serial monogamy? What is strange is that as adults in loving relationships that end, especially those that end abruptly, we seem convinced that we will never truly love again, never find that perfect match again--our soulmate. I’ve known several widows, widowers, divorcees and others who’ve been completely convinced that their one perfect love was now over. It rarely proved to be the case, and even then, I believe, it had more to do with the person enshrining a memory based more on the “rose-colored glasses” effect than on reality.
Why should our capacity to love, truly and deeply, have such limits? We don’t limit ourselves to one perfect friend – our tastes in friends evolve as we do and we manage to juggle the old ones with the new over a lifetime. We never profess to have love enough only for a limited number of children, though our expression and perhaps the nature of that love changes as they and we age. Why then should we focus on limits to romantic love, either? If that love is based on a true connection between two people, honestly sharing their thoughts, feelings, dreams, and desires, then why is it not possible to have that connection and all its attendant joy, more than once in a lifetime? Wouldn’t it make sense that the more we ourselves change and grow, the more likely it would be that our “ideal mate” would be different over time?
I realize that some of this is pretty subversive stuff, society being what it is. Long term or life long relationships create stable families and are rooted in most of our cultural traditions. But look around at the reality we see and experience. “Broken families” are not always broken psychologically. Many second or third marriages seem to work out really well for all touched by them. The common thread among the loving, joyful couples I know is that each truly knows and loves their partner, flaws and all. That can only happen when no one plays games, no one deceives, no one hides their inner reality, and always, always, honesty trumps convenience. Maybe that’s the part we need to focus on – how we touch one another authentically. Then, perhaps, our perfect soulmate for the self we are right now will know us when they find us.
from 2003
No comments:
Post a Comment