Faith Middleton Show: Balancing Of Love, Work And Self
How bringing them together can lead to a fulfilling life
In The Three Marriages, David Whyte, the bestselling author, poet, and speaker, asks you to think about your significant relationship to your partner, your work and your inner self in a radically different way by drawing them into a mutually supportive conversation.
According to Whyte, we humans are involved not just with one marriage with a significant other. We also have made secret vows to our work and unspoken vows to an inner, constantly developing self. These Three Marriages constantly surprise us, and they demand larger and renewed dedication as the years go by. Whyte’s thesis is that to separate these marriages in order to balance them is to destroy the fabric of happiness itself; that in each of these marriages, will, effort, and hard work are overused, overrated, and in many ways self-defeating. Happiness, Whyte says, is possible, but only if we re-imagine how we inhabit the worlds of love, work, and self-understanding.
Whyte argues that it is not possible to sacrifice one marriage for any of the others without causing deep psychological damage. He looks to a different way of seeing and bringing these relationships together and invites us to examine each marriage with a fierce but affectionate eye as he shows the nonnegotiable nature at the core of each commitment. Only by understanding the journey involved in each of the Three Marriages and the stages of their maturation, he says, can we understand how to bring them together in one fulfilled life.
(courtesy of Penguin Publishing)
Send to friend
Printer-friendly version
Comments
"Insult to Mormons on today's boadcast
Dear Ms. Middleton, As I used to always do on my way home from work, I listened to your broadcast today featuring the Yorkshire poet talking re. marriage. I was deeply offended when you made the wise crack re. polygamy and how we are all a little bit "Mormon". Along with myself, you offended at least the three thousand or so LDS members living along the Ct. shoreline as well as perhaps many more of the 13 million church members worldwide who might have been enjoying your program. If you knew anything re. the history of polygamy, you would know that the "Mormon" church, officially known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints banned the limited practice of polygamy in accordance with the Edmunds-Tucker Act of 1887, over 123 yrs ago!! Any LDS person even contemplating polygamy today would be instantly excommunicated from the church. We have nothing to do with the fundamentalist polygamist groups who might appear to have any affiliation with our church. By the way, my forbearers like your poet are Yorkshire people who immigrated to the United States after joining the LDS church in the 1900s in England and then sailed across the ocean and literally walked overland to settle in Utah to gain religious freedom. In all your discussions with the poet re. marriages, you would have done well to mention the manner in which many "Mormons" are married in contradistinction to the sad state of marriage today. Mormons have the option to marry for "time and eternity" in sacred ordinances performed in over one hundred of our temples. We do not marry for "time do us part" but believe that we can be sealed as eternal family units in this life and the hereafter. Our divorce rate is probably the lowest in the world, at least in the modern world and we dedicate ourselves to our mates in ways rarely matched by others in the western world. Our marriages and families are at the heart of our religion which is based on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. You would do well to apologize to your "Mormon audience for this hurtful snaffu and hopefully most of us will continue to listen and support your fine program. Sincerely, Dr. Lee H. Greenwood
Post new comment