Dear Jennifer:

First a summary of what you shared here: you’ve been married for almost two decades, have five children, the youngest is in 4th grade and the oldest is a senior in high school. Your husband is “a stand up person and provides what he can monetarily to keeping the home functioning.. and is there to help manage kids schedules”, and he”tends to be a ‘glass is half empty’ kind of person and often complains about everything in life and isolates himself”, complains about household expenses, doesn’t “talk about feelings or needs.. isn’t available emotionally” for you or for the kids. For the last ten years, you periodically complained to him about his ways, suggesting you need marital help, following that “he’s been more ‘attentive'” but then he returns to his usual ways, “isolate and withdraw again”.

Last week, your husband tried to connect with you, but it angers you “that the only thing that seems to spur him to be more present (even if it is just physically and not emotionally) is my suggesting that we need help.. again… a cycle”. You are tired of this cycle, and “obviously longing for more”.

Two years ago you became a member of a sangha (a Buddhist monastic community of bhikkhus- monks, and bhikkhunis- nuns) and you met there a man, a monastic, recently a novice monk. “We finish each other’s sentences and I have genuine love for him… I do occasionally imagine what it would be like to have a physical relationship with him.. but more often I imagine holding hands and just cuddling/ sharing space.. and that feels right in and of itself”. You long for a time, “when my kids no longer need me at home every day”, living closer to the monastery, practice there daily, “possibly even as a monastic”.

My input today: one of the five Buddhist precepts is “to refrain from lying”, and, I read in a Zen Buddhism site: “The Sangha of the Blessed One’s disciples (savakas) is: 1. practicing the good way. 2. practicing the upright way. 3. practicing the knowledgeable or logical way. 4. practicing the proper way”.

Seems to me that to refrain from lying and to practice the good, upright and proper way of life means, in your personal life, in the context of your marriage and family of seven, means to…  you tell me, will you?

anita

Dear Jennifer:

You are welcome. I felt admiration to you as I read about your recent,  honest efforts with your husband. Remember the middle way/ moderation in your expectations regarding how your marriage moves forward. Progress is not all-or-nothing, and there is no such thing as perfection when it comes to human behavior, not even inside monasteries.

Unattachment, for example, is something to aim at but for as long as we are the social animals that we are, we cannot undo our emotional nature and become as unattached as a non living thing is.

And the sex part, at times and in part, it is not such a bad thing to use or be used, as long as there is no dishonesty and disrespect involved. I don’t think it is possible to avoid that sexual element: to-use-and-be-used.

I suggest that you decide one or two realistic/ doable expectations from your husband that are most important to you.  Communicate those to him specifically and clearly, so that they are crystal clear to him. If this one or two expectations are specific (not vague), doable (not too difficult) and he agrees to them, then he should meet that expectation. I hope he will.

anita