Fathers and Sons: Reaching For Love
A good father would've made a big difference in my life. As a father, I have always strived to be a good father, even when the decisions were not always what I wanted.
Relationships take a lot of work. Dating, online dating, and courtship all have one goal, to give us a Relationship to thrive in. It is hard to find a healthy, attractive, and willing partner. When you do, what happens next is the most important part. I work on relationship-building as a skill set. How can I be a better partner? How can I say with this person for life?
A good father would've made a big difference in my life. As a father, I have always strived to be a good father, even when the decisions were not always what I wanted.
You can't have kids by yourself. Your partner is just as important. Why would it be different when you no longer live together?
However, there's a different type of person out there. I was married to one. I have known of others. And they have a different set of criteria. They have flexibility when it comes to transparency and honesty.
Parenting is a spiritual journey that you enter when your kids are born. The relationships you have as parents may change over time, but your parenting is a huge part of what gives your life meaning. To me, my kids are everything. And to my partner, my love of their kids and their love of my kids, is unfathomable and wonderful when it happens.
Release the relationships that are not meeting your basic conditions of satisfaction. And nourish and build relationships that build warm and fuzzy connections.
Alignment with our hearts and minds is only useful if there is heat to fuel your adventures together. Let's keep the fires burning, while jointly navigating the star maps. Our destination might be unknown, but our partnership gets more solid and joyful with each passing day we spend together.
It's rare when we get the head and the heart to come into sync about another person. Sometimes it's one thing, a serious physical attraction for example, that sets us off, but the other person fails in one of our additional criteria. One thing I'm certain of, I cannot distinguish attraction from an online dating profile.
My recovery focused on a lot of supportive activities and rituals. The Al-anon meetings provided a healthy and spiritual community for me to stay connected. My Al-anon sponsor continued to show up in my life as a guide and cheerleader.