“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

([Mary:] “Yeah. I thought that he would be home and we could...uh... he’d have more time to farm, and we could work something out, but I was really relieved when he went to, had to go to work at night and I could read and study by myself.

Now. You were disappointed, then, shortly after you made your move, and you began to retreat. Whether or not you are consciously aware of this, in your earlier life, when you became extremely nervous or upset or had a bad problem, you began to “shut down” stimuli. You did not hear as well. When you wanted to retreat from the world, you shut down on your hearing so that you were not distracted. The habit simply persisted, and you grasped upon it as the situation continued. Now. Because of some circumstances and conflicts with your husband in this life in the past, you did not want to hear what he had to say. You were finished listening to him, and therefore with him, particularly, you began to have trouble hearing.

(During break—I think this break—I told Jane and Rob of when I was very young—ten or eleven. My bedroom window was only about 15 feet away from my parents’ apt. house. The scandal at the time was the noisy and violent arguments of an Italian couple, Anna and Jimmy. If Anna didn`t boil Jimmy’s eggs just right, he’d curse her out, and she’d retaliate by throwing some of Mom’s dishes at him, both of them screaming. All thru my life I’ve thought “nice, civilized people” didn’t raise their voices, get angry enough so that it showed, or display any kind of outbursts. Jim, I believe, feels the same way [or did]. The very few times early in our marriage when I would lose my temper, he would absolutely infuriate me by saying softly, with a smirk, “Temper, temper!” and so I would clam up.)

I am simply pointing out certain characteristics. You carry grudges, and you have carried one, several, concerning your husband for some time. In the meantime, he has changed.

He is trying to get through to you.

Now, before your husband became more willing to communicate, before he made an effort, you had fallen into your own rut. You did not try to relate to him in any strong manner. You let the relationship stand at a surface level. For a long time this served you both. Then, however, when you moved a critical situation was set up, where you were thrown together. This immediately brought forth the conflicts that had been latent and largely left alone. He then tried to relate to you. He did try to make up for lost time,and he began to grow and to understand.

Now. To some extent you punish him for his past attitudes by not appearing as attractively as you could. You think: “It serves him right! What does he expect?” At the same time, you are afraid that if you do appear as attractively as you can, that you will be hurt again by him, and you are unwilling to take the chance.

The episode that you mentioned, for example, regarding the candle. In your mind, that is a romantic gesture, and when he makes a comment about fire, there are several unconscious implications that you make, and that in the past have been understood by both of you at an unconscious level. Now. You interpret his remark about the candle to mean that he is rejecting deep, romantic feelings of yours, and needs; and also that the fire means that these needs are dangerous—his fear of fire being a symbol for “Danger!”. You think, unconsciously, he is saying to you: “These romantic needs are dangerous. They can cause a fire that we cannot control, fires being obviously destructive.”

Now, this is you interpretation, at a deep level, of such a remark. This confirms your feeling that you dare not display strong emotions with him, and you feel all the more rejected. When you light the candle, you are testing him to see how far he will go with you, and when he makes the fire remark, you take it as a rejection of the entire romantic self, and the romantic situation. At the same time, this denial wounds you, because you also suffer from it.

He is much more open in that regard now than he was, and he understands his own emotional behavior better, as well as yours.

You have been afraid of displaying emotions. You think that tears are cowardly. You have not wanted to face your own emotions, therefore you are frightened of the emotions of others. You did not, habitually, display your emotions to your husband. Now he could more easily express some of his to you. He got out of the habit, however, You did not want to hear them. You consider tears “degrading.” You considered, in the past, joy “evil.” This did not leave you too many acceptable emotions.

([Mary:] “Yeah. I see. I don’t know what to tell my doctor when I think he’s going to suggest an operation. And I don’t know what to tell him. Shall I say I’ll think about it?”)

([Mary:] “Because I only have ten more days till I get the hearing test, and I have a feeling that he’ll want this specialist to go in there and work.”)

([Mary:] “Yeah. I just didn’t know what to tell the doctor. ‘Cause he might want a statement of when I would get an operation, and I don’t—I haven’t made up my mind if I want one or not, yet.”)