Dear Pat, I was very sorry to hear from Paul about your illness. My thoughts and my prayers are very much with you. I look forward to hearing better news of you soon.As for myself, I continue to pass through life in a lovesick trance - though I am managing to do some work in my occasional moments of lucidity. I'm also spending some of my spare time assisting a dastardly Western-funded subversive group called Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor. I'm off to Tibet next week, where I shall no doubt be swiftly incarcerated in the Lhasa No. 1 Re-education Camp. I'll send you a postcard if they'll let me. Love + God bless, Edward.
12-07-2009 om 20:50
geschreven door Dee
waarschuwing
Dear Frederick/John/Yasmine/etc., I want to try to order my thoughts and I think on paper has more chance of success. There are one or two things I think I should say - that I am morally obliged to say - and then you cannot say that no-one told you, which you have often said in the past.
I do not want to say much about you personally. I think you are, for your age, very emotionally mature, responsible and conscientious. In the circumstances it is not such a great help to you, rather the reverse. No doubt you feel that these are qualities anyone can acquire, and that may be true if they honestly want to acquire them but most people are not motivated in that direction.
You have been talking about a relationship with Joanna/Nico/Marianne. She/he is emotionally immature, not a Christian in any meaningful sense, and worse that either of these she/he has fallen for the delusion that a sexual relationship must provide her/him with all the meaning of her/his existence. I have seen a number of girls/boys like this and also a number of women/men of my own age. I have not seen anyone recover from this illusion who was so badly afflicted with it. They do not make responsible and faithful wives/husbands, because they give an absolute value to their own emotional states, which they are driven to satisfy with almost demonic determination (not necessarily visible to the onlooker).
This is the reason that she/he is jealous of your religious belief - because you do not share the same delusion and she/he is insulted and feels neglected as a result. From a rational point of view this is very stupid as those with strong religious convictions make more faithful and reliable partners, take adultery seriously, are not inclined to believe that their own emotional states are paramount and face crises in life with greater equanimity. However, this jealousy is not rational, but the emotional reaction to a fundamental division in the meaning of relationships. Where this division exists, the chances of a successful partnership are negligible. It is quite different to commit to somebody whose own faith is subject to grave doubts but who can take strength from the partner's, and these are the two situations which St. Paul defines in granting the Pauline privilege.
I do not know if you will find the courage and/or insight to break off your relationship with Joanna/Nico/Marianne before it gets too serious. I obviously think that would be the sounder course of action but I know you would be prepared to suffer a lot before you took an action which you thought would be harmful to someone else and you have also no doubt become somewhat emotionally dependent. I would ask you only one thing - cultivate detachment, observe the situation as a third party and hang on to all the evidence for the attitude I have described because it is grounds for splitting up. If your father's cousin Walter had done those things I do not think he would have got as far as marriage and he would have been saved a lot of misery. One partner, with the best will and the noblest character in the world, cannot make a life partnership work.
I don't suppose, if you have read this far, you will feel very sympathetic to these ideas but could I in conscience keep quiet? There is one other thing that you should bear in mind. If you give up Joanna/Nico/Marianne it will be easier for her/him than it was for Maxime/Tom/Alexandra because her/his commitment is much more to herself than to you. Such people are not cut up for life. Pity is a very treacherous guide, you have to keep your head. Watch and pray.
