Dualistically Unilateral

We were on the porch and I said to Jen

"I notice I'm trying to feel ok about [a resource allocation she chose]."

"Do you want it not to happen?"

It wasn't finalized, we could back out, but that wasn't really the thing, and I said so. I'm also not attached to everything feeling good all the time.

"Would it have felt better if I asked?"

"No, that's certainly not the standard we've set here. I'd be surprised to find I wanted that, and would not expect you to have discerned I would have wanted that."

We sat quietly with it, me examining me.

Jen is my devotional partner in this household and I want her to have unilateral decisionmaking capacity. There's almost no mistake that could cost more than the value of having more than one trustworthy unilateral-decision-maker. There is no mistake I fear more than I value being freed from making every choice or even reviewing them. Also every mistake I've ever seen her make in every context is one I am as likely to make or have already made.

Jen and I have compatibility of standards. We want a similar height, maintaining to it, and we enact similar limits to protect a similar baseline.

I noticed that what I really wanted was to use the resource for my own purpose later. We arrived there at the realization and communication peacefully. We have redundant sources of nourishment.

When something doesn't feel right with Jen, or with a decision that she's making for our home, I first question MYSELF. It's never yet been about her, and since I don't go there first, I don't end up going there at all.

In a way, questioning her is questioning myself on a much larger scale. Will I take a small "bad" feeling as a chance to invite dissonance in my own mind about who I've chosen to share my life with? I will not.

Questioning myself about this moment is a way of affirming this larger choice I've made to share my life with Jen for this time.

This is what it means to have compatibility. I never question if it's some mismatched standard between us. If there's a bump, the adjustment is ALWAYS a refinement in the direction I want to go. The awkwardness is always an invitation for me to take more responsibility.

When I don't have compatibility with someone I'm trying to do a big thing with, the solution isn't always about my personal responsibility. The problem could be that they are doing their very best to a very different standard. Sometimes I need something different from them and from their end, and then I am really doomed.

I cannot control or suggest changes to anyone else, and even the idea of an attempt feels exhausting to me, what with all the experience I have in THAT matter.

This is why I insist upon compatibility. I want people around me who drive me only to question myself, because I trust and know they are handling all questions that need to be asked of them. Sometimes I express curiosity about their process, but ALWAYS with real reverence, real curiosity, the "what made you choose this" which is not a condemnation of the choice but a genuine desire to learn what MUST be a better way, to learn something I MUST not be seeing.

In Devotion, I am signed up already to love whatever happens. Devotion is secured only by my own presence in intimacy, which is not security, stability, or guarantee. It is my commitment to be in agreement with the REALITY of what DOES happen.

Compatibility is essential to devotion because it is the only check of the system where I am going to LOVE everything this person brings. In compatibility, that's an easy standard to maintain. Without compatibility, it actually represents a risk to me to attempt to love or make myself love everything this person brings.

Compatibility is the boundary which enables devotion to appear as though it does not have boundaries.