"People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway."
-Mother Teresa
Someone shared this with me tonight and it hit a big nerve. Beyond the obvious (obvious if you know I lived the first months of my life in Mother Theresa's orphanage in Kanpur, India), it holds meaning and advice that most of us mere mortals should recognize and follow, but don't. Having myself been guilty of all 3 of the above at various times, I certainly hope people have forgiven me when I have behaved badly. At some point, you have to work, and I mean work hard, to forgive if you have any hope of moving on.
People wrong each other all the time. Families fight, couples bicker, people get into random tiffs with fellow customers at the grocery store or with a manager at a restaurant, yet we all move on and get up the next morning because we have to, not necessarily because it's always easy. I have always had great admiration for couples who live by the mantra of never going to bed angry with one another. As anyone I have ever been in a relationship with can attest to, I could never do that. I could, and should, learn that skill if I am ever blessed enough to be in a safe and loving relationship again.
In a strange somewhat related twist, on an autism list I belong to, a single mom posted about her challenges with dating while parenting a fairly young child on the spectrum with intense needs, and the fact she wasn't sure her boyfriend could handle her devotion to her son (he wasn't sure, either.) Knowing many married moms are in this particular group of parents, and as a divorced, single mom, I decided to reply, touching on my own experiences. The thoughts flowed to my fingers as they touched the keyboard, with a fair amount of tears streaming down my face. (Ask my kids, I cry at the end of every movie- I wear my emotions on my sleeves).
I dated someone who seemed to fit the bill perfectly, if the bill were to read as follows: "Single mom seeks partner who intimately understands autism and knows how to interact with a child with autism". (I wasn't seeking, but that's a whole other story). He is the sib of a brother with pretty severe autism, now of course a grown adult, and had lived "it" his whole life, until he went off to college and then moved across the country. But, not necessarily because of my child's autism, I had moments of being illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered in the context of the relationship. He did, too. Yet, he met the four criteria I required of a partner: great emotional connection/friendship, great physical connection, shared spiritual values as we had gone to church together for years, and, last but not least, acceptance of my son and his autism, but also acceptance of me as the mother of an autistic boy. My son loved him.
Yet it is exactly the traits Mother Theresa spoke about which still, years later and not proudly on my part, at least, leave both of us bitter, angry, and still emotionally involved. I mean that in the sense that I know he still checks up on me, reading my blog, trying to "one-up" me by making claims that aren't true, knowing my schedule and rather boring life by asking mutual friends and acquaintances or, and this is the worst, calling names. I still have these random moments when I remember something exceptionally good about our time together. There are the equally random moments where a total stranger calls me asking about him because of events in his current life. (That's happened no less than three times in the past month alone). My kids still see his kids around where we live. We still drive on the same main roads and pass each other. Yet, because we act illogically, unreasonably, and are self-centered in some ways (including not being able to fully own our own mistakes, that's something I've been able to do, at least, but he hasn't), the relatively brief romantic relationship of one year, which developed after 8 years of friendship, still stings to this day. We still seem to cause the other enormous amounts of pain.
Therefore, in responding to this mom, conflicted about how to date with a little one with autism and wondering where her loyalties should lay, I shared that, for that year, I tried to balance both, the relationship and the autism. In the end, I failed miserably at both in different ways. I lost someone who I was very much in love with and who I believe loved me, and I lost my way in advocating for what my son needed, at a time (remember, his parents just split up and he was now trying to figure out why mom had a boyfriend and why dad had a girlfriend and why he had two houses) that was challenging for him. In the end, my inability to be both the partner I wanted to be, the mom I knew I could be and wanted to continue to be, the stress of raising three spirited girls, and trying to keep us in the only house my kids had ever really known, just broke me and my spirit.
I give huge kudos to those parents of children on the spectrum who have managed to stay married. I have ginormous respect for those in particular whose marriages have remained strong, loving, and happy. Of course, there are all of two couples, both friends who moved cross country to the West Coast, who fit this bill of all the autism parents I know well, either personally or through work. They must have learned along the way to be reasonable, logical, child-centered, and most of all forgiving.
That Mother Theresa was a pretty smart lady. It blows me away to know she probably held me in her arms when I was an infant. I will work on the forgiving piece and can only hope others work on it, too. But, don't expect to see me on Match.com or Eharmony anytime soon.
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