CHAPTER 5
LOVERS LIVING TOGETHER (Part Two)
“It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy homes.”
Fire is the Refiner
When living together, lovers need to be very aware of the Pleasure Principle discussed in the previous chapter. For it is through the Pleasure Principle that your arguments and poor decision making will occur. There is an old saying,
“You don’t truly know a person until you live with a person”.
This is because, as mentioned in the previous chapter, in a living arrangement, your lover can no longer put on a performance. But on the contrary, he now has to be his true self.
MY OWN PLEASURE PRINCIPLE
But while observing our lover’s shortcomings, we should even more intensely pay attention to our own flaws. We all have them. But most of us do not like to take them into consideration. We quickly point out the flaws we see in others, but never put the mirror up to ourselves. It is a deadly combination when two people who are in love decide to live together, but are not willing to set a character mirror in the front of their selves.
So the first argument starts with
“You left the toilet seat up again!”
The second argument begins:
“I can’t find my hat! Why do you have to always move my stuff when you’re cleaning?”
And then the third, fourth, fifth arguments and etc.
As the situations get more and more concentrated and frequent, you will begin to think to yourself that you have made a humongous mistake moving in together. But understand, arguments are supposed to occur when two people in love start living together (i.e. two people who have not overcome their Pleasure Principle within.)
The allusion dealt to you more or less went like this: you two would move in together and all would be fantastic, right? Your subconscious mind was probably saying,
“FINALLY! I no longer have to run out to find my Mr. Feel Good. My Mr. Feel Good will be living with me, and I will always be high on love.
But now that the allusion has grown wings and flown out the window, and you are face to face with the reality of bumping heads and arguing over the smallest things (toilet seats and missing hats), what do you do?
At this point, when there is a lot of arguing going on, most people decide to pack it up and leave. Not being able to take the heat, they quickly get out of the kitchen. But this would be the very opposite of what you should do. If two people have fallen in love and decided to embark on the expedition of living together for life; when arguments arise, it is not time to run away. But on the contrary, it is the perfect time to stay together and turn that undeveloped immature heart/mind into a mature developed heart/mind. It is the perfect time for you to learn how to be governed by the Reality Principle as opposed to the Pleasure Principle.
When two people come together in a love relationship and make the giant step of living together for life, the objective should always be for the two people to become one person. When two people embark on the path of being together and becoming one, this incorporates the two people becoming one in soul, mind, goals and etc. And this is very deep because; if you two so happen to have a child or children, those children you bring into the world will be a demonstration of that oneness you two have obtained.
CHILDREN AND CHROMOSOMES
I often encourage couples that do not have children to become one with one another before having a child so the child can share in that oneness. I believe this may be the reason the Bible and other religions preach: “Get married” (get to know one another) before having sex. I believe it is for the sake of the child you two may bring forth.
A child is an exact copy of his/her parents. The child is an exact written code drawn from each of the biological parents. The child will receive 13 chromosomes from the mother and 13 from the father causing the child to possess 26 chromosomes: making the child a complete genetic duplicate of the parents. This is a fact and the child has no way of escaping the process. Thus, it is good that the two making the child truly become one in mind/spirit that the child will be a copy of unity, and not division.
THE BENEFITS OF ARGUING
When lovers live together, the arguments are bound to occur. But when you argue, recognize that your arguments are a testimony that you are not one (yet). Thus, the wisdom is in staying together through the arguing and struggles to get to that place of oneness. No matter how deep two people fall in love, when they begin their relationship, they are two individuals far from being one. But little do they know; their home, their living arrangement, the very space they share will now be the hands that mold them into this one person they are called to become. Thus, their home is the experimental ground of consolidation, and the merging procedure of the two will either make them into one or break the two. You can only become one through the sharing together of life.
Just as the two toddlers who argue, fight and scream over the one rattle to play with, you and your lover moving into the same home will act accordingly:
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“Baby, you spend too much time in the bathroom!”
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“Why can’t we eat out tonight?”
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“Where is all the money going?”
WHO’S THE CULPRIT?
I will let you in on one of life’s secrets. The secret is this: none of the daily situations you face in life come to destroy and consume you as a forest fire. All of your daily struggles are apparent for your growth (i.e. your evolution.) You are called to tame every situation that comes your way through knowledge, wisdom and understanding. At the end of the day, you are an intelligent thinking human, (i.e. a problem solver.)
Although trials within relationships may seem overwhelming, they are present to manifest flaws stemming from the Pleasure Principle. With the correct mindset, the bickering and attitudes you may face at home with your lover could be looked upon as blessings because; they occur to bring the flaws within couples to the surface that you may see exactly what you are dealing with within your lover, but even more so within yourself. It is as the old proverb says,
“I would not have known I had a leaky roof unless the storm came.”
The objective is to do an inventory of self and get rid of the things that are troubling your relationship, stemming from selfish behavior (i.e. the Pleasure Principle.) As mentioned earlier, we get so caught up in what religion calls, “The Adam Syndrome:” blaming others while never taking inventory of ourselves. We are quick to label our lover the culprits to all of our relational problems while never thinking about aiming a mirror at ourselves.
THE LIST
The story is told of a couple who went to marriage counseling to get their marriage back on the right track.
The counselor sat the couple down and listened to both sides of their story. Then the counselor handed the man’s wife a pen and piece of paper and asked her to write a numbered list of all the flaws she find in her husband concerning their marriage. The woman listed seventeen flaws on the paper. The counselor then handed her another piece of paper and asked her to make another numbered list of her own flaws within the marriage. She could not think of any. The counselor told her, “That’s the problem.”
If you ever find yourself bickering and arguing at home with your lover, seek out the problems within yourself first. Then look at your lover’s faults. It is as Paul Tillich taught,
“The first duty of love is to listen”
“Love, Listen, Duty” – Paul Tillich: Brainy Quotes
When trouble is brewing in our love relationship, especially in the home settings, we should examine ourselves first. Examining oneself incorporates listening, as appose to only trying to get our point across. It incorporates even listening to the criticism of our lover. How will I know how my lover feels unless she is able to tell me? But when you have a couple who is only trying to get their point across to one another, they will never get anywhere.
When putting the listening attitude into practice, you will find just how strong the Pleasure Principle within you really is, and how it only wants to be heard and never told its faults. Thus, if your lover only wants to be heard, and not listen; you know exactly what you are dealing with, i.e. a person filled up with the Pleasure Principle. And by you being able to listen, a sensible decision on whether to stay or leave the relationship can be made – sensible because you have heard it all from the horse’s mouth. Through listening, you will be able to find out how he feels and what is in his heart concerning you. So be quick to listen and slow to speak. Two people approaching turbulence in a love relationship with the mindset of self-examination, with the mindset of listening always find good outcomes.
When situations heat up in the home with you and your lover and the sparks are flying everywhere, it is time to communicate with a yearning to listen, not speak. This is the time to take input as appose to giving output. And this is to be practiced by both parties, not just one.
Taming the Flame
When two individuals with their own mindsets, own goals and own aspirations come together as one, like physics, the laws of psychology predict friction. In love relationships inside the home setting, when the sparks begin to fly, lovers too often say bye-bye. Instead, the couple should welcome the sparks with the understanding that the sparks telltale that this is where they need work at.
If you know a thing or two about anthropology: the study of ancient humans, you probably know it was the pre-human homo-erectus who first used fire to cook with and light the dark nights. These prehistoric humans were the first to tame the flame, which had to be a revolution of the mind, for all living creatures at that time ran from the hot glowing blaze we call fire. They ran from it with good reason: they had no understanding of the darn thing. Nothing or no one wanted to tango with the flames of fire.
I suppose one day hundreds of thousands of years ago, one of our homo-erectus ancestors said to himself,
“I’m tired of running from this horrifying thing that every time it shows up, it destroys and consumes what’s mine. I am not going to run anymore. I will tame that flame”.
No one knows for sure how it really happened? We only know that it did happen. The homo-erectus did tame that flame. And without the taming of fire, the progression of the human race would have been lethargic.
THE WELDING PROCESS
The illustration is drawn of a welder welding two steel beams together. As he lowers his face guard and applies the flame, sparks begin to fly. Without that applied heat, the sparks will not fly. If there are no sparks, those two steel beams never become one steel beam.
The welding procedure is a necessary procedure when making two beams or two people one. Once the welding procedure is complete, one of the astonishing things that occur is the two beams that have become one are virtually unbreakable.
RELATIONSHIPS OF STEEL
When two people decide to live together in the name of love, it presume to be a hard task as the two people desire’s clash and they bump heads. If their love is true and they really want to be together, the two will learn how to compromise with one another. Then the sparks will fly less and less. Once the sparks stop flying all together and the smoke settles; what you will find is one unbreakable steel beam, (i.e. two people who have become one, who fit like a hand and glove.) You have seen it before, those couples who have been happily married for years. They know one another like they know the back of their hands. They even sound alike in speech and look alike in their movements. They exhibit an image and persona when together that you cannot imagine them being with anyone else.
It was the Greek philosopher Aristotle who once wrote,
“Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.”
“Love, Single, Soul” – Aristotle
If you have embarked on the venture of living together and becoming one with your lover; be conscious (aware) of all that has been relayed to you in this book. And make sure your lover is conscious as well.
CONCLUSION
When the trials of life fall upon us, our reaction to the trial tells it all, and the true motives of our heart are displayed. Nothing defines a person like hard times. In rough times we will find out how weak or strong we really are, and what kind of person we really are. You truly do not know a person until you live with a person. When those in love decide to live together for life, their living arrangement will become an experimental ground to expose their Pleasure Principle with the objective of replacing it with the more mature Reality Principle, which leads to a couple becoming one.