Divine Plagiarism

I wrote this last time things fell apart with her. Some of it was right. Some of it was incomplete. I regret my actions in that iteration of the story, and the previous two. I was a fool then, a fool for only myself. I do not regret my actions in this iteration. I am equally a fool now, but I am a fool for Someone. And I will be a fool for Him any day.

Disposition: (How to keep the good yet move forward. How to rejoice in the story because I trust the Author.)

Brokenness should be conquered, not balanced.

Positive: I saw in echoes something that I will one day see in fullness (I recognized things that I like (and things I dislike) in a future spouse.)
Data: a) Many good things about c. Should look for those, especially in a purified form.
b) Many good things about N I never appreciated until now. (Unfortunately it took me seeing what it looked like to not have those things to realize how important they were and how much I took them for granted.)
c) God is faithful and has given me a desire for a spouse. He will provide that right on time.

Negative: God didn't deny me something, but rather saved me from a lot of heartache, if something would have happened. In effect, He saved me from C. This I have heard clearly over the past week from Him.
Data: a) B had noted this to me and I had ignored him, but was a very important data point. From our conversations (and this was neither secret nor in confidence, but openly proclaimed), c was comfortable with an active male homosexual (s?) and kept him as one of her closest male friends. I am all about real relationships and witnessing, but I would not be comfortable keeping one of my pilot buddies who routinely engaged in sexual sin in my closest group of friends. This indicates certain assumptions/comfort levels with unhealthy attitudes about how males should be. These assumptions would have been the source of much dysfunction.
b) One of my friends who was a more senior pilot was talking about how great a marriage was when all the people were working toward the same goal, and how terrible it was when they werent. I felt that linked in my mind to this episode. Her and my goals are still too asynchronous, I am limited to how much I can change mine (10 year commitiment to one airframe that I cant change), and she was not ready to consider changing hers, I think. That would have been ugly.
c) I have heard a bunch of stories of broken heart and divorce within military familes recently, even with a good Christian friend of mine. One of them particularly caught my eye, where the guy was desperately trying but his heart was being broken and he was about to give up, where his wife acted very bipolar to him, insofar as she cared and then didnt care at all, even though they were both Christians. And he was at his limit and ready to give up. And I felt as if God was saying that as things were now this is how they would have gone if I got what I wanted.

Narrative: Mostly previously briefed.
Synopsis: Sequence 1 Upon further reading, the relationship can be identified as a compliant/non-responsive boundary malfunction. I tried harder, and she allowed me to. I tried so hard as to bear the whole weight, but she wasn't willing to respond. The less she responded the harder I tried. I was the compliant, trying to shoulder the whole responisbility. Fault is not the issue, but learning is. I should have drawn better boundaries, I was trying to care so much that she would care back which was bad. She was the non-responisive, she expected I would care and felt as if she could interact with me when convienient. Only at the end did we seem to move beyond this.

Sequence 2 The compliant/non-repsonsive problem was compounded by there being a male/female dynamic involved. Were a mutual friendship maintained, possibly issues and concerns coudl have been communicated without it involving male/female complications. However, with a growing compliant/nonresponsive relationship developing, I reinterpreted that as her wanting me to take the lead in a romantic relationship, as she would respond when I would initiate, yet she would never initiate. Additionally, she seemed to be comfortable with some very direct and intimate statements from me, as she would respond positively to those, but would never reciprocate. This exascerbated the previous dynamic, and led to the confrontation, and the terminal sequence.

Recommendations: Seek in a spouse one who loves to return love, one who will be chased and respects herself, but one who respects me and loves to love me back. Pursue, but let her respond in her own manner (even if it is asking to be pursued more.) Respond in kind, even if in a different role (guys and girls have different roles in courtship, but they should both be invested.) Seek in friends ones who challenge back, but express as much concern back as I give to them. Always care, always love, always be compassionate, but remember the things about the pearls and the pigs. There will be people who value the pearls. I do them a dis-service if I do not save the pearls for them.

General Analyses.
1) Demanding respect is not the same as being abusive.
2) Being controlling should not be confused with being confident, nor with strength.
3) Weakness often masquerades as strength.

Specifics: 1) I do not regret telling C the whole story from my point of view. I do not view it as catharsis, but as a necessary element of the conclusion. I do not view the facts of telling as inappropriate, as she was a willful, volitional actor in the sequence, and little of the retold story could not have been reasonably forseen or assumed by her. I do view my manner of telling as not as loving as it could have been. Relating to previously referenced book, this is a consequence of one who has experienced boundary violations for an extended period of time and seeks correction. However, this is not an excuse, I should have been more kind to her in the way I said it. What I really regret, though, is taking so long to tell her the story, and telling it to so many other people before telling her. Taking two years to tell a story is unacceptable. It should have been told, at the second iteration's beginning, and if both of us could not resolve that past, there should not have been movement past there.
Recommendation: Open communication is essential. Medium of communication should be considered (in order, face-to-face, phone, written mail, email.) I appreciate directness, so I should be direct, open and honest, but not unkind. I shuld learn how my spouse communcates, and make myself available to her most direct communication.
2) I do not regret presenting her with the question of whether I was worth fighting for from her point of view. It was the first real attempt to establish my own boundaries. Due to the imbalance of the relationship, there had to be an opportunity to equalize the effort. Simultaneously, I did not do this in a manipulative manner, I was willing to let her go with no hard feelings if she wasn't interested in really investing in me, which I felt she really hadn't. Presenting her with such a choice and being ready to hear either answer allowed her and I to clarify our boundaries. The boundaries were then clarified because of the course of action that led to. Hence, a stabilized situation is better than the previous asymmetry, for even if no relationship exists, we are no longer hurting each other. This would not havve happened if such a question were not asked, as she was comfortable being pursued from a distance, and I was placing her ahead of God and trying to fight with Him for her.
Recommendation: If a relationship is not moving for quite some time, it may be time to provoke a fight. Not in a sense of getting back, or whatever, but in a sense of laying all the things on the table that both people are avoiding for the illusion of peace. One must fight well, though, and fight for the other person, even as they are fighting with the other person. Then previously ignored problems can be solved. (When two faultlines are moving against each other, and they catch up on a piece of land, the only way they can keep moving is with an earthquake. And the longer the earthquake builds, the worse it is.)
3) I do not regret the whole course of action. I am glad that God is able to redeem my fallenness, and may he use it to bring glory to Himself. I do believe that certain things said in the terminal phase of the relationship were things He had given me to tell her. Even looking back I believe that. He only tells me my story and not hers, but I believe that He used part of my story to help her and part of her story to help me. I think the sequence of events could have followed a quicker parallel course where all those things would have happened, but with less brokenness, but I believe this is something God will redeem, in a way that will only make sense looking back from a ways.
Recommendation: Neither fear past nor future. And never run from either. Submit them all to God and see what He does with it. Things that were broken in the past are echoes of God's promises for completion in the future.

Action Points: (Weaknesses I need to submit to God, things I did right that I need to do some more.)
Weakness #1) I can love truth more than people.
This is not a weakness persay, as the both go hand in hand. But when I speak the truth, I have to speak it in love. I can be unintentionally unkind in my bluntness, and I need to consider anesthetic before performing surgery sometimes. I also need to understand that sometimes the obviousness of an answer to me, the solution that stablizes the equation, that sometimes it doesn't look like that to someone else. Even if I am right, I should not expect them to be moved by the sheer correctness of the answer, it needs to be tempered in love.
Weakness #2) I can be tremendously selfish.
It was only toward the end that I quit thinking about what I wanted, and started thinking about honoring others. Instead of what was owed me or whatever, I needed to think about them and how to be Christ to them. I saw that in a guy whose wife just cheated on him and divorced him and he still loved God. My pain is nothing compared to that, and I was so absorbed in it. Therefore, I should ask God to teach me how to love x. (x=whoever, CS Lewis notation)
Weakness #3) I can assume much and ask little, and hear only myself talk.
I need to learn to listen. Unfortunately, me and her had interlocking weaknesses on this one, as she never really understood much about me, as the majority of our communication was about her, even if we were both talking a lot about it. I assumed much about her, and asked little, and many assumption were wrong. To paraprhase SerenityI should have asked her anyway. I would have liked to hear her say things, even if my analysis already told me that they were the case. So I should ask more questions and listen.

Strength #1) I have finally learned what it is to be a man in a relationship.
I have inherited a tendency to be attracted to controlling women. I have called it strength, but I have been wrong. Very wrong. It is something that would allow me to avoid the responisbilites I should bear, allow me to be weak where God is calling me to be strong. It took this to teach me to stand up for myself to a girl, to create boundaries where I am not comfortable with being walked on, because if I am comfortable with that, I will recreate it time and again. Episode in coffee shop where she tells, not suggests, what I should order, was very inappropriate given our level of relationship (thought she was kidding, but upon retorting back, found she was serious. Found creative solution, problem shouldnt have existed though.) Stepping up and being a man involves taking responsibility. That means taking responisibility for overcoming brokenness insofar as you can manage, not just casting the blame on the other. A woman is submitted to a man, but he raises her up above his own head in prayer to God, so he holds her higher than himself, but she must submit to him to allow him to do that. Otherwise, there can be no harmony when both players compete for the same role, for as they do, the other role goes unfilled and the relatioship suffers. With my spouse, I welcome her arguing with me over decisions, as I would rather hear objections up front and deal with them (enhancing the solution) than have them brew. I will not, however, fight with her over my role. I can not honor her in this way, nor is she allowing herself to be honored. It also shows a need to control, and generally speaking when a woman cannot submit to her husband, she has a real hard time submitting to God. Of course, when a husband does not honor and love his wife, he generally does not honor and love God.
Strength #2) I have finally learned to pursue. And I dont want to find a me with two X chromosomes.
Attraction between an availaible male and an available female is perfectly natural, and something never to be ashamed of. Even if it doesn't work, if both people are emotionally healthy, they can deal with it as adults and perhaps be friends afterwards (eg. S.) So therefore, I should never feel as if the girl has a right to hate me for liking her. If she does, its her bad, and her issues. However, I need to be chivalrous and not obnoxious about it, of course. So these are fair rules. I have the right to pursue as long as I am chivalrous and not obnoxious. If it goes somewhere, cool. If not, then we can be mature and figure out a friendship (which has worked many times in the past, if not in the mishap sequence.) I will remeber these rules for the future.
Also, There is a difference between be friends and being romantic. I previously expected that things would just fall in my lap and everything would kind of be comfortable. But I did not understand that loves involves risk and must to be exciting. This is not to say things should not flow naturally, but there is a dance to it, and there are different roles in the dance. This is good, and a husband should romance a wife, as well as be her best friend. And these two are separate, though complimentary. The friendship should ideally lead, then the courtship sort of abridges the friendship to find if there is a romance there, then in its conclusion, the two are fused together in a marriage. But neithjer should I expect both roles in the dance to be the same, nor should I expect to find a duplicate of me with breasts as an ideal mate. Citing a grief observed, it is in being complimentary, not the same, that love is found. If you have two of the same people, one of them is irrelvant. So I should be romantic and pursue, and pursue someone who is not me.
Strength #3) I have finally learned to submit my heart to God in regards to girls. (a man with authority must be under authority.)
God loves my future spouse far more than I could hope to love her. Therefore, I must love him first, and submit my love for her to Him, or else I grasp and control and hurt her by competing with God for her love. She has to love God first, and then me. Similiarly, I must love God first, and then her. We must both be cool with this, and even demand and expect this, and encourage it. As a single guy I ask Him for His daughter's hand. But I must be willing to play my role in His story, not wrestle Him to try to be the author.