Discoveries in the Field of Romance

As I’ve written before, we don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day, never have in our 16 years together. I’m not exactly sure why. For one, it’s hard to ignore the Halmark prescribe romance… we’d rather make our own cards and make a big deal of anniversaries; Lupricalia is just too public. Secondly, we’ve no babysitters we trust on such days, but even when childless we weren’t into it… Truth be told, it’s probably greatly because this holiday, when we were coming to terms with being gay, kind of felt like someone else’s holiday, like Chinese New Year, but for heterosexuals :-). So tonight we’ll do what we want and have a nice home-cooked meal and probably play a board game with the kids, before we put them to bed and watch the Battle Star Galactica waiting on the Tevo; he in my arms or me in his, as humans and cylons work out their cylon/human issues.

Clearly, I’m no Casanova.

As I was joking Rob about our tame plans for tonight, though, he said what I already know: romance comes in different, more subtle but potent ways in long-lived love. A squeeze while I’m unloading the dishwasher, a call home during work just to hear his voice, a little note on my computer, and so on; all that works better than a dozen roses. Sure, that getting-to-know-you phase is great fun, but it doesn’t match up to the I-know-you better-than-myself epoch :-). Not many couples get to feel that sort of stable, strong center in their family, and, while it would not make for interesting drama--cylons or no--that’s more than enough romance for us.

But this is a day for love, and, if I do say so myself, I’ve done pretty well in that department. As part of my continual attempt to spread the gay lifestyle, I’d like to share some long-term relationship discoveries. My credentials? Well I am a doctor (still waiting for my doctor of love diploma, but still), add to that the 16 years of happy monogamy, and the fact we have never fought and that’s pretty good, right? So here’s what I’ve found in trying to figure out why we get along smoothly:

Touch him. We’ve never fought but we do, of course, disagree sometimes. I know there have been times when my feelings have been hurt and I’m sure it’s gone both ways. I’d say we have a significant disagreement about every other year, but they never escalate past the day they're realized. When most people feel at odds with their spouse it seems to me their tendency is to pull back. This is a terrible instinct to follow here. If you feel hurt, get closer, touch him and see what happens. In me, just a hand on the shoulder can change perspective immediately for you both, as though it was a discharge of a shock. Funny that that works, but it really does.

Always keep a white flag ready. I think a lot of couples get in trouble for their constituent’s tenacity. If there is anyone to whom you should never honestly care about beating or saving face in front of it’s your spouse. Everyone can be wrong or a jerk sometimes, but that isn’t important if you keep from spending energy looking for ways to better justify it. So, unlike in other areas of life, when in doubt, give up; roll over; surrender easily. Just say “you’re right; I’m wrong” and be done with it. Of course this means often you’ll both end up surrendering and arguing the value of the other’s position, but what better way to find the right position? Your loss is his win is your win; like a team, the only points that count are awarded to the family on whole.

Recent discoveries in neuroscience seem to show our decision making and moral reasoning is the result of different areas of the brain duking it out, but we have the sensation of being one whole personality, only cognizant of the result of their arguments. I think a healthy relationship should feel that cohesive, like a healthy mind does when compiling the results of disparate interests of the brain.

Never Wave the White Flag. I think a lot of couples get in trouble for their lack of tenacity :-). You, the individual can and often should give up, but the family you're a part of can't. I'm of the school that you never go more than a day without addressing an issue, and I'll not go to sleep unless I know we're on the same page. Given the above techniques, I've never had to stay up past 11 :-).

Date. Each other, that is. Sure, tonight we’ll be home, but we try to get out alone at least once a month. I blogged about how important I found this, a long while ago, here. Yes, it’s all about the kids and they need a lot of attention, but the kids rely on you two being a solid team and so some alone time to pair bond and gaze at each other over desert in a fancy restaurant is more than permissible. It’s as healthy as exercise, and more fun.

Framing. I’ve seen several couples, now divorced, seem to look at each other as more like roommates with benefits, even when they have kids. It’s the “You complete me” problem. The other person is seen as someone who fits into your life, makes you whole, when it is more robust to look at the two of you as making something larger whole. As a husband you are half of something bigger than the sum of its parts, and the relationship is not meant to complete or fix you, the individual. To me, that perspective alone goes most of the way to making the rest a happy cakewalk.

Eh, or maybe we're both just easy going guys benefiting by luck... Whatever, I'm just glad for the romantic holiday evening I have ahead of me :-).

Tainted Love

Today, we are at sea (or were by the time I post this :-)). These days are a good deal of fun too, even without a port. There are many seminars and such.

I’ve been to a couple seminars on parenting, and realized we’ve maybe have got to let our boys go a bit, not hover about them so much, and give them more responsibility now. As our Aunt Beanie says, maybe we do “mother them too much.” In our situation, it’s tough to not be over protective and it’s something I’m going to work on and am putting out there so it’s been said on record :-).

Then there was the teen panel, which I commented on last year. I think I’ll save that for a post of its own.

Here Ill talk about a seminar on “Love Won Out;” it left an impression. The new tactics of our opponents are smart and a bit frightening, for their reformulated and yet all too historically familiar packaging. It’s all about love now, wrapping hostile anti-golden-rule action in the feelings of love. Pull your gay kids close, but never accept their orientation or relationships. Sneak into pride events as a “gay-welcoming” church and then show those you trick into attending love as you try to cure them of their curse akin to alcoholism. Get involved in AIDS charities, so you can get sick and desperate people to fight with their orientation. Even try to get to the children of gays and lesbians and get them to turn on their families through kid-friendly internet tools.

Hurt people, basically, but do it in such a way that you look PC and feel good about yourself for it.

It’s a common enough theme in humanity that it was on my derailed list of aphorisms :-):

Hate may harden a heart; to completely solidify a heart a person must pretend love.

It’s true, even in the most sever examples. The Spanish Inquisition wasn’t conducted solely by hateful people; there was a set of intellectual word play and twisted logic to get others on board. They caught the gay man to stop imagined supernatural calamities, for the good of all. They tortured him to get a confession and therefore a chance at heaven, avoiding eternal torture. They “relaxed” him into the custody of the executioner, and they burned him to protect the public and set the now-repentant gay man into eternal paradise. Great motives, right?

Hate does a lot of harm, but it’s love and good intentions used to move the mass of people to do what the worst of us never could.

To know such large groups are formally implementing these tactics is disturbing. This is not just the love which the G*d Hates Fags folks feel in their horrible actions, and if you do listen to their interviews, I think you will also agree they do, as they claim, feel a mind-settling, self affirming love for gay people, and think they’re doing right. But this packaged much more insidiously, as it doesn’t have the shocking book-cover image of picketers in front of a soldier’s funeral. People don’t shy away from Love Won Out; they pack mega-churches for it.

One thing about Love Won Out really stuck with me. The people giving the seminar had personally been to the event. At lunch they ate with a woman who told them she had a gay son. They asked if he was gay or ex-gay or struggling and the woman told them to wait until her husband spoke later in the day; she said she wanted it to be a surprise.

For us, they later played the audio of that portion of the husband’s speech. In short, their son came out to them, they rejected him, and then, after attending Love Won Out they tried to get close to him again, now with the motive of changing him. They tried, though lovingly, to get him to change his “identity” and leave his partner, and the son could apparently see right through it. Eventually the son told them he didn’t want parents in his life who’d not accept him and his partner for who they are. So the parents are the victims now, right? Still, who wants parents constantly trying to undermine your home and not-so-subtly thinking one of the best things about yourself, your path to love, is sin and rightly punished by death in the times of Moses? Right? Even lovingly?

The recording ends with the father describing how their son was killed in a car accident soon after. He said, and I wrote it down for the shocking force with which it hit me, “Our prayers were answered. Our son was healed.” Then there was clapping. Clapping!

Love.

Love won out; even the name implies love’s use as a tool in some sort of competition.

Is that the sort of familial love the “pro-family” side of this debate is becoming about, then? Love that turns parents into that? Love that makes you feel good, that you’re doing God’s work to hurt your children in such ways? That makes you pray for them to be changed or take up life-long celibacy? Change even if it means their death, and feeling grateful if it does? Love that keeps you constantly trying to split up your family’s or friend’s home, even if it’s the home of the happiest family on the continent?

In some instances, the feeling of love really can be one of the crueler, more insidious weapons. In some instances, I’d prefer an enemy fueled by honest and open hate, free from feel-good self-deception. At least that opponent is willing to feel and show the emotional consequences of the harm they choose to inflict on others.

A Change of Pace

I’m trying now to force out the long fabled “site,” yes, the one I gave up on last year. It will come screaming into this world sooner or later, and, now that I’ve some gracious help, it should be sooner.

To that end, my free time will be split again for a while. What to do?

I’ve been reading Geary’s Guide to the World’s Great Aphorisms. It’s been a fun read from Mae West’s “Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before” to Bertrand Russell’s “War does not determine who is right—only who is left.” According to Geary a good aphorism should be short and have some sort of memerable twist.

I didn’t get a page into the book before I realized that I’m actually a collector of personal aphorisms and never knew it. I’m just so naturally longwinded. I suddenly remembered a file from years ago where I'd collected some aphorisms and just found it again.

I know I generally write posts that are way too long, and so now for something completely different (and time saving :-)). The next couple posts will be short, unbearably so for my traditional self, longing to explain in detail. But I think these short sentences get to some middle of my perspective and motivations, and, hey, I liked them enough to save them for years, and I’d love to see what sort of feedback they could elicit. Do you have a similar aphorism? A counter aphorism? Just keep in mind that:

As Laub says:

“Men appreciate aphorisms because, among other reasons, they contain half-truths. That is an unusually high percentage.”

;-)

So here begins a bunch of posts of some of my short aphorisms, starting with the notion behind the origin of my blog name:

Never look to complete yourself in love. Look instead to be the subordinate cog missing from a work much larger than any two individuals could ever become on their own.

Eh, I’d probably phrase that differently nowadays… Maybe:

Don’t aim to fill your missing pieces, but learn how they could help you fill a missing piece.

Or maybe:

Every cog inside a machine is as significant as that machine. Every other cog is as significant as a cog.

Or maybe:

A man has never been completed by completing himself.

(That picture is actually of a sculpture in our home; I guess I like the analogy.)

One Man’s Love Is Another’s Hate

Well, someone a while ago thought this long explanation had a point, may as well post it :-)…

Anyone paying attention knows that the words “love” and “hate” are tossed around often in regards to gay issues and the LDS church (many churches really). To simplify, the church claims to be feeling and showing love to gays and lesbians, and the other side claims it’s hate.

To me, it’s far from that simple, and I do believe, for its inaccuracy, the word hate should be dropped from most of such debate.

I’m still trying to think of the best word, but maybe it’s antagonistic. The LDS church is antagonistic to gays. It doesn’t hate them, nor is it filled with bigots (though some members certainly do and are, as in any group). The current LDS church is antagonistic, to my mind, because asking any human to live a life of celibacy, or a life that involves coupling with a sex, male or female, in a way they find unnatural, unethical, or otherwise repellant, causes that person (and sometimes their spouse) a good deal of distress, the sort no human would want. For some, it's even strong enough to make the end of their life seem a better choice.

Furthermore, it should be clear that such a moral requirement would distress any person, straight or gay. For example, a gay father teaching his heterosexual son that heterosexual sex and couplings are immoral, for, say, odd pagan beliefs, that would hurt the kid, right? But could the father still be “loving,” if he thought by faith he was doing best by his son?

That distress is there, and understood, and I don’t think anyone can deny it. The debate is whether or not it's justified, or for the person’s own good. Certainly, opposing people’s intrinsic makeup isn’t always a bad thing. The LDS are similarly hostile to kleptomaniacs as well, and rightly. There are instances where the antagonism towards and suppression of personal drives are called for, and I’ll do so right along with any church.

But this post is about love, a word in need of more words, like snow to the Eskimos. Up front, I am sure the church feels justified in causing this distress, and I bet most there feel love. It’s not, though, the same model of love people are using when they say the church feels the opposite. I think it’s important for both sides to understand what is in the details of these too-simple words, to both stop gays from crying wolf in claims of ‘hate’ and to get the other side to understand why such love doesn’t count as love in the eyes of many.

To my experience, love can mean a couple things to people. It can just be the feel-good emotion about another. Let’s simplify all this and just call that good feeling A. Then there’s that intuitive coupling love. Let’s call that B.

My love for the man I go home to is a love one builds with another mutually. I have A and B, but his wants have also become my wants. I sacrifice for him, and he does the same, to where it’s hard to say now where each personality ends. Furthermore, we’ve promised to make such choices even if A and/or B go. That’s a different sort of love. It’s not just a feeling, it’s love, an action, a way of life. In its best form, it’s selfless, not focused on personally feeling good in A or B. Its actions are dependant upon another’s desires; they hold your motivation. Call that C.

The opposite of this would be hate, to me: where you feel malice and your motivations are specifically to subvert another’s. Just call that ~C.

I think most of those in LDS church personally feel strong feelings of A towards gays and certainly don’t experience ~C, but the desires of the object of their love here are not as important. Let’s call this love D. The important thing here is what the LDS faith says God wants. By following their rules, it’s claimed God will make you happy, and, by that, the beloved’s sense of right and wrong and their desires are not the focus, as they are with C. There’s one side whose desires are thought to ultimately please everyone best, and they can feel love at the same time their actions are hurting the other person.

Now, as a parent, I know such isn’t always to be frowned on :-). Punishment and reward can sometimes be used with all the love in the world. Pain is sometimes necessary for greater gain, as any two-bit trainer will tell you. Also there are times when C becomes D, say, if a spouse starts a drug habit. But does it make sense when I say it’s a different sort of love than the love some gays are referring to when they, regrettably, use the word hate?

To a gay man facing D (particularly one of a different faith), all they see are the church’s actions: telling gay LDS teens they have to fight their attraction to men while encouraging others to follow it, trying to weaken their legal ties to each other and their kids, trying to keep it so some of us can’t adopt the children we are raising so as to get them on our health insurance, and much more under family law. As I’ve listed, here, there are many ways in which I’m personally harmed by the politics church members have been encouraged into supporting. That’s just a fact and, to a careless eye, it looks like hate.

But, personally, I’m glad to have come to believe it only looks like hate. It’s difficult (if not impossible) to know what another is really feeling, or their real intentions, and that’s the crux. Some gays see the actions and assume hate (or use the word because it’s politically easy, and it sells, and doesn’t require nuance). When it’s a misunderstanding, it should be clear to the church member as to why: People are judged most easily by their actions, not hopes. But this isn’t an easy topic, and there’s a difference between ~C and D, “hate” and “tough love”.

On the other hand, those expressing love should also know it doesn’t matter to some gays either way. To a person's family, your actions harming or helping them matter most. How you feel about your actions is less important, as the same result can come for love or hate. In fact, the fact a person feels D, with all the good feelings of love, A, almost makes it worse. I know because I’ve felt this too. Not only are they going to hurt you and your family--do things to you that you’d never want done to them--they’ll do it and feel good about it, righteous and loving about it, have their cake and eat it too. Still I know, to a person holding that faith, it all seems justified, and I do now appreciate the loving intention. It means there is hope for the middle ground.

To drive the point into the dirt :-), consider an extreme historical case: the Roman Catholic Church during the inquisition. Church officials would violently extract “confessions” regarding homosexuality. Why, did the RCC want a confession? To get the gay man into heaven, escaping eternal torture. For his own good, right? Once the man was absolved of the sin (and now an admitted criminal), he’d be “relaxed” into the custody of the state and burned. As stomach churning as that seems today, it had a logic to it, and it was, in a sense, loving, D, tough love. Really, ask yourself, if you honestly believed that’s how the universe worked and God would let you move a man from eternal torture to eternal bliss in that way, how would you view such an act?

To them, they saved a man from the worst fate, burning in a lake of fire forever, and all it cost was limited pain in this mortal realm, a sliver and a spark in their supposed eternal plan. And even if the gay man wasn’t sincere, the public was saved. Not only did the public example strongly discourage such “sin” in others, the town was saved, as was also believed as part of the faith, from the wrath God dishes out to any town harboring gays (You can find us blamed for everything from Muslim military wins to high rat populations :-)).

I’m sure most all modern faiths, including the RCC, have a different take on that historical “tough love” though (thank goodness!). But the parallels are there in a far less dire form; I’d certainly rather worry about being kicked out of our home than burning to death :-). And, if the member’s faith is right on this topic, such is justified; if not, then that’s something to be judged by time. But, both sides should know the love or hate of such actions can appear very different from opposite ends of the stick, even in the extreme examples.