In the last ten years I have been fortunate/unfortunate enough to love and loose several times...it wouldn't be so bad if I could be like other people and figure out what is and or isn't good for me. When I decide to love it is like my faith, I DO NOT do it in half measures.....it is 100% or nothing. I then find myself in the predicament of having given all of my time, talent, heart, and soul to someone who doesn't want to be the recipient of all of them.....I didn't realize that the rest of humanity loved in measures....only giving enough to have a relationship, and not everything they had. I was recently asked how I could give soo much. How if I gave everything, how did I have enough left over for myself??!!
How can one say that they are prepared to love when they do not give all of themselves to the relationship? I am not so naive as to not understand the need for boundaries, breaks away, etc...but how can you expect to build a place of refuge that can stand the test of time with small holes here and there? These holes are where you have kept a small stone or brick out of the wall you are building with your loved one. Is your partner just expected to pick up the slack? Where do they get that extra brick from??? Or is the wall supposed to stand when built that way?
Can one person continually make extra bricks that they hold back for the times when their partner doesn't feel like contributing all of their bricks to their relationship? I have worked myself to the bone and really do understand that at sometimes we carry our loved ones, just as Christ carries us during times of difficulty. But is it truly a relationship when one partner is the major contributor, or is it more like a marital contract....only to be lived up to the letter of such contracts, ie: marital relations until a son is conceived....but no more after that?
Has marriage truly become a contract of duty only?? If so, who decides to whom the duty is owed? Which partner then becomes the giver of the greater effort and the other the receiver of that effort? When did it become an investment without two equal investors putting into to it equally? Can we still call it a marriage anymore? Marriage is defined as a union between a man and a woman....the word union itself is defined my Merriam Webster online as " also in marriage "something that is made one : something formed by a combining or coalition of parts or members:" (Merriam-webster.com, 2015). Is that all we are to each other anymore?
When making certain metals you will find that if you combine certain elements they create a tighter, stronger bond than others. Is this what we are meant to experience as we search for that perfect partner? And if so, how will we know until we are bonded what that person is made of? We can spend time with each other learning about and from each other, but until it is put to the refiners fire, how do we know if the union is pot metal or steel? What do we do when we find it is pot metal and the other refuses to change or become stronger and the bond is pulled, stretched, heated, and or stress placed on it until the bond is broken? How do we not be broken ourselves with this process and after loosing so much of ourselves just give up?
(Merriam-webster.com, 2015). Retrieved from. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/union,
