When a Woman Loves a Man

 

 

Remember what it felt like to fall in love for the very first time? It was so special. It was mind blowing, earth shattering and exciting ecstasy. It was also a scary, stomach churning and nerve-wracking bittersweet misery. Being reminiscent of our first experience with falling in love, it was around age fifteen (on an average), and we probably experienced a falling in love episode at least every six months or so. We could fall in and out of love at breakneck speed, and each time we began the experience it was as if it was for the first time with all of the butterflies and the wonderment.

Those times were innocent in spite of the experimentation that we all did with certain activities involving the boys we were in love with. They were awkward, yet possessing a passion that was both tender and potent. Some boys were more knowledgeable than others, and they were often called “bad boys”. And didn’t every young girl (regardless of her social status, or her family background) secretly entertain thoughts and desires to be possessed by a bad boy? You know the type; arrogant high school delinquent who smoked and drank hard liquor, had no curfews, drove a fast car he had rebuilt with his own hands, and always had girls waiting in line to be with him.

As we grew older, we stopped falling in love as easily but no less passionately. We still have a hidden susceptibility to the attraction of a bad boy. Only now, he is older, better looking, more arrogant and self- possessed and has more money. He can afford to wine and dine us and make our hearts flutter in different and much more intimate ways that often border on the raucous. This man can manifest himself in our dreams, in our private moments and he can haunt us with his sullen ways that both attract and repel us.

What’s love got to do with it? Just about everything. Heart and soul, fire and desire, the willingness to overcome any obstacle to being with this man that may present itself, and a determination born of an almost desperate  desire to possess and be possessed. No mountain is too high to climb, no river is too wide to cross and no problem is too hard to solve if it tries to separate us from the man we love. We will disregard common sense, all practical reasoning, all objectivity and lose ourselves in the sheer moments of pleasure when we are with him.

Sometimes this kind of deep loving can cloud our perspectives and affect our judgment. We get ourselves into all kinds of trouble when we allow feelings to rule our entire life. Love is a beautiful thing; it is a normal human emotion. But it can be deadly to our emotional health and even physically if our minds become obsessed with an unnatural love. Many women have fallen prey to the dark side of love and have been victims of an abusive love. Many women have committed violent acts in the name of love because of a proprietary jealousy.

But it’s true that we give our all to a man when we love. Even if we’re not sure we will get what we give in return. Doesn’t matter, it’s all or nothing. Some of you may disagree with me, but that’s okay. You’re entitled to your opinion, but think about what you feel right now, or what you felt when you realized you were in love with someone. That someone can be your husband or your boyfriend, or someone from your past. You won’t have much difficulty thinking back to how you waited for a phone call, how distressed you became when he was late or didn’t show up at all with no explanation, or even worse…how you felt when you imagined him with someone else.

Love…is a many splendor thing, and it’s great when we can keep it that way; untarnished by jealousy, envy, mistrust or infidelity. But that won’t stop us from loving and it won’t stop us from giving.  The stakes are high and sometimes the odds are not in our favor but we are in it to win it…all or nothing with our hearts on fire.

Can't Buy Me Love...Helena's Story

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an’t buy me love, love, everybody tells me so. Can’t buy me love ..no..no..no..no..no!*  One of the clearest revelations that Helena Clayton had while being confined to her hospital bed was that her husband Stanford had spent the better part of their married life trying to buy her and to keep her bought. She didn’t even have to search the recesses of her mind to arrive at this. Suddenly it just appeared to her as clear as glass that he had constantly paid her off in material possessions, cash, trinkets and gifts and all the while she was either totally clueless or very adept at mastering the art of repression.

The burning question she was now faced with was could she have known all along that the married love she thought they had shared was based on a monetary foundation? And fresh on the heels of that was an even worse possibility; could she have known and chosen to ignore it, opting for the dollar signs and what money could buy?

Arranged marriages and contract alliances don’t even try to disguise the fact that money pays a huge part in their lives together. But for couples who supposedly marry for love and mutual honor and respect are not supposed to put dollar signs in the forefront of their lives. As she recalled the times from their courtship and engagement and their early years as a married couple, she didn’t remember anything significant that may have alerted her to consider trouble ahead because of money, and she didn’t remember Stanford doing anything out of the ordinary. He came from a wealthy family and was used to living a life of privilege.

She was from a middle class family and her parents provided the basic comforts of life for her and her siblings, and although they had many extras such as dance and piano lessons for the girls, and sports for the boys, it was known that there was a budget that must be kept so that their lifestyle could be maintained. Helena and her sisters Rosalind (Rosie Gal”) and Amy Anne along with her brothers Michael Thomas (“Pooch”) and Alexander Joseph (“JoJo”) appreciated the few luxuries her parents could afford and none of then ever took anything for granted. They may not have belonged to the upper crust of society like the Claytons, but her Mom and Dad were honest salt of the earth people who did their best for them and loved each other without indiscretion and were still Mr.& Mrs. Thomas Joseph Yancey for nearly sixty years.

Her daughter had delivered the message from Stanford about him being sorry and all. The thing is Helena could believe it. She felt the ring of truth to his appeal. And she had faced the cold, awful, damning truth about herself; that she was ultimately responsible for what had happened. She had pushed the envelope over the edge by first of all having the affair with Griffin, while knowing that he and Stanford were “acquainted”, and worst of all by admitting to sleeping with another man. She had played with fire by dangling the affair in front of her friends…her very best friends who had given her unfailing support always and even in this terrible mess had proven to still love her without interruption.

She had not only thrown all caution to the wind and danced with danger by not trying to be discreet so the rage that her husband had felt and its subsequent effects came as no surprise to her, but that didn’t mean she condoned violence and the physical injury he had caused her, but it did mean she could understand his hurt and his pain because she was the inflictor. She had every intention of forgiving him and dropping all charges against him in court and going back home if he wanted her.

If he had tried to buy her love, wasn’t she just as wrong if she willingly allowed him to continue doing it? Shouldn’t she have talked to him about it and let him know that the money and privilege was nowhere near as important to her as he was? Instead she had let him think for years that without the huge house and all of its appointments, the new cars, the unsupervised spending on shopping trips, luxury vacations and the prestige of being Mrs. Stanford Clayton were the basis for her living. She fell in love with him right after they first met and has loved him ever since.

Her affair happened because she was an attention hog. It had to always be about her, and because her hard-working husband was working 60 hours a week and maybe hadn’t paid as much attention to her as a result, she fell prey (willingly) to a man who paid her a few compliments and noticed her designer outfits and her $100 hairdos. Yes, it’s true what they say about hindsight. There was a lot of hard work ahead if she and her husband could agree to salvage the shreds of their marriage and start over again building them up, and this time money would not play as important a part as it always had.

The sun would shine again in her life and of that she was as sure as she was of who she is: Helena Charlene Yancey Clayton. She was actually excited about becoming a new woman, a better person who would then be ready to be a better wife and friend to her husband. Thank God for grace and mercy and forgiveness, and she would make the first move. She would call her home and speak to her husband and she would be comforted by the familiar sound of his voice. Some things would never change…and for that she was grateful.

*Excerpt from “Can’t Buy Me Love by “The Beatles”.

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Snapshots and Memories

How many of us are still holding on to old photographs of past loves and mementoes from old love affairs and relationships? Probably more of us than we want to admit. I used to have a collection that I kept in a shoebox and a couple of small photo albums with photos of me and an old boyfriend that were at least twenty years old. Why was I holding on to these pictures? Really…as for the small albums with this particular person in them with me I just didn’t know why. I mean, it’s not like we parted on good terms or anything, and there was nothing I could think of that was even remotely pleasant to think about or long for. Finally I did trash them but the real reason why I did will be revealed in the next few paragraphs.

The gentleman that I was involved with next was the one in the shoe box photographs. We had a long term relationship that was extremely exciting for its duration, pleasant to recall, and ended on friendly terms. It took a little longer to rid myself of the shoebox than it did the albums. And by the time we both realized that our time together had run its course, the memories of the things we did together and the fun we had shared had diminished to a fuzzy mist on the horizon of my mind.

The true reason I had tossed the albums was because I had started going through a major change in my life and my lifestyle. I had wanted to become a better person and I desired a deeper spiritual walk with God. I knew that in order to walk upright in his sight I had to be willing to let go of the carnality in my life, and I had to remove all of the reminders of that carnal life. Hence the significance of throwing out the photographs was a symbol of the throwing out of the attachments to my old self.

The soul searching cleansing of the relationship with the shoebox gentleman was a bit more extreme and it took a little longer to complete. Like it took about five years to finish letting go of all the pictures I had accumulated along with some of the gifts. The very first revelation that I had about changing my lifestyle came about four years before I started separating from him physically and mentally. I remember being inspired to give away the stuff he had bought for me over time and when I made up my mind to get rid of it I started out pretty big. My grand gesture of self-discovery and re-engineering began with the give away of a beautiful full length lambskin leather coat. I figured that the bigger the sacrifice the bigger the reward.

Now this was years before I discovered that there are no good works I could ever do to gain a heavenly reward. God does not hand out “great job” or “good work” certificates and stickers for what we call doing good things. We cannot earn his love or his favor…it is freely given through salvation and the redemptive powers of his grace. So, I could have kept the coat and all of the others things I subsequently got rid of and had I known the value of a true relationship with God it wouldn’t have mattered.

Nevertheless, it’s all over now. All of the snapshots are gone and all of the memories have faded into once in a while recollections. Mostly I just think about how different I am now from then and how those experiences taught me valuable life lessons, and that’s what I think about when and if I allow myself to recall any of those years in those relationships.

Growing up can happen at any age and it’s not merely for the progressive ages from birth to adulthood. Life recycles itself and we are constantly learning, reaching and growing and never get too old to benefit from the recycling. As long as I remain in motion and not become stagnant, look forward and not backwards (except for retrospect) and focus on being in the present with a hope for the future I will gain more than we ever lost from the tossing away of old snapshots.