relationships, at least not without damaging vulnerability, because the heart shuts down when it senses manipulation. As adults, we have a responsibility to find agreement. No longer children without control over our situation, our beloved is also not a parent over us. Compromise then is the only way for true love to stay vulnerable and open.
Open the Heart and Listen
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Give only what is yours, preserve what is theirs. Don’t try to take from your mate what’s not yours to take. Kindness requires you ask with respect, for more time, more consideration, etc. Making demands never gets anyone anywhere.
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Never take pain for granted. If you’re in an argument, it’s pretty telling. It says you’re not being heard. But it also means they aren’t being heard by you, either. Learn to keep what your mate is saying not as the reason they can’t agree, but as a reason for you to identify what they need.
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Never think your pain is important to someone who is hurting. The key to finding out what’s wrong is to notice what’s being held on to. For some people, it’s just the fear they won’t get what they want that motivates a need to be right. Acknowledging what they need instead, without giving up what you need, will provide a great deal more breathing room, and may even end the argument immediately. In a closed heart, love is conditional. It requires that all needs are met before love is given. It requires everyone do what is desired before it will love. It requires that everything is settled before it is warm.
As adults, we have a responsibility to find agreement. No longer children without control over our situation, our beloved is also not a parent over us.
An open heart does not need someone to say words in a particular way to be what it is, because it knows what it is, with or without those words. An open heart takes only what it needs, to be reminded of love, and nothing more. For example, when your beloved asks you to do something you’d rather not do, don’t explode or implode, simply say what you don’t want to do. Be firm, kind, and gracious about it. Make sure you know yourself enough to know this is what you prefer, not as a matter of disagreement but as a matter of preference. Eventually he or she will find someone else to do that thing with, or drop it all together. In a heart that is untrue, being right is more important than the health of the heart. A strong heart will not allow the words of a closed heart to remind what is untrue. A strong heart feels the feelings of another and chooses compromise over being right.
A childish heart has to be right and has to have the attention of the other on their being right. True love vows to meet needs with at least sympathy. Especially one’s own needs. Marriage is an experiment in monogamy. It is a land of making peace with the fact you are two, unique individuals. Your words are symbols of what’s needed, and not to be used as projectiles from old wounds. Learn to be fair with each other by staying vulnerable and open-hearted. Remember, before engaging the mouth, listen. Finding agreement is not always easy, but so much more fun than closed-hearted defense and disagreement. Love matures as the mind finds ways to make arguments a thing of the past, and compromise a way to be present and open.
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