Dear Al,

What an amazing interview with Laura. I loved it. I have been reading your website since about 2 years ago, learned a lot from it, but unfortunately, probably not enough to save my relationship, and him…

Four and a half years ago, we strongly attracted and fell in love with each other. My love for this man was greater than for anyone else I had loved in my past, and he told me the same. We wanted to get married, me that never believe in marriage before, and him having gone through a very bad marriage that ended in a nasty divorce. He was with me for life… he said. When we thought we could not love each other more, we just found ourselves even more in love with each other. That part of finding ourselves so madly in love, deeper and deeper, lasted about 6 months. Many times in the relationship, I knew he was the person I needed in my life, he was rocking my lizard like crazy, like nobody else had done it so far, except probably for my parents. Did I rock his lizard too!!! We kept on provoking each other, we pushed and pushed and got really good at it. When I thought I developed the skills to stop it from bothering me, it lasted no more than a couple weeks at a time. He sure found a way to go around it and pushed even deeper. I did the same for him. I tried to develop boundary, which has always been very difficult for me (in most of my relationships, not only with love relationship) and succeeded at times, but never long enough. I did not pick the wrong person, I knew that.
Was that working for me? I was getting sick, physically sick. So I quit, several times, only to come back with him to try some more. We tried different types of counselling, at his suggestion, different counsellors each time. We were only getting better and better at provoking each other. We still loved each other very much. After 4 years of this, I gave up, my physical and mental health became more important than my relationship. So I decided to leave him, for good, last April. Like every other times before when I left him, he pursued me, tried to convince me to get back with him. My hopes of a better relationship with him was being fed slowly, but I never gave him hints that I hoped to get back with him, after I find myself ready to tackle our relationship and to bring it, along with his efforts, to a vintage love. I needed to see, from him, real hints that he was changing too. I could not stop loving him, and still do, and I miss him so much. I could not imagine myself starting it all over with another man, growing older was easy for me to imagine with him. I could see us holding hands with love so deep for each other, as we always did in moments when we were at peace.

In September, he could no longer continue life without me, and committed suicide. He left his 2 sons and mine, something I never thought he would do. He wrote me a beautiful letter, in which he asks me for understanding and forgiveness for choosing to end his life now. He said he loves me so much, and to keep being the beautiful and loving woman I am, that he never stopped loving me and still does, as he was leaving us. I felt so much guilt that I did not save him, did not read the clues that he was going to end his life, that I thought of joining him, that if he is no longer here, I did not deserve to be here either. I went close to end it myself, but got out of this. I finally realised, after intense counselling, and with talking a lot with my close friends, that I am not responsible for his decision to commit suicide, BUT, I keep thinking that yes, part of it is my responsibilities. I did not give him hope to reconcile, I did not read the clues, I chose to not be there when he needed me. Although I know I am not responsible for his choice, I keep thinking of your 50% responsibilities. In the interview, I heard you say that you and Sandra had thought about suicide rather than divorce, without you two knowing about it. I am no longer haunted and torturing myself so much with the why, why, WHY of his choice to end his life, but it has not left me yet. I am still going to counselling, and find myself a bit stronger, and understand that this too will pass, but the hurt is there, and I miss him so much.

Oh dear! How awful! How terrible!. Let no one doubt how powerful is the Imago and how powerful is the Lizard! I am so sorry

for you. I firmly believe that lessons of wisdom always arise out of suffering, but no one wants to go this far.

I am glad my words have helped. Yes, guilt will be more difficult for you, I fear, cuz there is no one around to take on the

other 50%. But that idea is still there. He could have chosen differently and didn't. Oh owe!

People speak of "fatal attraction" as if it is a dangerous and rare "psychological disorcer." My experience is that the

energy of the Imago, the attraction toward the Biological Dream, the hope of achieving Vintage Love can be extremely

powerful: dramatically or slowly enduring or in between.

Please be at peace, as much as you can. Take lots of time. Have understanding friends and even professionals around you. I

suggest you temporarily (5 years) shed friends or family that do not "feel" understanding to you. Become an expert at grief.

Bless you, (for I think these things only happen to the blessed),

Al

Dear Mr. Turtle,

Having read some of your ideas, I wanted to ask you:

How can one explain behaviors such as suicide or cheating and leaving the relationship for someone they just met?

I remember you wrote, all people make sense all the time.

Does that still apply in those cases? If so, how?

Also, I seem to have difficulty understanding or believing that there are no intermediate stages between power struggle and vintage love. Do you wake up one day and say "now I am in vintage love?" Have you thought of other stages one must pass through in order to get there?

Sincerely,

Acute Reader.

Dear Acute Reader,

I imagine there are a whole bunch of people, who read my website, who would love to tackle your questions and share their answers. For those students, of what some are now calling "Turtle Logic," you have given a delightful pop quiz. Let's see how others check out my answers.

A couple of starting thoughts. Answers to all your questions, except the one on suicide, would be found in my Map of Relationships, which I gather you have read to dig into. Take your time.

The suicide question seems to me a bit more complex. Yes, I believe that all people make sense all the time. This statement assumes a very specific definition of the phrase "make sense," which you can pick up in my articles on Diversity. I see humans (computers, too :) ) as sense-making entities. Their behavior is always governed by the factors inside and around them. Many of the factors that govern behavior may be unknown to the person who is acting.

There are no senseless acts, only acts by someone whose sense we don't see yet. Seeking to understand behavior always involves a) guessing and b) getting data from the actor so that the guesses become more and more reliable. But the guiding principle I still see as "all people make sense all the time."

When you read my Map of Relationships, you'll probably grasp the idea that most of the "work" of a relationship takes place between the Power Struggle and the stage of Vintage Love. That work, (I call it the University of Life) mostly skill learning, sharing of "secrets," and "healing wounds," usually takes years. The faster you both stubbornly learn, the shorter it takes. The longer you postpone the learning, the longer it takes. I think it took Sandra and me about 9 years. My website is all about making that learning process faster. In many ways I act a bit like a scout who has crossed the mountains ahead of you all, and have left my notes on the journey on my blog. And so, "no," it is certainly not a matter of waking up in Vintage Love. Good instincts on your part.

My guess on suicide is that it is either a) as an intentional signal to others (and thus not meant to be successfully ending in death but in drama) or it is b) an intentional way of getting away from the pain of hopelessness. Could always be a bit of both. Either way I think of it as a "bit clumsy" and kind of dysfunctional in that it often doesn't achieve its goals. I think there are better ways to talk and signal people and there are better ways to get rid of hopelessness. Either way, suicide seems to involve tricky work with the person's Lizard. The same is true of partnership murder.

Affairs or "escapes" are pretty easy to figure out; i.e. the guessing about the departing one's sense is easier. Probably depends on when in the relationship this happens. If during the Romantic Phase, its probably that the person just "isn't into it as much as their partner." If it is later, that is an escape from the Power Struggle or from Door #2, then the departure or affair has probably been coming for quite some time. Either way the left-behind partner is often blind-sided partially because of their own "blindness" to what is going on in their partner.

I hope this rambling is fun. Twas fun for me. Check out more on my website for more answers. Best wishes, Al

Dear Mr. Turtle,

Thank you for your prompt response. Suicide seems counter-intuitive as an action of the lizard. As far as I understand, the brain stem, or the lizard, its sole purpose is to seek safety and survival. It achieves this by taking control of the cortex and making the higher being "flee", "freeze" and "fight".

How then, is the lizard responsible for taking its own life? Since the lizard has no brain of its own, does the cortex "trick" the lizard and choose to end the higher being's life? Or another way of saying this is - Suicide is an act of the cortex rather than the lizard. Is that safe to conclude?

Also, in the radio interview you talked about your first marriage and its subsequent divorce. Post-divorce you chose to engage in self therapy and trying to learn where you went wrong.

After some self realization and therapy, did you ever attempt to reconcile with your wife after divorce? Why or why not? If you did, what did you go through?

Lastly, after reading some of your ideas, I am starting to believe that it doesn't matter who your partner is, i.e., there is no "one" that people should go out looking for. In that all relationships follow the map regardless of how great one's partner might be. Most people justify divorce by claiming that they are so unhappy with their current partner that it only makes sense to leave them because they will find this happiness elsewhere, only to realize in time that they will be unhappy all over again.

My question here is -

1. Are there levels of happiness as far as partners are concerned? That is, after that romantic phase has ended and one is deep into the power struggle stage, does the level of happiness depend on the partner? Will one be less "unhappy" in marriage #2 than marriage #1 because the new partner is different?

2. Assuming that vintage love can be achieved between ANY two individuals who have fallen in love, why is it that most people don't achieve this with their high school sweethearts? Can't we enlighten people and convince them that it is fruitless to try to look for the "one" and that it all boils down to working towards Vintage Love. It seems to be a social norm that people date a lot of partners before picking the one. Why do people, or their lizards, believe that they need "date" a lot of people in order to find the "right" one, when in reality there is no "right" one?

Sincerely,

Acute Reader.

Dear Acute Reader,

You seem a pretty curious person. I think of that as a wonderful trait, and I bet it has driven you crazy, or others crazy, at times. I think "curiosity," "stubbornness," and "gentleness" as extremely valuable characteristics. I believe the Polynesians would call it "patience with perseverance," or ahonui.

One thing before I share any more. Sometimes your questions seem to assume that I am in some way "all wise," know the truth, or even that the "truth is knowable." I just want to caution you that while I can share what I think, what I believe, etc., I don't have "the truth," - just my truth. I want you to decide which part of my sharing you chose to believe as your truth. Ok, enuf.

Suicide. I've done a bit of thinking about this over the past days. It seems to me much more than "counter-intuitive as an action of the lizard." I imagine that reptiles or mammals don't commit suicide. Sure that a beaver in a trap may chew off it's foot and die of loss of blood, but I believe that suicide is a function of our cortexes somehow tricking our Lizards. Since a Lizard can be fooled into thinking all is "safe" when it isn't, and since it can be fooled into thinking it is "gonna die" when it isn't, there's no reason to think it can't be fooled into thinking it is participating in a "safe" action or a "move toward safety" action while the person is "offing themselves." In the past couple of days, I came up with three pretty easy ways. So I imagine there are a whole bunch more.

About my first marriage and reconciling, well, that's a bit personal, but may be instructive. I divorced when I didn't know "anything" much about relationship skills. I didn't really learn much about those until far into my now marriage. My first wife remarried, it seemed to me, very quickly after the divorce was final. So there really wasn't a chance to reconcile. But this answer, I think, avoids your question. Here's the answer. Years later I would share my belief, that I still hold, that "if I had known this stuff (marriage/relationship skills), I would probably still be married to my first wife. I would have saved my kids the horrible challenges of being raised in the middle of a divorce." Sigh!

The answers to the next set of questions seems to be already in the Map of Relationship, and I draw your attention to two specific fun articles about Finding Mr. or Ms. Right and It Takes One to Make a Marriage and Two to Make a Divorce. I hear you thinking that there is no "one" right person. I believe there are a whole bunch of them, but that all a person needs is one of them. The dating process seems a series of "checking each other out" until the process of Romantic Love kicks off, at least to some level, in both people. If that Romantic Period lasts long enough, and converts itself into the Power Struggle, then you are probably with a (I say again, "a") candidate with whom to journey toward Vintage Love.

I see no correlation about happiness and first or second or third marriage. Partners, I believe, do not make you happy. You make you happy.

And last question about "Can't we enlighten people?" I have been told by 100s of couples over and over that "I wish this stuff had been taught in High School." I heard that phrase again during a session this last Monday. I think it boils down to a question of "who is the 'we' in your question." I'm ready to teach and share. I have. You think if there is such a need, that the market would be huge. Oh, well. What about you? I suggest you look at the question some more and come up with some practical ways to go about it.

I have my way - on the web, in person, etc. Scott Dodson came up with his way in a book.

This is Laura and I just read your letter. I Wanted to send you my warmest, biggest hug along with thoughts of peace and healing. One minute at a time.

Laura, I think this is intended for me. Thank you so very much for your thoughts. It is, like you said, a matter of one minute at a time.

It has been a very exhausting and difficult time so far since his suicide, requiring a tremendous amount of strength to keep moving forward. I do believe I will find peace within myself and total peace with him, wherever he is now. It is a very slow grieving time, and I think it is wise for me to not rush out of it. I do not enjoy the immense pain I feel, the whole array of emotions I go through back and forth, the understandable depression I currently find myself experiencing, but I know it has to take its time.

There are many moments when I understand, know and feel that it made complete sense for him to end his life, while at other brief moments, I felt angry that he did choose the path to end his life. The anger lasted a couple minutes at a time only, I think because somehow, deep inside myself, I understand him, and feel great empathy for him. Shortly after his suicide, I myself thought of ending my life, and I felt completely at peace with the idea, without any fear, any desire or energy to come out of it, sadly not even caring for the extreme pain I would have left my son with. (I still have not analysed my own thought, if it is my lizard or cortex tricking my lizard, or something else.) Fortunately, having made calls the week before to receive counselling, just hours after this intense and powerful thought, a counsellor reached out to me and rushed me in after hours. Now, the thought of suicide is completely gone, but I remember the despair, hopelessness, sadness so deep I felt at that moment, how can I ever feel angry at him? I think I understand how he felt.

He took the time to write an amazing beautiful love letter for me, and one letter for each of the three boys, so his mind, his choice to end his life, I imagine, was clear and at peace, or so he says in his last letter to me. He attempted suicide that same night but failed. He tried again and succeeded 2 days later. He was determined to end his life. As time passes, in between trying to understand this whole situation, what we went through during our time together and apart, taking care of myself and my son (his sons went with their mom, all her family believing that it is entirely my fault), taking care of the after suicide “matters”, going back to my duties and work, I am now trying to let the space, the momentarily peace in between all those take its effects on me. I think this is how I will find healing, but I know it will take a long time. Despite missing him enormously, and despite all the pain his suicide “caused” on so many lives, I love him and respect his choice. I hope he finally found peace.

L.

There's something that I'd like some feedback on from these sessions- the amount of time each member of a couple needs to spend reassuring the other.
I married a woman who comes from a family where membership is very reliable- they don't exclude each other in anything like the way that my family did, once you're in you're in for life. She's quite comfortable debating and being what feels to me very abrasive. I get strong lizard reactions quite frequently which come as a complete surprise to her- why should it be her job to constantly reassure me, when the thing that I'm afraid of - being pushed aside out of the relationship- isn't going to happen, based on almost 25 years of experience?
Isn't it my job to parent myself and get over it?
Thanks,
Andy

Dear Andy,
I wondered if we would hear this point of view and I am glad you shared it. Perhaps we should use it as one topic in next week's session.

My first response is to look at the twin questions, "Why should she do anything" and "why should you do anything." If you are happy with what is going on, AND she is happy with what is going on, then I say, don't change anything. Go for it!

But I doubt that is why you are listening to Laura's show. "Gee, I am so happy that I think I will listen to a series on relationships!"

In my office things are simple. People come in because a) one or the other or both are unhappy with what is going on, and b) at least one is "fed up" with it and wants change. The unhappiness varies from mildly unhappy to extreme pain. The "fed up" varies from "gee we got to do something" all the way up to "I'm going to leave you if nothing changes."

Those people who accept what is going on and "parent themselves" and "learn to live with it" don't come in. to my office My experiences suggest that most marriages don't come in. I think it’s probably around 90% of marriages or partnerships don't come in (for any help) - they manage. I am ok with that. I don't seek to change them at all.

What I see is that coming together, falling in love, raises the bar of what people want to a super high level. People glimpse or sense their appetite for the Biological Dream. People want Vintage Love. Then they start to wake up to "the reality of tough living together." They often thrash around a lot during this "waking up." They still want that dream. They are variously pissed because the dream seems to be slipping away.

Then they reach a decision point. Three choices face them. Do I split and try again? (eventually 80-96% do this causing massive social chaos and expense and pain) Do I drop my expectations and just put up with it? (My guess is that by age 65 probably 96% of couples living together do this.) Or do I learn to make that beautiful dream a reality, do I move toward Vintage Love with my partner? I call these choices Door #3, Door #2, and Door #1. And I created a Map of Relationships and gave names and body to these concepts so as to help people with their choices.

My sadness was that most people don't even know that Door #1, the University of Life, the pathway to Vintage Love and a future in the Biological Dream, that that door does exist. They feel caught between "giving up/running away" or "putting up with the uncomfortable."

I personally rejected that choice when I faced it. I did not accept when people said it was impossible. Now, I can share what I've done and learned and struggled with and succeeded. I can keep it a secret. Those are my choices.

I was taught a long time ago that the job of each elder, each of us as we get older, is to sift through what we have learned, put it in order, and make it available to those younger people who follow us. I believe that. I think it is a noble cause. This is why I called my website Al's Relationship Wisdom. I don't think I am sharing "the wisdom." I am sharing my wisdom. And I keep working on it.

Your question, I think is beautiful. What is your wisdom about the situation? Are you suggesting that when your partner does things that trigger your lizard, the best thing to do, the right thing to do is put up with it? In my world, I'd invite you to engage with her to find a way so that both Lizards can be relaxed - together.

Still this is I think a great, ongoing, illuminating point and discussion.

Thanks, Andy

You've done this before, haven't you?
I was laughing aloud when I read your reply!
Yes, a rough patch in our marriage made us very aware of what we'd really like, and how very nice it is when you get a shot of that...
It's so tempting though, when the crisis is easing, to just enjoy the relative quiet and not make waves. We stay tender for a long time.
The hardest part for me is knowing when to put on my big boy boxers and suck it up, and when to say Wait a minute, this isn't working for me.
Andy

Hi Al,

I have found your work to be inspiring and illuminating! My partner and I are separating for a time (I'm the clinger - he is the avoider) and even though I hate the thought of separating, I am giving him space. I have been listening to the Harville Hendrix talk and had many moments where what he was saying (and you) make so much sense and I can see where I have been reacting very badly!! I was wondering, at the end of Harville's talk, there is a break and he was going to talk further about dialoging but the recording ends. Is the rest of this accessible? Would love to hear the rest of it. Also thank you so much for posting all of your information up for free! It is the best I have come across.

Regards, still learning

Dear Kez,
Thanks for the kind words. I am not sure which Harville audio you are referring to. Harville Hendrix has made ever so many tapes and videos. Some are still available. Some are a bit more private than others. The website that offers most of his stuff is at
http://www.imagotherapy.com .

I did post excerpts from his Clinical Update at an Imago Conference in Colorado many years ago. I didn't think it was available any more. It happened to be the group of thoughts that led me to the "disease of the disease" concept related to Power Struggle. If that is what you are referring to I might be able to find a reference of where to order it. I do not have "legal" right to post it and will be happy to take it down if challenged. Still I thought it very good.

Let me know.

Oh, and by the way, I do not think of people as Clingers or Avoiders any more. I think of them a clinging in this relationship or at this time and Avoiding in this relationship or at this time. Tis the same concept but with a bit more awareness that people change depending on where they are.

My best. Al