This is a page from “The Art of Being Agreeably Difficult,” a non-journal journaling package I put together for Libra season. There’s lots of food for thought in it about how we behave in our relationships.
If you don’t like journaling, this is the journal for you. Journaling is not a requirement, either.
I believe this is one of the most important pages in the package because it is a Libra lesson many of us need to learn. It took me 55 years to learn it. I hope you’ve learned it sooner than I did.
My mother-in-law was … difficult. I wasn’t alone in my description. A cousin who grew up with her said, “She was always sour.” Another close family member said, “She didn’t used to be this way.” Another person remarked, “She’s contrary.” I choose “difficult.” I won’t go into all the details, but it was an extremely stressful relationship.
My husband and I were her caregivers. She lived with us. Though she was able-bodied in the early years that she lived with us, she wouldn’t lift a hand. I wanted to love my mother-in-law. I really did, but it just wasn’t possible. I carried a lot of guilt about that.
Until one day, I was talking to some of my girlfriends and one, a Libra by the way, said, “You know, love is not a requirement.”
A light went on that has never gone out. It was one of the most helpful things I’ve ever heard and changed the course of our remaining years together. Things got much better for me, by the way. I didn’t really worry about her. Just did the job.
No more guilt. No more trying to do things that were “loving.” I did my duty. Cleaning, shopping, cooking. My care for her was dutiful, but love was no longer a self-imposed requirement.
There’s a line in Monster’s Ball (2001) I’ll never forget. Hank (Billy Bob Thornton) is taking his truly repulsive father to a nursing home to salvage his relationship with Leticia (Halle Berry), his new love. Upon getting his father admitted, the administrator says to Hank, “You must love him very much.” Hank replies, “No, but he’s my father.”
I’m sure that many people have found themselves in a situation similar to mine and have not yet come to understand that love isn’t a requirement. It isn’t. And the guilt of not loving is not a requirement, either.
