I could not sleep tonight. I have to take back what I said in the previous post about not replying to this thread anymore.

Quote from Inky
“To be honest, I skimmed half of what you said because the defensiveness is so heavy. Did you come here for advice, opinions or to argue?”

No, I’m not doing anything wrong by asking more questions, developing the consequences of one’s statements or trying to make sense of it all. So, let’s apply Tir’s advice in the previous post and let’s part from this conversation that is leading us nowhere. Tough, I thank you, Inky for your attempt to enlight me. Feel free to consider me an idiot.

“To love our enemy is impossible. The moment we understand our enemy, we feel compassion towards him/her, and he/she is no longer our enemy.”
Thich Nhat Hanh

How true…

Quote from Tir
“Compassion isn’t about allowing or accepting bad or questionable behavior but about feeling peace and calmness as we evaluate a situation and/or a person and can determine whether or not they are who we want to journey with in this life. The two souls you were referring to made each other sick, or depressed, therefore the compassion would come with letting go of each other. Had they wanted the same things, and valued the same things and were both invested in a comparable relationship, the sickness would have been replaced with communication, trust, inter connectivity, and the desire for a future together. Relationships are like a river..too many stones and the water no longer flows, therefore the river is no longer a river.”

Let each other go… Jerry couldn’t let her go, because he could hardly accept he had invested so heavily on nothing. He felt angry and tried his best to not let his rage ruin everything. He did not hurt them both by breaking suddenly. He proposed a way to restore the trust. She demanded that trust was restored through forgiveness. He waited for her either to accept his view or to part. He was drained in the waiting, because he wanted to stay true to his commitment. She eventually parted.

Surely Jerry could have told Martha they were not meant to be one for the other, that their differences of value would push them away eventualy. Jerry could have decided the road they had to follow and not wait for Martha to take a decision. But how could Jerry know Martha’s values? He had a different view of her up to that point (after one and half a year), it took time for him to realize how false it was, and Martha did not validate Jerry’s view on her. Jerry thought it would have been a betrayal to look for someone else advices and tried to sort things within the couple. Maybe the law of attraction hindered Jerry’s rationality…

When Jerry’s realization became more clear, he had already invested three years of thoughts in the relationship. It was his first relationship and he always dreamed he could have just one everlasting. He looked a failure to himself, he just couldn’t take the decision to kill it all. He let Martha decide. After all she was the strongest, she had 12 years of previous relationships at her back. Moreover, if their values were those Jerry thought she had, it would have been much more easy for her to part ways, especially when Jerry would look so weak and lousy that Martha would not have any advantage to be with him anymore. So she left him when he was more weak, and hopefully she did not suffer the break-up because she was not leaving that much of a man.

Would have been better that Jerry took the decision to part up front or was it ok for him to let things slowly decline and let Martha decide? Maybe are those the same things? Maybe Martha realized where Jerry’s heart was going anyway. Wouldn’t have been easier on Martha that Jerry took a decision and slowly left when he was healthy and strong rather than letting her decide and leave him when he was frail and weak?

• This reply was modified 10 years, 1 month ago by Vhanon.