Question: If I see that my husband doesn’t appreciate me, do I have to put this feeling aside?

Answer: No, you shouldn’t extinguish the feeling, but try to rise above it. You establish such an attitude regarding your husband that is as if you are receiving absolute love from him.

Question: Should I share my feelings with him?

Answer: Yes, of course. Tell him, “According to my nature, egoistically, I feel that I am not getting enough love and care from you. You don’t care about me like you used to; you don’t bring me flowers; you don’t show that you care. We don’t live the way we used to when we were young, when we were happy together and used to spend more time together. Today, it is as if each one is sitting in his corner and my demands from you have grown to such an extent that it’s as if they are filling our whole mutual relations.

But I don’t want anything from you except for one thing: Instead of complaining to one another, let’s present the complaints to ourselves. Let’s see each other’s deficiencies as our own. Let’s do this psychological exercise.

This exercise will help each one see his partner as perfect and yourself as not so perfect. Then above all our flaws, we will try to treat each other like partners, this is the actual wholeness. Eventually, despite everything that’s going on, I will treat you only with love, like a mother treats her child according to the principle “Love covers all transgressions.”

I demand the same thing from my partner, since his attitude towards me will increase my attitude towards him. I also need a good and correct model from him so he has to treat our efforts in the work above the ego seriously. The better my partner’s example is, the higher and more important he will seem to me, and the more respect I will feel towards him. This will give me the power to repay him to the same extent.

On the one hand, I have to raise my partner in my eyes and to appreciate the model he portrays. After all, he overcomes his impulses, and at the exact same time I discover a “weakness” as my ego pulls me by the legs downwards and doesn’t allow me to rise above myself. On the other hand, I should always be responsible and be a model for my partner and thereby empower him. Thus we become models for each other. Each one tries to be both the other’s teacher and student at the same time; once he raises his head and once he lowers it. This mutual support is already the right equal mutual connection. Thereby our mutual interdependence is revealed.

We have to discover the benefit that we get time after time, the new system of our mutual relations that is based on mutual concessions and on each one overcoming himself. We rise to the level of mutual love by leaving the mutual complaints below, but we don’t destroy anything and don’t “sweep under the carpet” anything, but only build something new from the same blocks, the same inner urges that constantly increase the ego.

Therefore, we constantly feel mutually dependent. I have to constantly support my partner and be a model of overcoming, and I need the same thing from him. Thus we become true partners against our common ego, against our common enemy, which we call the “serpent.” By confronting it we begin to get closer to each other and this makes us one whole.
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From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” 7/11/12”

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