“Sometimes, when people get married, they adapt their personalities to their partners and lose their creativity.” Neil Young, in an NPR interview heard Friday, September 30, 2005 on Fresh Air. He says his wife did not demand that of him. (Also hear Neil Young with Scott Simon.)
I would like to get his new album, Prairie Wind.
I would like to be able to love you and be your wife and have a partnered joint life without losing my creativity or myself. Conversely, I would like to avoid having a negative impact on your creativity and your you-ness (me-ness). I want you to be you, to have and do the things you love, and I want me to be me and to have and do the things I love and at the same time, have together time and shared possessions.
This is a sort of tight-rope walk. I want to love you as you are, not try to change you. And I want the same from you. At the same time, if neither of us change at all, there may never be a real, deeply developed us.
For example (and this is only one example), for me, one of the issues of there being an US is Susan, who seems to intrude on every aspect of our lives, especially in the house, where everything seems to be hers, and has to be done her way. I would like there to be an our way, not a “her way.” An our house, not a her house. But if I complain about the fact that it makes me feel unloved and left out etc, then I feel as if I am asking you to change and give up something important to you. And then I think, well, if Susan is that important to you, what am I doing with you? That makes me want to leave. Every time you do one of your classic Susan things, I feel like you don’t love me. So yes, then I want you to change. I want the hurting to stop. Or I want to leave. But then, am I forcing you to give up who YOU are? I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to take away something that’s so important to you that you can’t even throw away her retainer!
I don’t want to feel like a bad person, depriving you of something important. But if what is important to you excludes me, then how is there an US? Maybe there is something in ME that needs to change to allow You to continue to love Susan so very much, which of course, you have every right to do. She was the love of your life for what, twenty years or more? But it is difficult in the context of our trying to build a relationship with each other. I know you don’t want to lose her any more than you already have. AND I AM WILLING TO GET HELP for ME and US on this issue. Ignoring it is NOT going to make it go away. Not talking about it isn’t going to help. I wish I knew what to do. I want our relationship to grow and deepen, not stagnate and fall apart. I want there is be a deep whole intimate loving growing evolving US, and a whole healthy you and a whole healthy me. How can we do this?
I want to reassure you that I love you and would like to resolve these issues and am willing to do my part if you’re willing to do yours. Just not sure what that really should mean to each of us in practical daily terms.
I love you.
Love, Mary XOX
No comments:
Post a Comment