The Legacy of Divorced Parents.
When your mind and heart are truly open abundance will flow to you effortlessly and easily.
Question:
Dear Deepak, I have recently rediscovered your wonderful wisdom about spirituality and I'm glad I did. I need your advice on something that has been bothering me for a while. I'm in an 8 year old relationship with a wonderful man. We met in college. He's 27 years old and I'm 26. When we first met, we both had lot of emotional hurt to heal. Both our parents had incredibly bad relationships which had affected us to a great extent. Through the love we found in each other, most of the issues got resolved. Except for one thing- his parents got divorced recently and this has made him totally against marriage. All throughout these years, he used to keep changing his mind about marriage- occasionally committing to marry me and changing his mind on and off. He has seen his parents almost divorcing from the time he was around 14 years old. But until the divorce actually happened, he was slowly accepting the idea that marriage with me is what he wants. But now he seems to have gone back to square one. I don't know what to do. He needs to heal a lot and I don't know how to help him. I don't know how to deal with this. He keeps telling me to move on. But I know he loves me so dearly that he wants to be with me. He has always been very loving and caring. We both haven't had any other relationships. We've grown together and closer to each other over these years. I don't want to let him go. He isn't even spiritual for me to guide him into healing his pain. He constantly advices his friends not to marry. I can see he is badly hurt. Please tell me what to do. I'm so confused. Lots of love
Response:
If he is reluctant to commit to marriage or even think positively about getting married to you in the wake of his parents’ divorce, then you are just going to have to allow him the time to heal and come to his own conclusions about what this means for his life. It’s not unusual for children of divorced parents to generalize and take a pessimistic view of all marriages. But eventually if they continue to mature, they will realize that their parents experience does not apply to all marriages and it doesn’t mean they can’t have a successful marriage. Your boyfriend needs to arrive at his own determination in his own good time.
What you need to decide is whether that open ended time frame is acceptable to you, either in the short term or the long term. It is important for you to make your own decision as a way to clarify what is important to you and as a way to assert your choice in the matter. Otherwise you may feel disempowered later and feel resentful about just hanging on a year or two hoping he changes his mind. Because if he doesn’t you may feel you wasted your youth, your time and affection on a lost cause. On the other hand, if you choose to stay around for some time because of your love for him and a self-knowing that this process he is going through connects to some growth in you as well and that there is nothing else or no one else that you want to be with besides him anyway, then you are in a strong position and will be able to move forward in life without regret regardless of what happens.
Love,
Deepak
Jet Izabella Thurmann - In Denmark, there is universal healthcare and 9 months paid maternity leave. There is, in short, much more social support, as well as a freer culture and less judgment regarding conception out of wedlock. In other words, it is much easier to be independent, and to do whatever you believe. Here in the US, we have to rely on our partners more to get through life, especially if we want to have children - though I certainly wish we could follow Denmark`s example.
All fine and good, but if/when does she want children, and does she want those children to be conceived within or without a marriage? She is 26. In 2 more years she`ll be 28. Will she then have to find a new partner to grow to love and trust enough to wish to marry and start a family with? People get jobs and are fired from them, start companies that fail, but don`t throw away the whole concept of them. For some, marriage is as much about the "business of life" as anything else. It sets the stage for buying a house, starting a family, starting a life together. Is it "ego" to recognize the limitation of one`s time on Earth, one`s ability to reproduce, what one truly wants out of life, etc.?
Reading the response by Poonam Dronamraju about ego love and spiritual love resonates completely with what i fee for someone. At the age of 28 I met someone I completely believed was the person I would spend the rest of my life with. Ten months down the line he filed for divorce six months after the death of his father and his division at work closing down. To this day we separated three years ago. In this time I allowed him opportunity to grieve and be there for his family while I engaged in deep spiritual work. Your book `The Path to Love` helped me understand his situation as he is parents divorced when he was sixteen.I developed a love that i alsways wished someone would have for me and I have considered myself blessed. In this time my love for him has grown and my compassion and understanding has compelled me to see him as a spiritual being and not someone who has hurt me. I realised it was up to me whether I allowed the situation to hurt or I could use it to deal with my issues. As it stands, i love him with every fibre of my being. He iis on the other hand getting married agin early next year. My questions are...`What do I do with these feelings as I donot wish to love someone else`s husband so dearly?`. And does the fact that it hurts mean it is not a spiritual love. Is there a lesson I`m missing?