“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

You both felt that the most innocent of caresses could destroy the foundation of your lives. This was certainly overcompensation. It tended for a while to erode your relationship, and to some extent to set portions of yourselves against other portions. It drove Ruburt at times to try to deny womanhood, to assure you and herself that her body would not betray you both. He would not have his periods—thus he would show both of you, symbolically, that you need not fear his body, since it obviously was not functioning as a woman’s should.

This was the reason for his outrage last night. He had done what both of you wanted, and now everyone was angry at him, including himself—but he felt (underlined) that he had done it mainly to reassure you.

Ruburt’s physical system has felt the strain simply because both of you feel that it is his body that would be the threat in the child area. You both become panicky therefore in two main areas—both that would affect your primary directives, to devote yourselves to artistic and psychic work.

Now. For those reasons you felt most threatened when Ruburt broke in upon your painting time for intimate relations in the past. This symbolically highlighted the whole affair, and brought it too close to consciousness for either of your comforts.

This is the meaning of the dreams he had in the past about divorce. He feels completely uncherished, and therefore he does not nourish his body, because he does not want more of it. Now in that way, and he could not explain it to you because he did not understand it, he did feel completely divorced by you, particularly when he was at nursery school. He felt you had divorced his body, but not you see his mind.

In a strange fashion the symptoms also served to stress what he felt you were both trying to deny—his femininity, in that he felt at a very unconscious level that they made him helpless and in need of someone to lean upon—a mute call for support to you, and at that level he was outraged that instead of giving him your hand you would offer mental suggestions.

He wanted you to help him get up and down from the floor, and encourage him. He felt instead that you and I were saying in effect: “You have not hurt yourself enough, now do this five times a day, and you will be a good girl,” and this he simply would not do.

I will tell you another of his secrets. In the past, though he knew that he exaggerated, when his legs were bothering him he automatically looked for the nearest available parking place when you were driving. He would never ask you to park close to your destination. He felt it a sign of weakness on his part to even think of it, yet he also felt that on occasion you showed an annoying lack of sympathy or understanding, and at his worst moments he would feel that you purposely chose a place further away—that it was for his own good, you thought, that he face the humiliation in realizing in what poor condition he was. This would automatically cause all kinds of symptoms, needless to say.

He did not feel you sympathized with him at all on a physical level, and he felt that his and your attitudes of dealing with the whole matter mentally through suggestion, was a way of further implementing the difficulty—the physical divorce.

Now give us a moment. I am dealing mainly right now with his attitudes because you did not recognize many of them. Such a physical alienation was bound to have emotional consequences on both of your parts. He did not feel physically loved or wanted by you, but more than this you see, he agreed with the judgment that he felt both of you had made. Had he not agreed, you would have had a different set of problems.

You were actually in agreement to a large extent. Neither of you obviously meant to carry it so far. Understand also, I have been explaining his feelings so that you understand them. I am not saying that you necessarily went to the extremes as Ruburt felt them. Is that clear?

Now when he felt that physical divorce you made various attempts to come closer, and you have made strides since obviously the symptoms have lessened. But one or the other of you would become frightened for the reasons given, and lately Ruburt felt an emotional separation might occur, and was occurring. Here again the threat to the prime directives, for he feels, and so do you, your work and the sessions quake when your relationship goes toward either extreme.

Symbolically you also compared that spontaneous flow with semen, creative abilities, and were jealous of it getting away from you. Ruburt was aware of this on one level. He also felt that this was the main reason why you had nothing to do with class, refused even once to attend it. You felt it was depriving you, not only of, say, a private session if Ruburt did not hold the following regular one; you also felt that the sexual activity you were not getting from Ruburt was being channeled instead psychically where you were getting no benefit. To use this energy in private sessions was all right because it was a joint performance, a private one, and you both directly benefited.

For Ruburt to have a session without you, and for strangers, was something else. Particularly when you felt you were also being denied in your bed. Do you see the connections?

He has been much more comfortable when he is alone in the mornings and you are at work, because he feels you do not see him at his worst. This is one of the main reasons why he seems to have such great difficulty in getting up in the mornings during the week; where at least he felt he could arise with some dignity alone, and if he was a mess you would not be there to reprove him.

So when you said “You do not try to help yourself,” he was so angry he was nearly speechless. He felt you a stern taskmaster, and the logic as being: the worse you feel the more you should drive yourself. But he felt this also, you see. It was much more important to take a walk when he did not feel good than when he did.