84 Marbles
I’m an excellent housekeeper. Every time I get a divorce, I keep the house.
Zsa Zsa Gabor
Ah, yes, divorce…from the Latin word meaning to rip out a man’s genitals through his wallet.
Robin Williams
Yesterday’s marble has got me thinking a lot about competition in breakups. A breakup is almost unanimously an acrimonious affair (especially if there’s an affair involved). Many people when they move from togetherness to separateness, shift from the realm of we to the realm of me. In the realm of me, there is a desire to take care of oneself and often there is a tone of competition. Quite frequently, it becomes like a game of football, each person struggling to gain one more yard of real estate. The real estate may be actual deeds and titles, it may be access to children, or it may be avoidance of the joint debt or responsibilities that were established while the couple was still in the land of we.
I’m going to tell you a story about my first marriage. I married young, at twenty-one, and three years later, I became attracted to a women. I was confused and I talked with my husband about it. His question was, “What will this mean for our relationship?” I didn’t have the answer for him but a few months later, I left the relationship to be with that woman. My ex-husband had every reason to be angry with me, but his strong sense of who he was, combined with a love for me, allowed him to handle the breakup with the utmost integrity. When it came to our belongings, we had a rational discussion about who would get what. We went to our bank and split the bank accounts in an equitable fashion and the bank manager said, “It is so strange to see this type of divorce. Usually we see spouses rushing to the bank and clearing out joint bank accounts.”
I don’t take credit for this outcome: I may have set the tone of honesty, but my ex set the tone of integrity. It was also a tone of mutual respect, a tone that lacked scarcity, a tone that perceived a larger we persists even when two people’s lives move asunder.
What would happen if more breakups had the win/win tone? Why can’t more people be magnanimous during a separation/divorce? What would it take to maintain integrity through all of life’s separations?
In Richard Bach's words, "That's what learning is, after all; not whether we lose the game, but how we lose and how we've changed because of it and what we take away from it that we never had before, to apply to other games. Losing, in a curious way, is winning."
I’m an excellent housekeeper. Every time I get a divorce, I keep the house.
Zsa Zsa Gabor
Ah, yes, divorce…from the Latin word meaning to rip out a man’s genitals through his wallet.
Robin Williams
Yesterday’s marble has got me thinking a lot about competition in breakups. A breakup is almost unanimously an acrimonious affair (especially if there’s an affair involved). Many people when they move from togetherness to separateness, shift from the realm of we to the realm of me. In the realm of me, there is a desire to take care of oneself and often there is a tone of competition. Quite frequently, it becomes like a game of football, each person struggling to gain one more yard of real estate. The real estate may be actual deeds and titles, it may be access to children, or it may be avoidance of the joint debt or responsibilities that were established while the couple was still in the land of we.
I’m going to tell you a story about my first marriage. I married young, at twenty-one, and three years later, I became attracted to a women. I was confused and I talked with my husband about it. His question was, “What will this mean for our relationship?” I didn’t have the answer for him but a few months later, I left the relationship to be with that woman. My ex-husband had every reason to be angry with me, but his strong sense of who he was, combined with a love for me, allowed him to handle the breakup with the utmost integrity. When it came to our belongings, we had a rational discussion about who would get what. We went to our bank and split the bank accounts in an equitable fashion and the bank manager said, “It is so strange to see this type of divorce. Usually we see spouses rushing to the bank and clearing out joint bank accounts.”
I don’t take credit for this outcome: I may have set the tone of honesty, but my ex set the tone of integrity. It was also a tone of mutual respect, a tone that lacked scarcity, a tone that perceived a larger we persists even when two people’s lives move asunder.
What would happen if more breakups had the win/win tone? Why can’t more people be magnanimous during a separation/divorce? What would it take to maintain integrity through all of life’s separations?
In Richard Bach's words, "That's what learning is, after all; not whether we lose the game, but how we lose and how we've changed because of it and what we take away from it that we never had before, to apply to other games. Losing, in a curious way, is winning."
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