With all the recent press surrounding the murder-suicide of Steve McNair and his mistress, I started thinking to myself. Is commitment really that hard? Is giving your all to one person and in return receiving their all not enough? It is that we become too greedy and selfish to realize that there can be no good ending to cheating? I mean some people recover, but most are truly damaged once that trust boundary has been breached. Why oh why did it have to succumb to such tragedy, all the while he had a complete and full life in Mississippi. Although I am not one to say that everything was 100% with the misses, but I do know that he said the same vows before the Lord that she did and now she has to endure the pain of his affair and at the same time muster up the courage to explain to his boys, what their father was doing in the midst of his death.
Why is it that commitment has long lost all of the glamour that it once used to hold so dear and when did stepping out on a significant other or spouse become acceptable? I mean you see all of these vacations photos of him and this woman and as a female, I have to think that he didn't seem to have any remorse about stepping out or being seen for that matter. Is there any way that the sanctity of marriage is still pure and true, besides the few couples we see making every effort to show us positive examples of consistent love?
For the life of me, I just can't understand why both men and women continue to partake in such charades. Emotions are something that should not be played with at any point in time and just think we're only hearing about this because he is a celebrity. If I was to walk throughout any area, I'm sure there's been at least two to three of the same incidents, we just don't hear about it.
Peter Hector states, "Commitment is to ensure the continued growth of each other and the relationship." So why continue in a relationship that you feel like it's not growing or your needs are being met. I will never get this, can this be one of the reason, AIDS/HIV is so rampant in the world?
This is a great question
Have you ever read Soul Stories by Gary Zukav? It is a book that helped me to better understand the arrangement of marriage.
According to Zukav, marriage began as a way for survival. In hunter gatherer days folks needed to come together in order to survive. Truly, staying together long term benefited both mates.
Culturally, many of us have evolved to a point where you don't need a spouse in order to survive. Grocery stores provide all of the food that we eat and most of us live in homes that stay in one place...or at least we stay in once place without having to be nomadic and look for food.
What Zukav went on to say is that we are in a new era of relationships and he called it Spiritual Partnership (SP). So much of what is going on these days is about spiritual evolution. So a SP is more about what one brings to help the other grow and evolve. It is a very conscious relationship so that when it is time to end, both will realize it and move on. If both see the beauty in staying and growing together then that is what they do.
What is needed is an broader understanding of who we are and why we are in this physical level of consciousness. Once we do that then we can be more conscious about our relationships realizing that our mate is NEVER responsible for our happiness (and vice versa) and that when one or both stops growing then something needs to be tweaked or we need to move on.
But in a culture that puts pressure on us to be one woman with one man AND makes it legally complicated to divorce...it is no surprise that we find cheating spouses.
I think that monogamy/marriage is overrated in the sense that so many make it seem like the supreme option. Spiritual Partnership can lend itself to monogamy and definitely to commitment but in a much more conscious and liberated way.
I recommend that you google what Abraham-Hicks has to say about marriage. It is quite enlightening, too. But I am not surprised by McNair. He is a reflection of this culture's mis-educated view of marriage.
Tirra-Olufemi
www.-goddess-body-mind-spirit.com
HONESTY with yourself & others is that Hard!
It's very sad that being with this woman cost him everything. I'm sure she wasn't worth his life. Without knowing the details it's tuff to say what the situation was with his wife but the other woman premeditated his murder so he would be alive today if he wasn't with her. In this case, standing by his marital commmitment would have been the better choice.
What people don't know is that affairs usually only meet the needs that your partner doesn't they usiually are not solid relationships because they begin out of the disfunction of another by overlapping.
I'm all for commitment as well as moving on if that's best but I feel we just need to be more careful about who/what we are commiting to so that it's the right thing for us and we can stick it out for the long haul. Running from one partner to another is not healthy and in this case deadly.Rest in Peace Steve Mcnair.
Respect
Yes Lioness...For The Lioness You Know, For The Empress You Love, For The Goddess You Are!
It goes without...
....saying, that the brother and his mistress handled things poorly. But before the tragedy, only he and the other two in the triangle know what was really going on in the deep matters of their hearts (for example: wifey might have known about mistress). As far as your question about commitment, - just like personal philosophy/vision, religion, ideas of friendship and family - high ideals regarding marriage and commitment are very difficult to consistently live up to because we are constantly changing and growing as individual persons. And at some point, if you stay with the same person long enough...you will approach a challenging path where selfless choices need to be made in order to hold things together. OR, a selfish choice needs to be made to hold on to who you are and live. It's how we handle these challenges and the hurt that comes with it that makes the difference. I can only pray that couples are paying attention to the issue of sexual jealousy and not abuse opportunities to violate the sex contracts they make when coming together.
You are so right
I was appalled by this case and the circumstances of his death. He now leaves behind a wife and four sons, for what? The sad thing is, in the world of sports cheating on one's wife seems to be as natural as going to the bathroom. Magic Johnson contracting HIV didn't seem to teach folks a lesson, maybe this will? Folks are going out and laying down with people, and how well do they REALLY know them, their history and what they're capable of? I hope at the very least this makes some people think twice. How sad that McNair's children have to learn the hard way.
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