You Cannot Demand Relationship

I have spent the greater part of the morning trying to "discuss" (at least that was my thinking) a particular person's needs. She had called me, so I thought that this was a suggestion of her openness to me. But, unfortuately, one cannot demand a healthy living relationship.

Relationships have to be built on mutual trust, respect and a diligence to keep the communication lines open. Otherwise, the relationship become a one-sided attempt to keep alive what is really, dead.

This person doesn't seem to "give and take". And I find that if one doesn't agree with everything the person says, they feel defensive. Why the defenses? I'm not sure. But, what I do know is if one attempts to suggest another alternative interpretation about "what happened" or another's motivation, one will end up holding a phone that has gone dead. Or if I offer suggestions that might help a particular situation, there is a verbal attack. It is baffling and frustrating. But, I'm sure that the other's perspective could be similar, as to her preception of me! I just don't know!

When I attempt to make clear expectations, there is a justification and defensiveness that tells me, that this is more about "her" than "us". Maybe some people can't have relationships. Or maybe there is something that hasn't been expressed or shared that is the interpretive "frame" to everything that is said, or not said.

I have asked numerous people how to handle theis person and our relationship (or lack thereof) and most that know her seem to suggest that I really can't have a mutual relationship. I guess I just can't grasp that concept. Perhaps, I am the one that is co-dependent.

Demands upon another cannot offer real gifts of love, or sevice, but only demands of duty or obligation. This is what makes me so resistant to "requirements", such as duty, demands, commands, etc. I equate such terms with obligation, responsibility, and co-ercive and/or manipulative power.

Commitment must be a choice, but how does one commit to a relationship that isn't based on terms that define healthly relationship? can one commit to such a relationship and survive the deneigrating sense about onself? Can one have self-respect enough to overcome a bombardment of snide remarks, inuendo, and outright disrespect as to one's character or motivations or others that are mutually known? I am just at a stale-mate, as I don't know what to think or do or not do.

Why do I desire any relationship with this person? Whenever one begins to "enter" or think they enter the other's world,  there is a slammed door, or so it seems. On the other hand, this person can have a overzealous conscientiousness about another relationship, to the extent of compulsion. I've been advised that one cannot have access to those that choose to not allow such access. And when I think about it, isn't this what I'd want? Respect for my boundaries and a honoring of my "right of denial"?

Social Problems Have Different Solutions.

Social problems have many different solutions, depending on how one understand and evaluates them. Take for instance homosexuality.

Does one see the homosexual as a human being, first and foremost? Or does one see the value of society's order and structure of primary importance? So, then, it is defined as "sin" or "crime"?

How is homosexuality understood?
As a behavior where the homosexual doesn't deserve equal respect or dignity as to human value?
Why? Because of "sin" or society?

As a abherrant behavior? is this abherrancy something that is something beyond the control of the individual homosexual, like genetic or upbringing?
Or is there a predisposition to this behavior and the individual choice of the homosexual is what makes for morality, as to society's "good"? or is homoseuxality to be the next social change because society's values are really dependent on boundaries around relationships? It is loyalty and stability in relationships that structure and maintain society's order?

The questions about what is "Human Nature" and where the  needs of the human and societal needs and values intersect are important and significant to address, if one wants to allow for liberty of conscience and the value of human choice.

Tally's Folly, Fears Addressed

Tonight, we went to see "Tally's Folly"'. Interesting story line about a couple that had had a romance the previous summer and the girl, Sally, gets "cold feet".

The boy, Matt, has decided to face his fears and risk rejection, while Sally can't help but feel compelled to reject him first.

Matt confronts Sally about her fears and confesses his own, telling of his experience of rejection as a Lithuanian Jew. He suggests that the answer lies in breaking apart their "shells", so that communication and intimacy might occur.

In the end, Sally admits that she, too, had been rejected. Rejection had caused her fears. But, fear came from social/ psychological circumstances. She had been engaged and then rejected by her fiance' and his family. She had gotten sick and could no longer have children. Her own family had become disenchanted with her, due to their loss of status and her prolonged singleness.

Two lovers at odds because one suffered from political scars, while the other suffered psychological scars. Both came to their senses in the end and I'm sure lived "happily ever after".

The End!

"Sleeping With the Enemy" Is One's "Moral Duty"?

Tonight, an old Julia Roberts movie was on, "Sleeping With the Enemy". It reminded me of what happens psychologically whenever tyranny rules over another.

The story line is of an abusive husband and his compliant wife, who eventually escapes his torture by feigning her death. The husband's compulsion for "order" in the house, and "control" of his wife is what abuse and psychological damage entails. The damage and trauma followed her to her "new life". She could not relax for fear that he would be "correcting" her, or around the corner to "discipline" her. Her fears interfered with her ability to form a close relationship to the 'new boy on the block".

Religious morality in some segments would support the wife's compliance with such "terrorism". She would learn to be submissive and learn virtue by submitting her selfishness and "self" to her husband's will.

Her husband's will was unreasonable. He demanded perfection in how the towels "matched" and were hung straight on the towel rack. The cans in the cabinet must be ordered in exact rows and she needn't think that she could have any will of her own, as he "owned" her. She could not relax, or be "herself". She must be conformed into an image that only he could imagine.

Some religious people think that such "order" is proper behavior according to their "social norm".  And God is no less demanding than the husband in his "absoluteness". There is little room for liberty of conscience. But, scientists also, urge conforming to their "social image", via behavioral standards of alturism. Such behavior is considered universal morality and it is deemed by some, that Americans lack a "moral compass", or have the ability to be compassionate. "Moral discipline" is needed to rectify such unrefined views.  One must submit to the standards that others have for you, for fear they will impose "discipline". Such discipline is "habit formation" where leaders determine the course for a given life. The wife responded to such demands by escaping, an attempt to survive.

Survival is a basic human need. And survival is more than physical sustenance, but psychological wholeness. Security is of necessity to psychological health. But, again, the religious believe that one should "leap in the dark" to prove one's "faith". God is the only one that can be trusted, so others don't deem it necessary to be trustworthy.

The reasons for such "demands"  from the religious of the scientists, are similar to the abusive husband's. He knew how things "should be" and he was superior to his wife in wisdom. Pride was his vice, as he demanded virtue from her. The religious and the scientific can be just as vicious.

Whenever I see or hear of such abuse, it sends chills up my spine and a gut response of repulsion. No one, whether a spouse, a religious leader, a scientist, or a government should abuse the individual in such a way. It is called tyranny. And tyranny must be resisted.