Arrogance

Again I am going through assorted feelings relating to a relationship break-up. I have felt very much the injured party, sure that the fault was with the poor quality of communication - not mine of course(!) - and the difficulty with pinpointing and saying the truth.


I want to get through this experience having learned something about myself, changed, and therefore less likely to feel the same pain in the future and I have focussed my prayers on this. I've been wondering if I'm getting anywhere, being the impatient soul I am, but woke in the night with a deeper understanding of something which has sobered me up a lot, yet at the same time it feels hopeful. I can at least see now how I have caused pain, not only in this relationship but in so many of my interactions all my life.


He told me that he felt uneasy around me. I didn't know what to do with this and passed it off at first.


And there's the beauty of prayer. Nothing seems to happen for a while but suddenly I wake realising that I have been wanting him to change for a very long time. I know well (in my head) that this is not a loving way to be towards a person and I say and do everything with the conscious intention of allowing him to be who he wants, do what he wants. But I'm denying the feeling within me that is the opposite Billy Joel's song

Don't go changing to try and please me
You never let me down before
And don't imagine you're too familiar
And I don't see you any more

I would not leave you in times of trouble
We never could have come this far
I took the good times, I’ll take the bad times
I’ll take you just the way you are

I need to know that you will always be
The same old someone that I knew
Oh what will it take 'til you believe in me
The way that I believe in you

I said I love you and that's forever
And it’s a promise from the heart
I couldn’t love you any better
I love you just the way you are

I don't want clever conversation, no, no
I never want to work that hard
I just want someone that I can talk to
I want you just the way you are



My heart sinks when I realise how awful it is to be on the receiving end of the feeling 'please change so I can stop feeling ashamed of you, so I can feel that I have helped you and you will be grateful to me and tell the world and love me forever'.

As usual I get analytical. Where did that all start in me? And I remember that my mother's family with their professional background was praised by my father, who came from a tradesman background. I think he was proud that his children all chose to become more 'educated' than he was. Was my mum ashamed of him? I know she didn't appreciate some of his flagrantly 'earthy' mannerisms and that he probably did this to get a reaction from her. I know well that once I reached my teens I was very ashamed of my father, feeling he argued in an ignorant and headstrong way and that he wasn't like some of the 'intellectual' people I gravitated towards then.


Equally I was ashamed of my mother, her lack of polish and her difficulty in looking as well-dressed and stylish and confident among the mothers. For years I firmly believed she was stupid. She saw herself this way and perhaps in part my father did too. He was often quite condescending.


And when I trawl through my own life I can see that, having taken on similar beliefs, I condescend, I judge another based on how intelligent I believe they are, or how pretty they are, and I feel very ashamed of being with those associated with me if I believe that they are not popular or intelligent or whatever.


So my 'helping' of others has been very damaging. I think of my children who, like me, laboured under the feeling that they were not clever enough, not pretty enough, not active or hard-working enough and the rest, and not only that, they had the double whammy of two professional parents who pressured them to do well in all their endeavours.


What's wrong with that? A lot. The message that one can never be good enough, cannot be loved for who one is, for being 'just the way you are'. It's not a great thing to carry through life.


I look at the expectations I had of various partners in my life. And I look now at the pressure I still put on people I see when I tell myself I am helping them. Helping them to become what? What I want or what they want?


No wonder people feel 'uneasy'.