lover & friends, inc.

Balancing friends and relationships.

It feels like a foolish balance to try to get perfect. But it's an eminently wise balance to aim for anyways.

Let me spin a story: Caleb got into a situationship/relationship with Stevie his second semester in college. He was overjoyed to be with her. They spent much time together, studying together after class, watching movies in his dorm room, hanging out with her best friend/roommate.

Yet in time, Caleb began to miss hanging out with his buddies Reggie, Amanda, and Mark. They'd met earlier in life, running cross-country and working together at an ice cream store during their summers. They stayed in touch by running together 2-3 evenings a week, for about an hour and a half or so. Joseph started skipping some of those runs to spend time with Stevie. He missed those runs. So, he began running again with his friends, letting Stevie know the regular schedule.

Stevie didn't run. Nor did she take that well to Caleb spending time away from her. It wasn't as though she actively asserted her displeasure. But her muted demeanor, the non-verbal cues, and noticeably longer time she waited before replying to his texts seemed to communicate plenty.

From Stevie's perspective, it was true: she didn't like Caleb spending time with his friends instead of with her. This maybe stemmed from how a previous boyfriend had cheated on her with one of his friends. So her unease has a plausible source. Stevie wasn't schooled enough in sussing out her emotions to articulate this to Caleb, however (most college students aren't, so she wasn't behind the curve or anything). She also just liked spending time with her boyfriend.

Caleb felt stuck. He acutely picked up Stevie's unspoken vibes. He knew that she didn't like how he spent time with his friends, instead of with her. But he didn't know how to bring it up, or how to resolve this. He just knew that whenever he chose to run, he could expect a more chilled, I'm-not-cool-with-this reaction to emanate his way from Stevie.

What to do? Maybe this sounds like a situation you've experienced, except it's Caleb who's wanting his partner all to himself. Or maybe you're in it now. Or maybe you're the one who's possessive of your partner's time, to this degree.

Some thoughts, as someone who's found myself on both sides of this dilemma:

-You cannot fully meet your partner's need for friendship and community. Your partner will need more than you in their life. This is good news for them, and for you. There's only so much one person can shoulder the load for another. Many hands make lighter burdens. Encourage your partner's friendships.

-It's understandable, and awful, how a past relationship can reroute your partner's anxieties in this direction toward wanting to keep you forever close by. That being said, it's unfair to expect you to relate to your partner within the warped margins that someone else created for them.

-This above point should be asserted respectfully and clearly.

-Share your location from your phone with your partner? That's up to you. I'd suggest treating this as a privilege that you choose to share with someone however you see fit, rather than a right that they can expect or demand of you.

-The healthiest relationships (marriages, friends, dating) are those where the person has several friends to lean upon, in addition to you. The Bible makes many mentions of the wisdom of having friends, mentors, advisors. "Without counsel plans fail, but with many advisors they succeed." -Proverbs 15:22.

-Friends with someone the same gender as your partner? This depends on the relationship, and how each person is willing to compromise and relate. A dear friend of mine (Nathan) has been married to his wife for close to 15 years. Nathan has no other female friends. This also does not bother him, in the slightest. It's something his wife isn't comfortable with, he finds that to be reasonable, so it's a non-issue for him.

Another friend of mine, Tony, is married to Carrie. Tony has a few female friends as well that he keeps up with on an intermittent basis. 

The crucial aspects that help this work smoothly for Carrie and for Tony: 

1) Tony never, ever complains about Carrie to these friends -- he saves that for his male friends, or for Carrie's family (pro tip: if you want to complain about your partner, always choose to complain to your partner's parents/siblings rather than your own. Your partner's parents will understand better, but your family may have more trouble letting it go).

2) Carrie is aware that he keeps up with these people, and shows no uneasiness about it. 

3) He doesn't really share anything with these friends that he wouldn't share with Carrie, or hasn't already shared first with her. 

4) These female friends understand that they are a lower priority to Tony than his wife, and support him in that. Carrie also knows and experiences that she's a higher priority to Tony than his friends are.

5) These female friends all have known Tony longer than Carrie has.

6) These female friends also appreciate Carrie. They have no issues spending time around her and him, and overall view Tony's wife as a new friend they enjoy interacting with whenever possible.

Dating relationships probably should aim to mirror this sort of vibe of a marriage. It's healthy to have friends in addition to a partner. Someone who shows little to no growth in recognizing this, and still sends possessive vibes, will probably not change all that much with time. So consider a future with them with eyes wide open that the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.

Don't be someone you're not just to gain someone's love. Otherwise, they're not loving you, but rather the role you're choosing to take on. That never works.

boys don't cry (such a lie)

"In the clearing stands a boxer

And a fighter by his trade

And he carries the reminders

Of every glove that laid him down

Or cut him till he cried out

In his anger and his shame

'I am leaving, I am leaving' 

But the fighter still remains" -'The Boxer', Simon & Garfunkel

-----

Anyone can listen in; this one's for the fellas--

The ones quietly pushing against apathy, pushing against emotional muting, pushing against a hangover, pushing against their fathers or mothers (or both), pushing against the withering self-talk, pushing against overcorrection. Pushing against porn and its lies, pushing against checking out. Pushing against themselves sometimes.

Pushing against G!d.

Pushing for a break in the fog. How can it look to express emotional turmoil, as a man? Want to be authentic, do not want to inadvertently add to any cesspools of 'toxic' masculinity. Pushing for a way through. Squinting toward the horizon, hoping for some lived-in guideposts of what masculinity means, without that adjective 'toxic' in front of it.

[Before I say anything else, lemme say this: warnings about 'toxic' masculinity are entirely proper, wise, and warranted. Misogyny cannot ever be an answer. The fallout of sin taints everything -- in some way, for now -- about this world (Romans 8:20-22), including how we relate to one another.]

So some ink needs spilling about masculinity, not just as 'masculinity has to not be this', but 'a meaning of masculinity should include this [insert ideal].' Embodying masculinity has to reach beyond describing what it is not.

Just some observations about sloggging through emotional turmoil as a man:

1) Non-toxic doesn't equal healthy. As much as I love me some Cheetos -- and the snack does meet the FDA-approved standard of 'non-toxic' -- that doesn't mean my health would flourish via a steady intake of the enriched corn meal, garishly orange cheese seasoning, and maltodextrin.

So if you aim to be non-toxic with your masculinity, that's laudable! It's a swell start. Thankfully, there's more to it than that.

2) As many times as a torpedo sinks the cartoon-macho facade of the emotionless, stoic, never cries and never feels pain (except for kicks to the groin) masculinity, the image consistently washes ashore like a live grenade, ready to inflict pain.

We cognitively sense this facade doesn't work. It slowly corrodes from within. But where (and how) to start piecing together alternative ways to relate? Where can one feel safe enough to clumsily emote?

For me, my wariness to torpedo that facade stemmed from this: Once I blew it up, I had no idea what would take its place. At least with the facade, I felt some predictability (this wasn't actually true, but until I had an equally compelling narrative to counter this one, it was easiest to believe).

What did help me: observing up-close how other men dealt with this stuff. Wiser men, older men. Safe men who rooted for me, counseled me, laughed with me, didn't agree with me about everything, heard me through the rough emotional first drafts.

Choosing to spend time around other men showed me how they navigated emotional turmoil without either exploding, or stuffing it a million miles down into their chest. I could learn some by imitating these intriguing ways to relate. And by imitating, I could gain some confidence to continue onward. This still helps me.

2) Speaking of older men: a word on your father, or a father figure in your life. He may seem impossible to connect with, but he's walked some of these paths. Don't write him off prematurely. There's more there than meets your present understanding. It can be a frustrating, yet rewarding, exercise to unearth the long-ago person and lessons inside of him. It'll take you some time to do this.

3) Therapy can help. I've benefitted a ton in my life from talking my stuff out with a professional. Pragmatically speaking, it's meant that I don't assume the dual roles of participant and moderator to my internal nonstop dialogue. I can talk stuff out, and someone else -- professionally trained! -- can moderate, can assist to figure out how the puzzle in my mind might fit together.

If you need a more pragmatic reason in support of therapy: it's undoubtedly more budget-friendly in the long run than not going to therapy. If you're sometimes willing to drive 15-20 minutes out of the way to fill up on gas that's just 5-10 cents cheaper, then this mindset also applies for therapy > no therapy.

4) The end goal is not to show emotions just like the women in your life show them. So if you're concerned that emoting will make you appear more feminine, nah. It will expand your notions and range of how masculinity can and does express itself.

5) That being said, odds are quite good you have strong, wise women in your life that you trust (I don't only mean girlfriends, or potential future girlfriends. I mean friends. Co-workers). This is a gift from God. Of course you can learn much from their example, their counsel, their friendship, their observations, their ways of relating, their stories. In the Old Testament book of Proverbs, wisdom is depicted as a caring, street-smart, strong, supportive 'she'. That's not a typo.

6) You possess these capabilities already. So it's not like adding an external software update onto your hard drive. It's more like discovering some tools you already own buried in the bottom of your closet, figuring out their intended purpose, and how to use them well.

I do not write as someone who's figured this stuff out. HARDLY. But I write as someone who's been some of where you are, has tripped headlong on many exposed tree roots of similar trails, and knows something of the purposeful, resolute stepping needed to make headway.

So find the trails nearby that await your walking on them. It's near time to dump the puzzle pieces out onto the table; time to start to try to make sense of the larger picture. The fighter still remains.

(Thx J.N. for the prompt!)