Article January 5, 1981 Issue

Romantic longings

DIANE STAUNTON STAPLES

Romantic longings are not what they seem to be or what most people think they are. We may believe the love of a "special someone" will bring us lasting happiness. But if our emphasis is on a mortal personality, such a relationship can interfere with a fuller development of the wide range of qualities that we all include. The need to understand completeness is a key element in enlarging our own sense of identity and our relationships with others.

Each of us, in his or her real identity, is a complete spiritual idea and expresses all of God's qualities—both the ones generally considered masculine and those looked on as feminine. Many of us have been brought up from childhood to restrain, to a great extent, our qualities of the opposite sex—that is, to suppress half of what we are, half of what God has given us. This pattern has been passed on from generation to generation and been challenged only recently.

Those who have depended heavily on a husband or wife for the "opposite" qualities, and who are suddenly left alone with children to raise, a home to take care of, and a living to earn, may have to quickly expand their willingness to express the qualities that they formerly looked on as their partner's province.

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