I can’t say I’m an expert on relationships, despite my 66 years on this planet with 1 failed marriage, break-ups (there have been a few), and how to sustain a long-term loving relationship. What I deeply question, though, is all the ‘right credentials’ we seek in an ‘ideal’ partner.
I used to be there once when I was dating online. He must be … wiser, artistic, honest, smart, explore self-development, have no hang-ups and lots of money. The list was endless and it failed each time.
There’s only one big love, and that is with my husband, Lionel Bourgeois. For those of us who are lucky enough to find ‘the big love,’ we are lucky indeed. Once we had established the ground rules of our relationship and had an open and honest discussion about our deepest longings, did we then ask the question?
And that is, “How do you want me to love you?”
This is, for me anyway, the single most important question you can ask another. Despite your history and mine, how can we meet each other? How can we accept one another as we are? How can I love you and how can you love me. What would that look like? Once this question is answered will you know if this is a long-term and sustainable relationship?
I discovered this sentence from a storyteller and way traveler, Martin Shaw. In his story, he tells of the hunter and the Fox Woman. This is how it goes.
Once upon a time, a lonely hunter lived in the forests of Russia. It’s the end of the day and he’s tired. He sees a trail of blue smoke coming from his hut. When he enters the hut he sees that someone has cooked a meal and cleaned his boots. All week this goes on. He comes home early one day and peers in through the window. There he sees a woman in the hut. She’s singing in a strange language with a river of red hair flowing down her back. He knows she is the Fox Woman. She is part of the forest and magic. She turns and says, “I will be the woman of this hut.” The hunter looks at her and says, “Ya.” It’s a sweet night they have together. Turns out she knows a lot of songs and a lot of stories. Slowly love blooms. You know all Fox Women have a pelt. She hung it at the door. You will know that a fox pelt gives off a pungent scent.
As the days pass that smell begins to get into everything. One night he says, ‘bright pulse of my understanding, when you landed I thought the moon sang a new song. There’s just this one thing… the pelt is strong. Please would you please take your pelt elsewhere and move it out of our love den?” She looks at him with disappointment and says nothing.
One night the goodness has left his heart. He says, “I told you once already to get rid of the pelt.” In the morning when he woke up the Fox Woman was gone, the pelt was gone and so was the smell. They say that to this day the hunter stands at his front door lonely as an old man.
This is the moral of the story. Can you love another and accept them as they are? If not, I suggest you do some inner work before you commit. Knowing how love shows up and how we can manage the many nuances of a meaningful relationship will be a strong indication of how it will work out.