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- Apr 15, 2022
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I love memes, I'm not sure where I found this one; more than likely it was by serendipity. It's kinda like life; They say that life happens while you're busy doing something else. Anyway, this meme got me to thinking; a dangerous thing for someone like me; but that's how it has gone lately. I'll find a meme and it starts a train of thought and then the domino's start to fall. Being as marriage is the topic of choice for the meme, I'll run with that. in my mind the word marriage in the meme is entirely interchangeable with any human or business relationship; because when you get down to brass tacks, all of life hinges upon relationships.
They say that a deck of cards sums up marriage; when you start out it's all hearts and diamonds and you end up wanting a club and a spade.
I really like the box metaphor. All you have at the start of a relationship is an empty box. In my musings it came to me that each one of us has a fire within our very soul. We stoke the fire with our life's ambitions, goals etc. When we enter into a relationship, we carry a little piece of that fire and start another smaller fire that we share with the object of our relationship, who has brought a piece of their fire to add to the new flame. I look at the box as a wood box; we carry the fuel for the relational fire to the box and store it there. When need necessitates, we pull a log out and toss it on the fire.
In healthy relationships both parties do their fair share, and the flame never goes out and there is always fuel in the box. There is always spiritual abundance.
Sometimes we delude ourselves into believing that the kindling and tending of the fire is a joint venture when in actuality; not so much. We carry armloads of love, commitment, duty, honor, respect, treasure, etc. Oh, I almost forgot; this fire moves closer and closer to the fire within our souls until one day the satellite fire and the soul fire combine. The Bible refers to this phenomenon as the two becoming one.
Sometimes as life progresses, we start to lose a little of our initial exuberance; we tire and don't forage and carry as much fuel for the fire. No worries, our relationship partner has been adding fuel to the box; haven't they? When we go to grab a log, the box is empty, and the terrible realization begins to set in that we have been diligently stoking the fire and our relationship partner was only using us to keep themselves warm. Oh yeah, throughout the relationship they would toss a few chips (buffalo chips perhaps?) into the box; but never the real logs that only come from the forest of commitment. In their minds they are owed the warmth of the fire, that somehow avoidance of responsibility for the keeping of the flame is perfectly permissible for them.
This song encapsulates the moment when the realization that all of the best years of your life have been spent in a one-sided relationship.
But wait, it gets better. Remember when I said that the fire moves? well for the one who has been full-on committed, when the time comes, and it will come, when your relationship "partner" pours water on the flame and snuffs it completely out. By now the satellite fire has moved so close to the fire within your soul that it often comes exceedingly close to snuffing out the fire in your very soul. If it snuffs it completely out, your relationship partner has succeeded in committing what I call Spiritual homicide; you are so spiritually broken that you just crawl off somewhere and die inside. More often than not, the fire is not totally extinguished; it has just been reduced to a few smoldering embers. I know from experience, that it often takes years and maybe more years and maybe more years to begin to see the flicker of a flame once again.
Please do not misunderstand, I do not shirk my own culpability for the role that I played in failed relationships; but I truly believe that I have never been a freeloader.
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keep a handle on them hubs!!
.
. My first marriage taught me that.
