mutual ambivalence.
These were the words that came to me as I was contemplating my relationship with my mother this morning.
Mutual ambivalence.
Esther Perel speaks to ambivalence in all ranges and types of relationships:
“Ambivalence exists in every relational configuration, but we put a lot of pressure on romantic love, in particular, to rise above it. We are taught that love is unconditional, passion is absolute, and that finding “the one” should clear us of all doubt. But relationships are never black and white. We learn that romantic love is supposed to flood us with certainty and thus there is no room for ambivalence. But ambivalence is as intrinsic to relationships as love itself.”
“Ambivalence is an uncomfortable feeling. Heavy with contradictions, it makes us doubt our feelings and choices. It can cause us to think we’ve failed or that, no matter what decision we make, we will fail. This discomfort makes us crave a definitive answer. So we force ourselves one way or the other.”
For me, this tangible experience of mutual ambivalence interfaced with me in a moment this morning.
My mom had put aside an article she wanted me to read. It was obviously important to her and I also suspected, given our major differences of how we see the world as a whole, it would shed a very different perspective on my own views of the world.
Another layer still is that it was a religious/faith-based theme – a place in my own life I’ve spent decades unraveling, healing, and disentangling myself from some very fundamentally toxic and cultish systems.
I read the article.
As suspected there were some points that emphasized and validated a lot of her viewpoints of the world. As I read the article, I could recognize where certain points would have likely stood out to her and why she was adamant on sharing the message it contained.
In my internal conversations, my mind automatically started to find the relevant points of mutual agreement, as well as the problematic language, and obvious contradictions and hypocrisy in the authors proclamations.
My internal dialogue transitioned into the contemplation of whether or not it would be worth it to talk about these points with my mother. On one hand, the article is clearly important to her, and on the other hand, having an understanding and experience of her capacity to hold the kind of conversation that would be generative and interesting vs. defensive and combative, I decided that it wasn’t worth the energy to talk about the article’s theme or contents.
I simply told her “I read the article. Thanks for thinking of me. If you’d like to pass it along to your sister, I’m done with it now. Thanks again.”
There is a part of me that recognizes that I had just shut the door.
The relational door of closeness, intimacy, and deeper understanding.
And I did it intentionally.
A part of me felt sad.
Had this been someone else and not my mother, knowing myself, I would have taken the invitation and opened the door.
As I stood in front of the fridge door, I thought to myself of how I would have asked “what part of (quoting article) stood out to you?”, “why was that part important to you?” “what do you think about this part (quoting article)?”
There is a deep part of me that will always wish for having that kind of relationship with my own mother – the kind where her desire to really understand and get to know me matches mine for her.
In this moment to multilayered clarity, I feel grateful, I feel sad, and those words sift into my conciousness.
Mutual ambivalence.
In the same way my mother is ambivalent to really getting to know and understand me as a person, so have I for her.
I have come to a kind of uneasy peace with this.
Uneasy, because it is human nature to need closeness and intimacy – particularly with our parents.
Peace, because it is a conscious decision and one made with a large dose of acceptance for what is and a reverence for the practice of how I want to relate (and be related to).
Unconditional love is hard.
Accepting people for who they really are (vs. who we want them to be) is hard.
Accepting our parents for who they really are is harder.
We are fighting a tide of biointelligence and programming to survive.
We are struggling against instincts from deep within our subconscious nervous system.
Self compassion and a healthy dose of grace are mandatory.
Esther Perel writes that we often deal with ambivalence in three main ways:
- We leave. We cut and run.
- We justify staying even if it doesn’t feel right.
- We hold the ambivalence.
I’ve done all of the above.
With my relationship with my mother (and family), I’ve left (and immigrated to an entirely different country). I’ve stayed (it’s your mother – she loves you despite all of the things and difficulties you are experiencing, right?). I’ve cut and run (several years of no contact and intensive, multilayered approach to therapy and healing).
I now hold the ambivalence.
To this third place, Esther writes:
“Ambivalence takes up emotional real estate in every relationship; it just depends how much. We often think we need to resolve the tension and come to a resolution. Sometimes we do (in abusive relationships, especially). In most situations, however, holding the ambivalence is, in itself, a form of radical acceptance. This may be true for how we accept our relationships and for how we accept ourselves.
This option asks us to sit with the feeling of ambivalence for a while. Stop trying to justify, stop negotiating, and just sit with it. Can we accept that we can wholly love a person without having to love every part of them? This is a much more realistic expectation of romantic love and relationships. Maybe it’s healthy to allow ourselves to really, really not like the person we love sometimes. Maybe it’s a necessity. Consider this: perhaps the highest form of love isn’t unconditional. Maybe it’s closer to Terry Real’s description of self-esteem: our ability to see ourselves as flawed and still hold ourselves in high regard. Can we do that for our relationships, too?”
In my own experience in learning to sit with and hold ambivalence, I’ve learned that it is not a final point or destination.
I will never get “there” or anywhere really.
There is constant nuance, moment to moment decision making.
There is a continual practice that guides me away from my learned black and white thinking patterns and lets me sit in the complexity of the moment presented to me – the now of it.
There is no “always” nor “absolute” in where and how I chose to embody my boundaries.
There are no hard and fast rules.
There is allowing for more space, more nuance, more subtlety, and tons more of checking into my internal state.
There is more grace and space for my and my mother’s humanity, limitations, and honest capacities.
What are the small and subtle things we can practice and embody in order to improve our ability to see ourselves as flawed and still hold ourselves in high regard?
With love,
Jenn