Why does Jerry live in the past? Everyone has one, and he should be happy someone wants to have a relationship with him in the present.

I suppose the reason is that the future is the projection of the past. Jerry should have been happy to have someone in the present if that was his need. However, suppose that Jerry wanted one and only one reliable person in his life, a person that assured him she would remain. Assume that Jerry was more willing to be friend with Martha rather than be in a relationship with her if she could not be that reliable. Now it happens that Martha had omitted a fact. So Jerry is scared that she may again still hide things that may hurt him one day, even her promise to not leave each other starts to be less believeble. Jerry is in a trap, whatever he does, he suffers: if he breaks the relationship his needs are not met and he will lose Martha even as friend (he knows things cannot be back the way they were and she will also suffer), if he stays a doubt that she actually care about him will arise, a doubt about whether she will actually remains. Jerry knew this could happen long before the relationship started, that’s why he asked Martha to be truthful. He feels she did not respect him with that omission. On the converse, Martha believes that not everything should have been said, she says that she wanted to spare Jerry the pain of that knowledge. She feels she was right and way better than many other women.

• This reply was modified 10 years ago by Vhanon.

I’m not sure why you assumed she would go and on about it. Were you already in relationship, did you know her quite well, did she already behave like that before? Sometimes we may have prejudice and fear reaction from another person just because we saw similar people do the same before, but every person is unique in his ways, and your girl should be the most special above all else. What if she just wanted to know the truth from your mouth, what if she wanted to be reassured that your behavior was all right, that you actually knew what was wrong about it? If someone makes plan, and builds castle upon a fact or the absence of it, shouldn’t she be informed so that she can make the best out of her work for you both?
If you saw no wrong in it and she does, that may be a sign things may not work in the long run, you’ll always be tempted to do those things she considers wrong, she may eventually find out, be really shocked and angry. Why shouldn’t you look for someone who approves you for all you are? Why shouldn’t let the other person look for someone she can fully approve? Is the present worth the pain in the future? I suppose you thought so and she did not. We do not think alike, let’s find out who we are and respect each other. But that’s the fatality of love, when people do not want to part and keep hoping the other may change and see the right of their way.

Anyway the above scenario is a bit different. The omission happens before the relationship starts, when Jerry and Martha are friends and Jerry did not mind what Martha have been doing unless she wanted to be with him. When Martha proposes, Jerry minds the fact, he bases his decision upon that fact and may decide he does not want to stay with Martha at all. Martha denies him the truth and reveals it to him when it is already too late for Jerry to act in such a way to make things right for them both. Martha had decided what was the best course of action for them both all by herself, she did not consider Jerry’s feelings or the importance he put on the facts. Tough, Jerry failed to state would have been the consequences of an omission: that looked so unlikely, he trusted her.

Now, there are things one may find once the relationship starts. All that is fair and good, you cannot know everything in advance. However, shouldn’t be something like that fact in the scenario always be mentioned before the relationship starts? Especially when the other person seems to give importance to it? If something is found during the relationship both people may conclude they are not one for the other, or accept each other limit. For example if your girlfriend really got fixed on that fact, you could put sense into her by telling her to either accept you for what you were or leave you (I know it’s easier said than done for fear of a break-up). However if something is assumed to be true for a long a time, and one day you find out that’s false, wouldn’t you be scared and hurt? What if you put a lot of effort to build something that relied on that foundation, wouldn’t you feel like you’ve taken advantage of? Wouldn’t we be all scared if tomorrow the sun did not shine?

You are right Inky, one punishes his kids at home… as long as they are HIS kids, they are actually kids and he actually has a home. Adults should have dignity to choose. If adults risk to fight wars, it is better to go to the judge.

“So good luck finding a friend or lover who dovetails perfectly with your own value system. It’s not as easy as all that, and hopefully you won’t clash!”

However I do not know why you are personally attacking me with your irony. Do you feel attacked somehow? It seems you also have a value system to defend. You may as well be my friend, I do not mind what you do as long as it is not going to hurt me or someone else intentionally in some way. Tough I suppose you would not like me as friend, because I would warn you for the bad consequences of your actions, and you may no longer act with peace of mind. I believe I’m just giving you some tools to reason about how you may hurt someone else without intention to do it.
I do not know what you hid to your friend, and I do not know why your friend wanted to know about that, but personally I may start to feel a fake if my friend was proud of me for something I never did or respected and valued me because he thinks I did not do something. (I imagine he talks proudly about me to everybody he meets.) Eventually I may start to think he is talking about somebody else, that he is actually a friend to somebody else and not to me. Moreover I would fear he will find out, I will hurt him and lose his friendship anyway. In the end, even in the course of the relationship, I would feel lonely like I had no friends at all. Then it is better to not have friends at all, at least you are not risking to disappoint anybody.
Do you really want to live in a world where a person pretends he is somebody else just to be friend with a person that pretends to be somebody else? It is a fair and fun game, yet it looks loneliness to me when you are looking for a deep connection.

Anyway, I guess your opinion on the scenario is “Martha did OK, she acted in her own self interest, being with Jerry what was mattered the most to her at the moment. Jerry was an idiot to think she would say the truth just because he asked for it and she said she loved him. Once he knew the truth, Jerry should have punished her and go over with it. Martha did OK by leaving him, once again she acted in her own self interest.” If I’m right with this summary, I’ve got one question. How should Jerry have punished Martha?

“People are selfish at the end of the day and their values do change.”

If you say that people are selfish, it means you also have an idea of “unselfishness”, how does that look like? What should a person do to be unselfish?

By the way, thank you for your replies to my post.

Oh, thank you Tir, what an enlightening reply. I’m not sure whether it changes anything, but let me extend the scenario a little bit.

Jerry and Martha started to know each other one year before they actually started the relationship. During those times Martha told Jerry she had been single since a few years. Slowly Jerry started to have an interest into her and he proposed. Martha refused to start a relationship with him. Jerry hoped that Martha made her decision easier on him with an explanation. Among the other things Martha said she did not want to make the same mistakes again. Since Martha arguments did not really convince Jerry, and she looked interested in him, he told her he felt committed and was willing to wait, maybe she could change her mind or give him a reason to believe she really did not want to stay with him. Jerry failed to state that if she found another man that would have been a very good reason to let her go and move on. He thought she would tell him for friendship sake. If they wanted different things in the future, that would have been another good reason too. Eventually Jerry and Martha fought, he wanted to know why she was looking for him, what were her goals, what she wanted in life, what was her view of love. Martha got angry at him because he did not want to comply to what she looked right behavior to her, and he looked obsessed with his feelings for her. They did not meet each other for five months. Jerry got depressed, Martha got diagnosed with an illness. Eventually Jerry gave up, he apologized to Martha for believing she was interested in him, he proposed to be friends. Martha accepted and promised him to not lie and he promised her to not nourish any hopes for the feelings he still held. They were friends for a couple of months. Jerry had found a job in a city nearby and was planning to move there. Martha had a dream, a voice that told her “you are going to lose him if you do not stop him now”. Martha told he had been thinking about him those months they were apart and she proposed to him. However, when as a mere confirmation about what he already knew, Jerry stated that Martha had been with nobody else during the time he had been waiting, she did not say a word. Nor she did say a word in the a few following situations the topic was touched later. Jerry forgave her that she made him believe she wanted to be just friends, even if she actually wanted something more.

Compassion. Shouldn’t there be a limit for it? If someone starts counting on the fact you are always showing compassion, wouldn’t he eventually take advantage of it? How can you say when the person he is genuinely wrong or is acting on purpose? How do you distinguish between a malicious or a fragile place? If a bat sucks your blood, should you stay still and be amazed at what a wonderful creature of nature it is (well maybe one little bat would be ok, but imagine it is very big and hungry)?

Quote
“Couples who know compassion, who do not rely on each other to make the other happy and who are well adjusted would probably have the tools to deal with past omissions and treat each other with compassion and respect instead of duplicity and depression. ”

If two persons do not rely on each other to make the other happy, why would they ever be together? Why would they ever make plans for a future? What past can they ever celebrate? At the very least you are counting on the other to exist somehow.

Quote
“Another man, who was more compassionate and open hearted would have seen the situation differently.”

So Jerry was not compassionate. He did not wait for Martha to understand she stabbed him and make a choice to either heal him with an apology and her presence or to look for a new relationship before he died. Jerry did not feel sick to give Martha the chance to actually help him. And Martha did not feel sick because she had trouble deciding. But yes, I suppose that was unworthiness what Jerry projected into Martha after he knew the truth. It was impossible for her to restore the trust, unless she showed that same compassion to him, with who knows what great sacrifice.

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?”

I just wanted some aswers to my questions. I also hoped for some analysis rather then a simple statement of the kind “Jerry was an idiot to assume the truth would have been revealed”. But that’s ok. This is my last post on this thread, I’ll stay quiet.

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 ago by Vhanon.