Category: Words To Live By

Upon first glance, I know that the idea of two best friends hanging out all the time with each may seem beautiful. But when one of them develops romantic feelings for the other, while the other knows they never will, it creates a serious imbalance within that connection. What makes matters even worse for that connection is when the person who doesn’t feel that romantic incline is also codependent and doesn’t like to be alone.

I spent four years of my life dealing with this very thing, and in the long run, it only caused great pain and strife, especially for that person who fell in love with me. Recently, I met two friends whose connection with each other is strikingly similar to the one I had for those four years. They like to spend the majority of their free time alone with each other. They have a movie night together at least once a week. They always do their grocery shopping together on Saturdays. They often cook meals for each other and have those intimate dinners. And there’s a lot more they like to do platonically with each other as well. While all of this may seem harmless, it’s that underlying codependency that creates the imbalance in this type of relationship.

In my case, for the longest time I never wanted to be alone. When I met someone who felt the same and shared similar interests, I quickly latched on. We were initially inseparable, spending the majority of our free moments with each other. I truly treasured this relationship and its closeness. What I didn’t know was that this friend was falling in love with me the whole time. By the time I did, they had become completely smitten with me. At that point, I had become overly dependent on them for various reasons that included my loneliness and state of mental and emotional health.

For a time, none of that seemed to matter and the both of us were like two peas in a pod. The friend who was so taken with me said it was better to have a close friendship with me then nothing at all. And of course, I agreed because deep down I was so insecure and didn’t want to lose all the focus and attention they gave me. But then other friends starting coming into my life where each shifted my attention away from this friend. Some of those new friends included romantic and sexual interests. When each of them began taking some of that regular time away from being with this friend, the imbalances of this codependent connection began to rear their ugly head.

Constant arguing, guilt trips, jealousy, self-pity, anxiety, depression, and even rage all started fueling that relationship. I made matters even worse by eventually trying to force myself to be sexual with that friend who was in love with me. I thought somehow it might make me feel the same way as they did. All that did was reconfirm that I didn’t feel that at all and probably never would. The result of all of those codependent behaviors was a complete imploding to that connection and now I have no ties to that former best friend at all.

There are days that I still wish somehow we could be friends because I remember how good it was early on between the two of us. But I also remember all too well those many anger-filled days where the two of us fought like cats and dogs. That alone, along with being much freer of codependent behaviors these days prevents me from ever going back.

I thank God for helping me to have great compassion today for anyone who ends up being in this type of codependent relationship. I learned an important lesson in life and saw how hard it was to break free from them. I gained the understanding that I was always in them because of my own deep insecurities inside. While I may have loved this former friend on a soul perspective, and still do today, it’s the unspiritual way that connection was built, that made it fragile and weak. Because it wasn’t formed on spiritual principles, it never had the legs to last an eternity.

It’s my hope that my two new friends, who are currently engaging in this type of codependent relationship, will see all of this sooner than later. I want to save them the pain and hardship that I know both my former friend and myself went through as our connection dissolved permanently. But like everything else in this world, sometimes we just have to go through those painful things on our own to figure it out.

So if you should ever find yourself in this type of relationship, I hope you will understand now that there really is a high level of unhealthiness to it. If you truly care about each other, you may want to take more time apart than together, so that things don’t fall apart when others come into the picture down the road. Trust that God will sustain your relationship if it’s meant to, and please know that the two most important relationships to work on in life are the ones you develop with God and yourself…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

I used to take the statement, “You two are like an old married couple!” as a total form of flattery when someone said that to me and the person I was spending time with. Over time though, I realized just how far that was from the truth. I began to notice how each of my connections being told that, never lasted very long. Because of this, how I handle this statement today is completely different when it’s directed towards any one of my relationships. Instead, I use it as a warning sign as it could be indicative of behaviors that are spiritually unhealthy within that connection.

For seven years I was in a domestic partnership with a man, who by the end of it, I secretly loathed. While the first few years of that relationship were wonderful, the last four were not. What most people saw by then were the two of us arguing over just about everything. I lost count of the number of times when people said how much we looked like an old married couple. The same thing can be said of a friendship that I had for about four years with someone in Massachusetts. In that connection, 9 times out of 10 when the two of us were together, minor arguments ensued, irritations flared up, and those around us would say that very same statement about us.

Those are only two examples of the many others when I’ve heard this statement. In each of them, there was always one common factor; lack of control. In many stereotypical old married couples, what that constant bickering is all about generally boils down to one or both not being in control and getting their way. The sad thing is that it’s often rooted in each person’s insecurities and those usually stem from unresolved issues from the past, sometimes even before that relationship ever came together.

In my case, I had a lot of unresolved mother issues up until just a few years ago. My mother was a very controlling person and I spent most of my life caving into each of her demands. As I grew up, I unfortunately became just like her and started trying to control all the people around me that I was close to. So when I wasn’t in control in a situation with any of those people, I’d start bickering and arguing with them in an attempt to get my way. And eventually, someone around that connection would get tired of hearing it and say that it was like that old married couple.

Thankfully, I’ve worked through all of my mother issues and continue to work on letting go of control by turning my will and my life over to the care of God each and every day. Frustratingly, I still heard that statement recently, as a few friends said that of my current partner and I. The difference now is that I can safely say the weight of that statement is not of my own doing. My partner is just starting his own uphill journey to letting go of his past, his control issues, his anger, and other insecurities he’s held onto for an entire lifetime. I plan on supporting him through this because I know we both want to spend the rest of our lives together. He also has the willingness to do the work necessary to get there and so do I. But just as importantly, neither one of us really wants to be like that old married couple who can do nothing more than constantly bicker and argue with each other over way too many things.

So if you are in any type of relationship where someone has told you that “The two of you are like an old married couple!”, you may want to take it as a wake-up call. While I believe it’s next to impossible to completely avoid ALL bickering and arguing, seeing it take place day after day isn’t spiritually healthy for either of you. Underlying each of those confrontations are control issues and deeply imbedded insecurities that need to be addressed. By avoiding them, you may find your relationship ending like so many of my own did. By working through them, you may find your relationship enduring, and even better, you may never have to hear that statement again.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

I live in Toledo now where it’s seeing one of its coldest and snowiest winters on record. As much as I am struggling to deal with this frigid weather, I have been searching for that “diamond in the rough” when it comes to these recent elements here. And a few days ago, I actually found it when I saw that Lake Erie had completely frozen over.

One of the aspects of nature that I seem to have always been drawn to in life is to bodies of water like Lake Erie. I learned recently in my spiritual studies that the closest way we all have to experience God or Heaven is through communing in some part of nature. For me that generally have led to sitting near a stream, a river, a pond, a lake, or an ocean and being still. But rarely have I ever gotten to experience the temperatures being cold enough to allow me to walk or sit on any of the large bodies of water I’ve been drawn to. But that all changed the other day when I went down to Lake Erie and saw that it was completely frozen over.

It’s one thing to walk out on a small pond that’s completely frozen over like I often did as a kid. But it’s quite another thing altogether to venture out 1/2 mile onto a solid mass like Lake Erie has become lately. On a day that had crystal clear blue skies and not a breadth of wind stirring at all, I had cautiously taken one step after another alongside my closest friend out onto the ice of this huge lake. In the areas we walked, it was several feet thick where no level of foot stomping could break any of it. As the sun baked my face and warmed my body, I found it strange to think the temperature outside was only in the teens. By the time we came to a rest, the shoreline was far off in the distance and it was then that I did something that I felt completely connected me Source. I laid down on Lake Erie and spread my arms and legs out as far as they could. If there was a moment I could experience what I’d hope God or Heaven would be like, it was then.

For a guy like me who has been enduring such high levels of physical pain and waiting patiently upon God for any form of relief, being able to go that far out onto a large mass of ice was pure bliss. And even though it seemed to pass by in a blink of an eye, I know that for all those moments I was out there, I was a part of something greater that I can only hope was God.

So while it’s been easy to complain about how cold and how frozen life seems to be around here in this city lately, I am grateful that I was able to find something so beautiful within it. And what I discovered out there on frozen Lake Erie the other day, truly confirmed that age-old adage that there’s always a diamond somewhere in the rough…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson