Monday, March 20, 2006
Of hope and love
A complete CPO (cut and paste only) entry. But dedicated to someone close to heart.
Darling, you asked me what I thought...
This is it:One of the toughest things to figure out is
when to let go of something that is important to you. When do you give up hope?
Melanie had fallen pretty hard for Glen. In fact, she was deeply in love with him, and it was no wonder. He was energetic, smart, funny, loving, creative, and possessed a good sense of values. He gave her a lot of attention when they first met, and she thought, as did her friends and family, that he could be "the one". Everybody was crazy about him.
But slowly she began to experience a pattern. It seemed that Glen's work and hobbies took up more of his attention than did she. Sometimes he failed to call when he said he would, and after waiting alone for hours she would just go to bed. She began to doubt herself...her attractiveness, her likability, and whatever else she could question about herself that might explain his lack of responsiveness.
Finally she began to talk to him about the problem. She told him that if they were serious about each other, which both agreed was the case, she needed to feel that she was a priority to him. She felt that she ranked quite low on his list of priorities, even though they had been together for over a year and were talking about marriage. She was
not happy with being at the bottom of his list.
Glen was a little defensive, but he agreed to turn things around. And he did so for a while, but it was short-lived. She confronted him with the issue again. She offered to go to counseling. He said he would try to do better, but his "work was so demanding". She was patient.
But after giving him enough time and chances to change, she told him it was over.
She broke it off. It was heartbreaking, but with the support of her friends and family, she did it. For a while.
After a month or so, she began to miss the good old days when she and Glen were together and it was so wonderful. She played the scenes over and over in her mind, recalling all of the fine things about him. Why did she break up? Couldn't they make it work? They loved each other so much and had so much in common, it just seemed such a waste not to work it out. She wanted him back.
So she called Glen and said she wanted to get together and try their relationship again. They met and talked, and he agreed to think about it. He missed her too. He promised to call in a day or so. A week went by, and no call. She finally had to call him for a response, and she found him living out his same old commit/no commit pattern right there on the phone.
Melanie came to me and asked what I thought. She said that she had been
hoping Glen would change.
"Well, you have to figure out whether there is hope or not" I told her.
"Of course I hope it works," she said.
"I don't know if I would call that hope," I said. "It sounds
more like wishing than hoping."
"What's the difference?" she asked.
"A
wish is something that you desire and want to come true. You can want it with all of your being. The desire for it can be very, very strong. But it is totally subjective and comes totally from you. It is one-sided and
has no basis in reality.
"Hope, on the other hand, is not as subjective. It has objective reasons to believe that good things are going to happen, or at least can happen. For example, if in your time apart, Glen had decided that he has a real problem with getting close and remaining committed, and if he decided to get help to correct that problem, that would be
something objective in which to place hope. But as it is, your 'hope' is really just a one-sided wish with no reason for it to be there other than your wanting it."
"So what should I do?" Melanie asked. It seemed that she was getting the picture.
"Well, I think you should give up hope for the relationship to ever be different," I said, "since there is nothing objective in the picture to say that it will be. In fact, you have over a year of
highly objective data telling you it will never be different."
"So, I should walk away?" she asked.
"I did not say that," I replied. "I said you should give up hope for the relationship to be different. Then you can see the reality of what it is. You have data that shows you what being in a relationship with Glen is like and will be like. That is the way it is. That is the way it will be after you have done everything possible to fix it.
Now, the question is this: is that what you want in life? Long term, do you want to be number two, or three, or ten on his list of priorities? That is what you must decide, and then you will know whether you want to walk or not. Ask yourself if you like the relationship as it is now, because that is the way it will always be unless you see reason for hope other than ‘I miss you and will try to do better.’"
"I'm done," she said.
Hope is one of the great virtues in life, right up there along with faith and love (1 Corinthians 13). But hope is not a fairy tale wish; it is bedrock, and you should be able to order your life with it at your side.
Melanie's initial approach was certainly not a way you would want to order your life, whether you were betting on business or love. Remember that
hope means investing time and energy toward results that you have solid reason to believe can be achieved.
It is not hope to invest time and energy in a goal that has no forces acting upon it to bring it about. That is stagnation.
It is a waste of time, and time is ultimately what your life is about. Getting rid of the painful problem has the added benefit of making room for a positive alternative. In fact:
New things that actually have hope for the future cannot appear until you get rid of what was taking up the space that the new thing needs.
If there is no hope for whatever it is you are clinging to, let go of it so you can be open to something new and life-giving.
Phew! That was long... I sure hope you read it and it spoke to you.
cLoUd DriFteD bY at
11:49 PM
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