Attractive Opposites (Guest Blog)
Rory and Lisa Holland are friends with Carole and me. Carole and Lisa regularly meet around “Half the Sky” (advocacy for trafficked women and girls) and I travelled with Rory to Central Africa some years ago. I regularly read Rory’s blog entitled “An Examined Life” where he ponders the issues of his life, where he confronts reality and often with a wonderment about faith. This Valentine’s blog is especially winsome and truthful. And, I too, recommend the Schnarch book that Rory recommends.
Here is the blog.
Lisa and I are not in the same place today. I’m on the East Coast, while she is on the West.. Lisa is among trees, me, buildings. It’s kind of fitting, really.
I remember years ago complaining to a therapist that our relationship felt like two railway tracks that never met stretching into the distance. She thought that was a good thing. What? We never went back. I figured we should have been on the same rail – alike in thought and deed. I mean that’s what all that ‘one flesh’ stuff is about isn’t it?
However, as we worked to make each other in our own image, we lost the best of who we were, what had caused the attraction in the first place. Doubt and frustration eroded our connection to the thinnest of threads. The pursuit of sameness sucked.
After plenty of years thrashing around, the salvation of our marriage finally came in one word from a book Lisa read*: differentiation. What that means is, basically, two railway tracks, side by side, running parallel. Yah, I know.
We replaced the guilt and disappointment with the freedom of not caring about any of that shit. In greater and greater degrees, Lisa is Lisa, I am me, and possibly the twain shall meet. Which we do, frequently, but because we want to, not because we’re supposed to.
I don’t know why it took me so long to clue in to this, but the less Lisa is like me, the more attractive she is. Happy Valentine’s.
*Passionate Marriage, Dr. David Schnarch