Painting No. 3 by Nancy Violeta Velez

Between beauty of expression and power of expression there is a difference of function. The first aims at pleasing the sense, the second has a spiritual vitality which for me is more moving and goes deeper than the senses. ~ Henry Moore

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Not a day has passed during the three weeks since posting my last blog that I have not felt guilty for failing to hold to my schedule of blogging.

It is a promise I give to myself, and a responsibility I maintain as a published writer.

The nagging feeling that has haunted me now abates as I write this post.

But what occurs when life happens and disrupts our goals and the tasks we have set our energies to?

What do we do when personal events and life crises require our full, unmitigated presence and attention?

We stop and address the problem.

Yet our minds never leave or forget the work awaiting us, the mission to which we have committed ourselves, apart and separate from our families and in my case, because and arising from the love I have hold for my husband and daughters.

I suspect my angst in this and similar matters runs akin to what women and mothers around the world, particularly those of us in western societies continually experience when incidents at home and/or at work tug at us and we find ourselves in the cross hairs of competing responsibilities.

Mine came in the form of a husband who needed emotional support in a matter he had for months attempted to handle alone.

You know men, the loving and responsible ones, and who feel their sole job is to protect and defend.

Yes, that is the kind I married, and still love with all my heart.

But it broke my heart when fully realizing the turmoil he had been enduring alone.

At first I was confused. Then I became angry. I finally settled into sadness.

Not unlike Kubler-Ross’s six stages of grief, greeting another side of your spouse or anyone whom you love and care for, there follows a process wherein you must integrate this new aspect, and dimension of their personality and identity into the whole of the person you have previously known.

The longer you have known the person, that they have been a vital part of your life, the greater the challenge of interweaving the new into the old.

And then there is the matter of the new creation that arises from this discovery and the ensuing revelations, that of the person, and your relationship.

Just as individuals change and grow, so too do relationships evolve.

An important part of evolving is that of adaptation. It is what we call bending in our efforts to avoid breaking.

Breaking for individuals leads to mental collapses, at the worst perhaps suicide.

Regarding relationship, breaking is just that—the death of the relationship.

This equals divorce for marriages.

I always find it ironic that with a 70% divorce rate the majority of marriages end not as a result of infidelity, or one spouse perpetrating physical or emotional abuse upon the other. Rather marriages end for what we now know as that catch-all term,   … irreconcilable differences … .”

My gut as both a wife of thirty years, a psychotherapist, and novelist that irreconcilable differences boils down to one or both spouses lacking the ability to adapt.

Neither the wife or husband, or perhaps both proved unable to integrate the new and emerging dimensions of personality—a natural part of human growth and development—that arose in their spouse.

Changes in our spouse, friends, children, even parents demand not only that we provide wide and added space for the new parts to reside, but that we also make room for these alterations in the relationship and interactions binding us to them.

Last but not least, and perhaps most importantly, changes in those we hold dear and love most, require us to change.

Presence of these new aspects within them, modify our interactions and ultimately call forth and awaken hidden parts of us.

It takes time and patience to integrate all of the new that arises.

The speed at which we move and live our lives in western culture allows little if any, time for change, and even less for integrating that change.

Sadly, many marriages and relationship falter and fail because we, the individuals comprising them choose not to donate time to welcoming and nurturing the new.

And yet as the existential/humanistic psychotherapist, James Bugental, reminds us, regarding self and other, “All I have to offer are my differences.”

While commonalities link us, it is our differences that solidify and seal those links.

I have been adapting and securing links during the 21 days since my last blog post.