My daughter has been going through a difficult time in these past couple of months. I don’t want to share particulars, except to say that she’s dealing with having been abandoned by someone she was very close to — someone to whom she was a very loving and caring friend. It happened very unexpectedly, without warning, and left us all reeling.
Ashlynne has dealt with some difficult and heartbreaking things before, but there is something going on here that feels much different to me. It feels like a loss of innocence, as though her childhood has abruptly ended. Perhaps it’s because it’s yet another ending — like the end of high school, the end of living at home, and the end of the arc of her first eighteen years. Because it came so quickly and so painfully, it’s resonating across all these other endings.
It’s like a tear in the fabric of Ashlynne’s past. It hurts to imagine her going off to college without the tie to the past that this friend represents. There’s barely a thing that Ashlynne owns that doesn’t have the memory of her friend intertwined with it from the past five years of their lives together. And so, her friend’s absence is always palpable.
We’ve had a number of long talks about the situation, and Ashlynne is aware that she has done nothing wrong. So we’re not spending any time on second-guessing and self-blame, thank God. Instead, we’re starting to talk about the kind of people we are in this family, how it feels when people take and walk away, and how to care for our hearts and minds in these kinds of situations.
I have been in Ashlynne’s shoes many times in my life. It’s in my nature to be helpful. It makes me happy, and it rarely feels like a burden. And even when it does feel like a burden, it gives me satisfaction to carry it. Many times, I’ve been the person to give with an open heart, only to find that the other party is nowhere to be found when my hour of need arrives, or when it’s time to celebrate a joyful event.
I’m not talking about helping by giving money or material things, as I don’t give either away very easily at all. It tends to complicate friendships, and besides, I’m eminently practical and sensible when it comes to both. I’ve never been ripped off or taken advantage of financially, and I never will. In financial matters, it’s in my nature to be deeply suspicious and to exercise an abundance of caution.
But emotionally and spiritually, I flow outward. I used to think this basic approach derived from my autism. I used to think that, because I have neither the ability nor the desire to manipulate people, I’m just open to what they need and how I can help, and that I get blindsided when they don’t reciprocate.
But I was wrong. It’s not the autism at all. My neurotypical daughter, my neurotypical ex-husband, and my neurotypical present husband all operate just as I do, and they’re all just as capable of being blindsided. None of us thinks that life is all about us, none of us holds back from wanting to help people in difficulty, and none of us, in our heart of hearts, really expects things to go as badly as they sometimes do.
My ex-husband used to sum up his relationships with other people by saying, “I’m the guy who always picks up and drops people off at the airport, but when it’s my turn, people just tell me to take a taxi.” I spent a lot of time in that taxi with him, literally and figuratively, over the thirteen years of our relationship, so I know that he’s right.
My present husband is also a very generous person whose first impulse is always to ask how he can help. What’s troubling is how often people take that help completely for granted. He does it all so lovingly, so patiently, and so well that people often think that he’s some sort of higher being to whom it all comes naturally. They’ll recite an encomium on Bob and what a wonderful person he is, but deep down, most of them have no understanding whatsoever that he has worked very, very hard, throughout his life, to have the spiritual and emotional discipline to do what he does. It’s not something you’re just born being able to do. Yes, he’s got some great raw material to work with, but without all his years of spiritual and emotional work, all that great raw material would have come to nothing.
And what’s even more upsetting to me is how few people understand or appreciate how much the giving takes out of him, and how much support he needs.
And my daughter is all about counting her blessings and wanting to share them with others. She is welcoming, generous, and caring. I don’t think it ever occurred to her that what just happened was a possibility. Sure, people can have a falling out, but you’ve got some warning there. You know that things are not good, and you’re in conflict. In this situation, there was no warning. Absolutely none. It just happened, like a piano being thrown out a fourth-story window and barely missing your head.
It tears my heart out. It really does. I feel sad, and I feel well and truly pissed, too.
But all I can do, in addition to supporting Ashlynne emotionally, is to work through the current issue with an eye to how to approach these situations in the future. So I’ve been reflecting on relationships lately, and on the things I’ve learned that might be helpful to Ashlynne as she enters adult life.
There are some situations in which you can make a conscious choice to give, without any expectation of reciprocity. That’s a very high ethical level of giving, and perfectly appropriate in some situations. It’s not a bad way to live, so long as you’re aware of what you’re doing and why.
But you can’t base a friendship or an intimate relationship on that kind of imbalance. There has to be reciprocity. So I’ve learned, over the years, to scope people out better. I don’t just pour out all my giving at once anymore. I see what the other person is capable of, and I try to match it. It’s never perfect, but I’m getting better at it. So I’ve suggested to Ashlynne that she stay mindful of holding a balance and that, when the balance is upset, that she be aware of it and how to bring it back to center.
Of course, part of what feeds an imbalanced relationship is a failure to articulate needs. When I don’t assert my own preferences, I have no way to gauge the other person’s level of commitment to me and what he or she is truly capable of giving. In the absence of that information, there is no way to adjust the level of giving in a friendship. I just end up “on” until the other person is done taking or I’m exhausted, both of which often happen pretty much simultaneously.
It’s been good to look at these things, because it means that I can help my daughter along the path. But in the final analysis, everyone in this family is going to be open to the kind of hurt that Ashlynne is going through right now. I don’t think there is any way to completely protect against it without closing off and distorting our true natures. We can take steps to avoid these kinds of situations, but we’ll never be immune to them, because we will so often take the emotional risks that come with doing the right thing.
I’ve come to accept the situation for myself, to some degree, but I’m having a much harder time accepting it for Ashlynne.
In my worst moments, I feel like an absolute fool for having raised Ashlynne to be a kind and ethical person. In the past week, I’ve actually thought to myself, “What an idiot I’ve been! If only I’d just said to her, ‘Honey, just go out there and take from the world. Giving is for saps.’” Instead, throughout her entire childhood, we discussed Torah, and did role ethical playing, and made a commitment to being the hands of God in the world. Sometimes, it feels as though I’ve sold my daughter a bill of goods.
But I know I haven’t. I know I’ve taught her about what’s highest and holiest in life. The solution to the madness of “me, me, me” isn’t to become part of the problem. If I’d raised my kid that way, I’d have done major damage to her essential nature — and to mine.
So am I a fool to be giving in a world in which so many people just take? Perhaps. But I’m beginning to realize that if I’m a fool, I’m a fool in the service of what’s right. I’m not big on the question of belief in God, but I am very big on my experience of God, and doing right is the experience of God in the world for me. In the eyes of the world, maybe I look like a fool to think about giving before taking. But I’m learning not to care. Doing what’s right makes me feel safe, and sane, and connected to something greater than myself. The opinions of other people really can’t hold a candle to that feeling.
So screw the wisdom of the world. Yes, there’s a lot of difficulty and disappointment on this path, and sometimes, I wish I could save my daughter from it. But I know that I’d be interfering with the beauty and wonder of who she is, and with her connectedness with all that is, and that, I will never do.
© 2011 by Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg