On Nurturing

In “How Starbucks Saved My Life,” the author, Michael Gates Gill, describes his relationship with his toddler son. This son was the product of the affair that prompted the termination of Gill’s long and comfortable marriage. His child only knew him as “Dada” and accepted him as the man who visited a couple of times a week and sat on the floor to play with him.

Gill writes that they mutually nurtured each other. His child accepted him as he was, without knowledge of or concern for who Gill had been in his former life—a powerful advertising executive; an overly-busy, and thus absent, father; a self-absorbed pompous man-of-privilege.

In Gill’s new state in life, his fall from grace, he was enormously gratified and reaffirmed to spend time with this child—to be given the gift of an absence of history, a clean slate.

Hearing this passage in the book reminded me of my good marriage. John and I entered this marriage having spent two years in cohabitation, followed by a separation of five years. On our reentry, we were on a level playing field—we were both heavily damaged by early losses in our lives. I had been through enough therapy—knew myself well enough—that I could accept him as he was and love him through his insecurities. He responded by blossoming in the relationship and loving me through my insecurities. It was truly a nurturing relationship, and became the marriage—his third, my fourth—that we both had always craved.

So that definition of a nurturing relationship, of needing each other, makes me question being able to have a nurturing relationship when neither party has that inherent neediness. When two parties enter a relationship as self-assured, mature individuals, can they develop a mature, nurturing relationship where nurturing is defined more as “wanting the best for my partner,” rather than “caring for and bolstering my partner”?

Maybe the relationships that have endured—the 15- and 25- and 50-year marriages—are the truly nurturing relationships, the ones where each partner always seeks the best for his other. Maybe it began with some degree of neediness. But through the unselfish, giving nature of the partners, each has grown and healed, thus enabling continued growth. The relationship becomes a wonderful, warm security blanket, a soft place to fall.

I choose to believe that’s where John and I would be today, had he lived. We would have continued to heal and grow, and have the kind of relationship that is envied by those who haven’t been so privileged, so blessed.