Dealing with relationships
QUESTION: Masters, I really need your guidance. My husband and I have been facing a lot of difficulties in our marriage lately. We have been dealing with addiction, past infidelity and In-law issues. The bulk of our issues stem from negativity from our in-laws because they disapprove of our inter-racial relationship. I feel as though their negativity is like a dark cloud over us. It’s constant and just not going away. We want to fight for our marriage but we feel stuck and blocked. What can we do to cleanse this negativity from around us? My husband is too attached to his family to cut them off despite their insults and negativity. ~Holly, United States
ANSWER: A relationship exists between any two humans who have dealings with each other – be it family, business, or social. It also refers to behaviors one has chosen for oneself to express their life. Overshadowing all this is the soul’s freedom of choice to address these issues in the exact fashion it wishes. Giving power to anyone else to affect your life is allowing them to take over your freedom of choice and have your world run as they desire.
Relationships take many forms such as active, passive, repulsive, and avoiding. In an active relationship, both parties are involved in the energy of the activity, frequently called a sharing one, but it might also be a co-dependence where each party needs the other for self-sustenance. In a passive affiliation, you are in this connection through birth, marriage, or employment, and you take no active part in sustaining it.
When emotions enter into one side or the other, such as you with your in-laws, the response may result in repulsing the connection or avoiding it all together. These always include huge amounts of negativity, bringing additional negativity into other aspects of your life. Your biggest problem is dealing with this negativity.
Solutions start with your response to the negativity. Do you let it taint your reaction to life? Do you wallow in it and let it fester and increase? Be conscious of how you feel about yourself. Choose to remain in unconditional love rather than basking in negativity. If you let the taunting of your in-laws take hold of you so that you accept some or all of their rantings, they win because you give up your freedom of choice to them.
It is important for both you and your husband to make your own mind up concerning this marriage. If you feel it is the right thing for you, then ignore what everyone else has to say and support each other in your love. Acknowledge that these people have the right to their opinions, but that doesn’t mean you have to acquiesce to their conclusions. You will then no longer have to run away through actions and addictions to avoid the situation. Just be an observer and not a participant.