live unbruised

It didn’t go well.  
 
I’ll go "I really like hanging out with you, but I want to be closer to one person, have a stronger connection and be exclusive. I’m starting to get attached and I’d be hurt if I knew you were getting as close with someone else as you are to me."
His response "I am not close with anyone else like I am with you.  I do not love anyone like I love you.  Don’t you trust me?  Don’t you believe me when I say I love you?  Don’t you love me and trust me enough?  I don’t know what else I’m supposed to do."
 
He goes "I understand your point, I just don’t agree with it."
I go "If you understood my point, you would agree with me."
 

 
Quotes I’ve found around the intrawebs…

"The problem was that I was unable to be with that man in a deep, connected way."


"I’m 100-percent not cool with a female “friend” of my husband’s calling on him in their time of need. Money problems? Kids wrecking your nerves? Need “to talk”? I don’t care! That’s not his job, nor is it the role he should be playing in your life. He has already been cast as the main man I depend on in my life. Get a new script, and get real lady!"


"You’re protecting her because you think these men can offer her something you can’t."


"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket– safe, dark, motionless, airless– it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell."   -ch.6 (Charity). CS Lewis
 

 
Boundaries are good for keeping negative things out and keeping good things in. However, even when they are necessary, they are built on fear. Fear that something will be taken or lost. No question about it, there are things out there that seek to harm relationships. I don’t want to dismiss that.
But something that I’ve noticed in my interactions with people over the years is that the more I love someone, deeply and truly love them, the fewer boundaries I need. In those relationships, love acts as the ultimate boundary. I don’t want to do anything to violate the love that I have for them or that they have for me and that helps me to make better choices about my interactions with them.
Because I love Jason, I will always try to consider how he feels when I spend time with Rich. Because I love Rich, I will always try to consider how our friendship affects his marriage. Our boundaries are more fluid because they are based on our love for one another.
We could have rules in place that keep everything safe. Rules where we can absolutely make sure that we never do anything that no one ever gets hurt. And these would be good, loving, safe relationships. That’s not an all bad thing.
But I can’t help but think of my favorite scene in Finding Nemo. On their way to Sydney, trying to find Nemo, Marlin and Dory are swallowed by a whale. Marlin is trying desperately to escape their prison because he wants so much to find his son, to keep him safe. He has seen the dangers of the ocean that killed his wife, and he wants nothing more than to protect his son from those same dangers. There is never any question in the movie that Marlin deeply loves his son.
In this scene, he tells Dory that he has to protect his son because of a promise that he made.
Marlin: I promised I’d never let anything happen to him!
Dory: Hmmm. That’s a funny thing to promise.
Marlin: What?
Dory: Well, you can’t never let anything happen to him. Then nothing would ever happen to him. Not much fun for little Harpo.
And there it is. There is room for love to grow within boundaries, no question about it. It will also have limits because fear will always have limits. When we choose love as our boundary, yes, the potential for hurt does increase. But the potential for love to expand also increases.
In those relationships, where love is the boundary, I find true freedom.

I do not like fighting with him.  I do not like the way this makes me feel.  My chest is tight, my stomach in knots and tears could pour out any moment.
 
I don’t like him spending time alone with other women. It makes me feel disrespected and uncomfortable. It upsets me.
 
He wants to know why. He thinks it is because I don’t trust him, or I don’t believe he won’t leave or I don’t believe he really loves me.  It has nothing to do with trust.  I don’t believe he’s lying, cheating or hiding things from me.  I just don’t like it.  Words are not enough to make it okay.
 
That’s what started the fight.  He was asking me to explain why it made me upset, and as I tried to explain he invalidated my feelings over and over.  It makes me feel that he’s getting something from another woman he should be getting from me.  He asked if I thought I was good enough for him.  I said yes, I did.  But it made me worry was I enough for him.
 
It kept starting to escalate towards my saying I don’t want him to have any friends, which couldn’t be further from the truth.  I want him to have friends.  I want him to be able to go to the movies and out to dinner with them.  I want the same things with my friends.  However, there is a line.  It is undefined at the moment, but some things are just not okay.  Some things are over the line.
 
Except don’t I trust him?  Except don’t I know he loves me?  Except what else is he supposed to do to prove all that to me?  Except there’s nothing he can say or do to prove it any more clearly!  Except he does need his friends and he needs to do things to take care of himself.
 
This is where I start to lose my mind, because in the end, it was exactly what ended me and Mike.  If I’m in a relationship, the other person comes first.  Their needs, wants, desires, dreams all come before me.  This works because the same is true for them.  They put me first.  Yes, there are degrees of this in a relationship as it grows and begins.  In the beginning, you are figuring out who the other person is and what is important to them.  You are learning their likes, dislikes, desires, dreams, wants, needs between going to dinner and movies and walks in the rain.  Its supposed to happen naturally and organically.  As you get closer to that person, your other relationships change too.  The problem is that Manny and I did that.  We got closer.  Then we broke up.  And we’ve spent quite a lot of time and energy figuring out what it means to be friends, where the boundaries are and what we need from each other.
 
And now, everything has to be redefined.  Except none of it will happen organically or naturally.  Because we know each other so well.  

Serve God, love me and mend
This is not the end
Lived unbruised, we are friends
And I’m sorry
I’m sorry


Sigh no more, no more
One foot in sea, one on shore
My heart was never pure
You know me
You know me


But man is a giddy thing
Oh man is a giddy thing
Oh man is a giddy thing
Oh man is a giddy thing


Love; it will not betray you
Dismay or enslave you, it will set you free
Be more like the man you were made to be


There is a design, an alignment to cry
Of my heart to see,
The beauty of love as it was made to be


Love; it will not betray you
Dismay or enslave you, it will set you free
Be more like the man you were made to be


There is a design, an alignment to cry
Of my heart to see,
The beauty of love as it was made to be


Love; it will not betray you
Dismay or enslave you, it will set you free
Be more like the man you were made to be


And there is a design, an alignment to cry
Of my heart to see,
The beauty of love as it was made to be

Sigh No More ~ Mumford and Sons