Relationship Advice

My place of employment is a bed and breakfast in an old historic home; its owner is a redheaded, middle-aged, once-married, faith-talking man with extraneous amounts of monetary resources. He's a rich chap with an expensive house. (I hate to write so often about my precarious situations at work, but they are far too interesting to leave slighted.) And it is not just a house that he owns and operates - it is a house he resides in. On one entire half of the second floor of the home is his “"master suite;”" once a successful lawyer's bachelor pad - minus the occasional visit from his son - this grown man's paradise is slowly being feminized by traces of pink and of smells more fruity and floral than one should imagine for a man living alone.

So, as a housekeeper in this aged mansion, my responsibilities are many. Most simply, they would be described as the duties that attend to the thorough cleaning and particular operating functions of the place. This includes turning down any variety of the four guest rooms, laundering the endless stock of towels and bedding, dusting the wooden stairs and rails, vacuuming any visible area of floor space, and also managing to run a few errands here and there (spending unimaginable amounts of money on dinner rolls and mixed nuts).

Intermittently, my employer chooses to make things a bit more personal, apart from his daily orders and requests. He will ask, as I am single-handedly carrying in a collection of twenty-four bath towels and three bulk cases of thirty-six rolls of toilet paper from the car, how life is going and whether I am happy. Occasionally we'’ll talk like friends, and he'’ll update me on the goings-on of his relationship with the aforementioned source of girlish colors and sweet scents. She'’s a beautiful woman really, at least ten years his junior and a "“total knockout."” Though I have only seen her a time or two, my occasional tidying of the proprietor'’s closet show increasing amounts of evidence of a keen eye for fashion (and shoes).

Recently, I came into work in a bit of a volatile state -– eyes red and a bit puffy. This is not an abnormal sight for those who realize my emotional tendencies (I tell you, I am stable, just in touch with my feelings -– both good and bad). However, for a man who has only seen my exceptional skills at toilet cleaning and a bit of my workplace humor, this sight took him aback. He asked, first, if I was pregnant; after telling him that would be impossible, and his quick refutation of that point, he went on to pull a chair out for me to sit and unload.

Seeing as how this wasn'’t necessary and, in hindsight, none too smart, I should have known to keep on with my business and try for once to be a bit more opaque (as opposed to transparent). I divulged little but gave him enough to prepare a lecture fitting for a psychologist'’s keynote address. And albeit honorable and kind, a great deal of what he had to say was the result of a man who claims to have found wholeness after a string of bad relationships and years of mistrust. He "“let too many unsafe people in"” and wishes now to educate young people of the necessity of dating around and waiting until after you are thirty to marry.

I respect his motivation and was even slightly honored by the time he devoted to our conversation. A repetitive mention of the wonders of seeing a particular Christian counselor, the lending of a "“wonder-working" book, and a been-there-done-that sort of attitude, though, is not enough to convince me that his advice was completely appropriate. And while I do, in my trials, heed the wisdom of people who mentor and encourage me, situations as I have found myself in recently lead me ever more to believe that relationship advice is almost always relative (go figure).

The pursuit of wholeness, I believe, is a worthy mention and I can agree with him on measures such as that. But to tell me, in a bold way, that I should probably face up to the fact that my present relationship will eventually end and I need to worry most about me, just is not agreeable. Who am I to take the reigns on what God is so delicately and yet, masterfully leading? It is foolish, also, to claim wholeness and to house, whether on mental or physical shelves the remains of a broken life -– a wounded ex-marriage and a misdirected seeking of validation. And to portray such a strength, and yet be bound up by such a weakness!

You see, that very same day, I was carrying out my noble and glamorous duties, which were confined (on this particular afternoon) to his suite and found something. I found evidence of a hidden struggle between the pleasures of beauty and the passivity of a man. John Eldredge describes this struggle in Wild at Heart as that "“which happens when a man insists on being energized by a woman,"” saying "he uses her to get a feeling that he is a man." And with even more resolve, he writes this: "“It is a false strength... because it depends on an outside source rather than emanating from deep within his center. And it is the paragon of selfishness. He offers nothing and takes everything" (187).

And I wonder, not without equal portions of judgment and discretion, as to what remains of this man'’s future. He and "sweetheart" were newly engaged on Saturday evening and his words of celebration and "encouragement" to me were "“It was perfect; I treated her like a princess and she loved it. It's good to know that, this time around, I am a great man with a great woman,– and only then can you have a great relationship. We are whole and we are in love -– I can only wish the same for you."

Maybe my idea of wholeness is different, and maybe it is true that since no two people are ever alike, no relationships are ever truly alike. And lessons like these are good for me, aside from the context of my own struggles in relationship. I remember that my hurt and my trials are not ever truly about me or about fixing me, nor the other person -– because even man'’s greatest attempts come up short. Every relationship has its kinks. But maybe the hands the carry the heavy loads might be the best to straighten them, and I don'’t mean those hands are mine.

Nor are they any other’s but His.