Early on this path, I was lovingly warned by several wise people that it is deeply challenging to hold on to committed relationships as one moves up the energy scale. That it becomes harder to communicate when one of you is literally changing your density towards more light and the other has stood still. It is the energetic equivalent of not speaking the same language - or in my case, it is more like one of us is deaf and the other is invisible. I thought I was going to be an exception to this rule - after all, my spouse is not bothered by my abilities and says they support my work and exploration. But then over time, it became clear that we were sliding past each other onto very different planes. It was subtle at first, like when I'd say with certainty that I "knew" something, and my spouse would scoff and question it. I generally thought, oh, I am be prepared me for all the skeptics I'll encounter. But then I began to realize that my excitement about what I was learning, what I was experiencing, was not being met or acknowledged. It was as extreme as me saying I saw the fabric of the universe and the response was, "Hey, did you pay the electric bill yet?" I was eager to share what I had learned, believing it would help everyone, only to be met with grunts. I'd try to share my day, my readings, experiences. I may as well have just read the phone book aloud. No questions, no interest, no sharing. Over the months, as I listened intently, I realized how much I had been listening to the same story, the same challenges, for the past 30 years. I had my own sticking points, and I used his issues as a mirror to my own old hurts and grudges. I tried to encourage meditation, walking to hear his higher self, to listen to lectures and talks - not to force my spouse to be like me, but so they could find the new door they could walk through, a next level of development. He half-heartedly meditated with me a few times and fell asleep, but never took my suggestions. Our conversations and encounters grew stranger: full of misunderstanding and miscommunication. We grew more distant.
And so I wondered if we would be one of casualties of spiritual evolution. I wondered if we will make it. And then after a particularly bad winter, it hit me: I had to accept him just as he was. I had to stop all this efforting to bring us closer or make us better. I had to stop thinking in dualities, even with my closest relationships. All ways are valid. I could not go back to where I was, that much was clear to me. And if he has no desire to move forward on his path, well, that is his choice to make. Acceptance is the key to transcendence. we must embrace it all in order to further our understanding of love. Is this a larger lesson on the human nature, old and new ways clashing, male and female perspectives clashing? Perhaps. I don't know what will happen, but I do know that once I began to truly accept, I began learning a lot more about what love is, and what it is not.