The Special Relationship, Marriage, and True Love
Chapter 16, The Forgiveness of Illusions, VI. The Bridge to the Real World
July 5, 2009
Tom Baker (tbaker@omega.hrcoxmail.com)

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In the current issue of Time Magazine (July 13, 2009) there is an article entitled "Why Marriage Matters" by Caitlin Flanagan. The article bemoans the current state of marriage by citing various politicians and television personalities who have cheated on their wives. Ms. Flanagan holds up Barack and Michelle Obama as a rare and coveted example of a marriage that works. The point that runs through the article like a dark thread of ego is that love is not what makes the Obama’s or any other marriage successful. It is something else:

“Think of the touching moments on Inauguration Night, when at ball after ball, crowds of young people swooned at the sight of Barack and Michelle Obama dancing together, artlessly but sincerely and clearly with great affection. They are an immensely appealing couple, and it was a historic night, but what we saw reflected in the faces of those awed young people----and in the country’s insatiable appetite for photographs of the First Family’s private life----was wonder at the sight of a middle-aged man and woman still together, still in love.

We want something like that for ourselves; we recognize that it is something of great worth, but we are increasingly less willing to put in the hard work and personal sacrifice to get there. The Obamas, for example, are enjoying their time of family closeness after almost two years of enforced separation, an interlude that would have caused many less committed couples to turn in their cards and give up. A lasting marriage is the reward, usually, of hard work and self-sacrifice.” (p. 48).

The article is wonderfully articulate but is shadowed by the implicit threat of the loss of marital bliss unless married people knuckle down and accept the misery of sacrifice and a commitment signed in blood. Like the ego it assumes that love is something that must be paid for and that is finally grounded in guilt.

I heard essentially the same speech given in the form of sermons at Catholic weddings and watched as Catholic couples grimly nodded in obedience to the ego doctrine of love as sacrifice. As a middle- aged man happily married for seventeen years I would cite forgiveness and blessing and a definition of love beyond my romantic fantasies as the secret of a lasting and happy union. The Course puts it this way: “The search for the special relationship is the sign that you equate yourself with the ego and not with God. For the special relationship has value only to the ego. To the ego, unless a relationship has special value it has no meaning, for it perceives all love as special. Yet this cannot be natural, for it is unlike the relationship of God and His Son, and all relationships that are unlike this one must be unnatural. For God created love as He would have it be, and gave it as it is. Love has no meaning except as its Creator defined it by His Will. It is impossible to define it otherwise and understand it.

Love is freedom. To look for it by placing yourself in bondage is to separate yourself from it. For the Love of God, no longer seek for union in separation, nor for freedom in bondage! As you release, so will you be released. Forget this not, or Love will be unable to find you and comfort you. There is a way in which the Holy Spirit asks your help, if you would have His. The holy instant is His most helpful aid in protecting you from the attraction of guilt, the real lure in the special relationship. You do not recognize that this is its real appeal, for the ego has taught you that freedom lies in it. Yet the closer you look at the special relationship, the more apparent it becomes that it must foster guilt and therefore must imprison.” (Text, Chap. 16, VI. p. 345).

Special love is the ego’s invention. It is exclusive, unique to the person and better than love from any other source, and involves sacrifice from both parties. Holy love, which is God’s creation, is inclusive and common to all persons since all of us are made of love and involves no loss. The great temptation for us all, however, is guilt, so the ego builds its version of love around our doubt that we neither have nor are enough. When I have listened to people struggling in marriage their conversation is full of blame, accusation, and boasts of sacrifices made but not appreciated, usually on both sides. The feeling I often have is that both people feel the other has not done enough for them and that the other is worse than they are. In other words, “They are more guilty than I am.”

Those who are happily married talk of one another as people they admire, respect, and genuinely like. There is often the stated intention of accepting each other for who they are rather than who or what the spouse wanted them to be. There is also often the idea that the love they share is somehow beyond both of them and is something to share with others rather than a special treasure unlike any love the world has known. I find it interesting that Holy love is not some arcane notion locked in the pages of A Course In Miracles but is quite common when people look in the right direction. And what direction is that? The direction that points to love as acceptance. Forgiveness plus blessing maintain that acceptance. Like spirituality, acceptance is deepened as life is lived and challenges are faced with trust and curiosity rather than accusation and suspicion.

The Course describes the special relationship, finally, as a prison. When people meet the special person who is more special than the special person they no longer love, they often speak in terms of that person giving them freedom. While the sentiment is correct, unfortunately the solution will wear out. However, there is always the opportunity to look into the eyes of whomever it may be, special or not, and recognize the divine friend. In that holy instant the ancient melody of inclusive love is remembered and the dance of eternity is continued.

P.S. At the group last night (July 5th) I told the story of three fighter pilots (as seen on CBS Sunday Morning), two American and one Vietnamese who through a series of circumstances met one another and became friends, visiting one another and meeting each other’s grandchildren. The statement the correspondent made that summed it all up and that I could not remember was: “War is a disagreement between friends who have not yet had a chance to meet.” This quote delights me and reminds me of the Course statement, “You are still as God created you” in that both transcend time and speak of a peace both in us and between us that has never left but at times is forgotten and yet to be discovered.