Re: of course you are part of the problem ;-)

Gosh, I hope my reply doesn't come too late - I'd love to exchange a few ides with you...

It's been a while since I firmly believed in the good old "it takes two to tango". Yes, there is certainly responsibility on our part for most of the stuff that happens to us. Even if a meteor lands on our head - we chose the spot where to stand; it is kinda phylosophical responsibility, but a responsibility never the less.

Now, I'd like to examine this point very carefully:

- If it is always the case of TWO people rather then a possibility of just ONE person screwing up, then lets examine extreme examples to prove this point. For instance, a drug addict comes to mind. If my wife was an addict who was killing for money and drugs because of abuse she went through before she met me, and then lied when she met me and covered up her true problems, would I still be responsible? I think that my responsibility would not go very far - maybe only as far as me choosing to mary a person that to some other people was clearly "wrong" person to mary; or I was responsible for falling for her lies. Do others agree?

- Another example: a kid in WWII is killed by a sadist soldier. So is his mother. How much of a responsibility do they carry, and how much does the soldier?

- Even more extreme: a person drives a car, and surrounding traffic are people he has some sort of a superficial and temporary relationship with. He can choose to be nice to them, let them merge, or he can honk, swear and so on... He chooses to be nice to them and also drives perfectly and responsibly. In one intersection a car runs through a red light and he's killed - he couldn't see the car coming as there was a truck blocking his view. How much is he responsible?

Now that I think I've established the fact that we are not all equally responsible for failed relationships, the question that arises is: at what point are we 50/50 responsible and where is the ratio 100/0?

I believe more firmly then ever that people can screw up, that relationships are not symmetrical, that one person can screw up even if the other one was dead... the only question is - to what extent are these things to be tolerated? I also believe that most average people are equally responsible, just as most average car accidents could be avoided by either party. But what about those exceptions to this rule? Or what about a person who has grown mentally, spiritually, intellectually, while his partner has stayed the same avoiding challenges and always blaming others for everything that happens? And what I think would typically happen in that situation is this: the "good guy" would continue taking on responsibilities that his partner doesn't do (like make food even though it was his partner's responsibility), while the other side would continue sinking ever more deeply into denial and mental and spiritual lazyness... to the point where the "good guy" thinks - why am I in this relationship (I am assuming here that this ran long enough so that there is no sex, meaningfull talk or cooperation between them because one of them (the "bad guy") is avoiding it through lies, double binds and so on...

Whew, did I make this only more complicated? :-)