“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

As I will tell you, these goals have strong connections in past lives, and in this life you each gave yourselves powerful psychological charges to insure that these goals would be followed through. You chose parental circumstances therefore that would presuppose you toward those directions that you had already decided upon.

You chose ahead of time therefore to be driven along certain directions. Now. Both of you decided that you would give your lives to creative work. Both of you decided that you would have no children, not only because this fit in with the first goal, but because the energy connected with family life would go into your creative productions, would be saved and available when you began to embark upon the psychic work for which you had also planned.

As you know, again, it is far easier for you not to have children, regardless of all strains. Many people would find it impossible. You are determined not to have them at all cost. You have at different times adopted different methods and adjustments, but your physical relationship has been structured not around mutual pleasure but instead about the fear of having children.

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.

The magnetism is both from past life experiences, and set up ahead of time in this life, so that the both of you would be drawn together and held together, despite the fact of no personal family, no children as a common interest.

The sense of loyalty was anchored in you, and you both decided upon it before this existence. Therefore you may sense in Ruburt at times confusing inclinations toward high independence in one area, and a self-denying dependence in another. Because he is presently a woman he will react strongly and aggressively if he feels you are drawing too far apart, for this would threaten your life and goals as much as children would—children in your minds being coming too close together. So you have been constantly between the two poles.

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 when Ruburt senses a strong disruption in these main areas he will act up, and strongly. He is trying to see to it, as you are, that your primary purposes are held to. Both of you intuitively realize that your work, both creative and psychic, is bound up in your relationship, for Ruburt helped to bring out in you the freedom to paint, as you knew ahead of time he would.

Now. When you were working full time some years ago at Artistic your fears that Ruburt would become pregnant became an obsession. You were already breaking one of your directives, you see, in working full time at other pursuits, and so you became twice as frightened that you would fall into the world’s familiar mold, have children in which case the job would become indispensable.

In both of you, your feelings toward work and children then are closely connected. Ruburt at that time tried to comfort you as a woman, through caresses, and offering frequent sexual comfort. You repulsed him then, feeling that this would only add to the problem, and he began then to build up this feeling of physical divorce.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Weekend mornings you are here to observe. Then to top it off, following his subconscious reasoning here, for he has scarcely been aware of this, you would not only observe him, but to his way of thinking, force him to make a public spectacle of his condition. He went through all kinds of pretenses, smiling when he tried to go down the stairs, trying to tell himself that it did not hurt, and far too upset to make use of the unending line of positive suggestions he tried frantically to give himself.

Now this is true. However, he interpreted this to mean “Because I do not want to go, I should,” which is not the same thing. I am not explaining this particular paragraph of material as clearly as I would like. There are some fine distinctions verbally that are difficult to make clear.

Ruburt would be, and is, susceptible to advances made on your part in the kitchen—the woman’s area; also in the living room, which is fairly neutral to both of you; or in his working place, for he has always been aware of the connection there. The bedroom has been an alarm area for both of you sexually, for the reasons made obvious, I should hope, and your studio has definitely been an alarm area on your part.

On one level Ruburt grossly misinterpreted your reaction here; since he was susceptible and knew it in his work area, he erroneously supposed you would be. The fact is that Ruburt, working, attracts you sexually, and you working attract Ruburt sexually. You however, being the male breadwinner as well as artist, feel most threatened by sex when you are working, because pregnancy could threaten the artist. So your attitudes in that regard, and reactions, will be mixed but usually adverse.

Now. Before I close a note: in your combined backgrounds you nicely chose situations in which parents did not have ordinary sexual relationships. Yours did not sleep together for years, and you are quite familiar with that pattern. You could have very nicely decided upon separate bedrooms or beds—it would fit in with your family background, and also with the situation. This is one peril that you did avoid, for it would have allowed you to go even further along the noncontact lines.

There were not even two sexes in Ruburt’s early household. Neither of you then had ordinary sexual family patterns that you would seek to emulate, or that would be deeply ingrained—all in line with what you had chosen.

Now I will close. These are important points however. If you have questions I will answer them. I thought your hands would be quite tired by now.