Did you ever have a favorite sweater, so soft and so warm and so cozy that it felt like a hug every time you wore it and you really loved it, but then one day you notice a thread…and you pull it, and then you pull it some more instead of cut it, and it unravels…the whole thing comes apart?

If you are a man and you come home from work one day and announce unexpectedly to the woman in your life that you are not in love anymore and you have not been in love for a while and you don’t love the life you are living with her, that is kind of like pulling at the thread of what once was your favorite sweater.  If you are a woman and you come home from grocery shopping one Sunday and announce unexpectedly to the man in your life that this situation is just not working anymore for you and you are tired of arguing over things that are not your fault or your doing and you don’t think you can do this anymore, that is kind of like pulling at the thread of what was once your favorite sweater.  You see, once you pull, the unraveling simply happens, even if you stop pulling, the damage is already done and it can never be the same sweater, and it will continue to unravel until there is little evidence of what it once was…

If you are a woman who is frustrated with the man you love, perhaps it is better to come home from food shopping and for dinner prepare a meal that he likes very very much and open a bottle of wine and say something like, “I really am happy that our relationship is so loving, but I am very concerned about _____, or I really love the life we have but when you do _____ I really am bothered by it and I want to discuss this.”  If you are a man who is frustrated with your life, perhaps it is better to come home from work one evening with flowers and once your kids are tucked into bed sit down with the woman you share your space with and say something like, “I really feel so fortunate for this life we’ve had over these years but I am so angry about _____ and I don’t know how to handle it, or I can’t believe we have these amazing kids and live in this wonderful town but I am just so sad about ____ and I wish you were more understanding of my feelings.”  …you see, once you pull at the thread it’s kind of already over…I’ve learned, or am learning that the key is not to pull at all, but to identify the bad thread and figure out where the stitch is weak and fix it…if your desire is to keep this sweater that you love…

There is a famous quote about when you get to the end of your rope, you tie a knot and hang on…but I guess that only holds true if your desire is the “hanging on,”  if your desire is not for “the end.”  I think when things begin to feel like they are unraveling, we have clues…we know how we feel and what we think, and we get vibes from those around us when things are amiss…if we choose to not recognize when our partners are uneasy or seem unhappy then we must accept the consequence of having poor situational awareness.  If we choose to act out with cruel words or harsh statements then we must accept the consequence of misplaced blame…If you have a sweater that you don’t want to unravel you have to check the stitches now and then, maybe not with every tumble in the wash but if you really love it, you have to take care of it to keep it in tact…you see, sweaters generally don’t simply unravel… we notice a loose thread and we choose to fix it or knot it or reinforce the stitch, or I suppose if we decide we didn’t really love the sweater as much as we thought, we just let the unraveling begin…