I feel that for many reasons, the value of relationships have been degraded, often because of the shift toward a more transactional, money-driven incentive.
Seems to me that a great many choices we make lead us away from our best selves because of this.
I got lucky. I pursued a great passion of mine, food, against both the wishes of my family and societal expectations of someone like me, highly educated in academia. I married, bought real estate, and opened businesses with a man I was not suited for, because I could not bring myself to hurt him by not marrying him. For decades, I wanted out of the marriage, but financially could not manage it, until I could. Once we were stable financially, I ended that union, after 27 years. I realized either it would happen someday or I would be unhappily married for the rest of my life. Fortunately we could do it when we were both still fairly young, healthy, and financially sound.
Some of my choices were dictated by money, but not all. Hm. Food for thought here.
I think so. I reckon it breaks down a lot of the relationships needed for a community.
Obviously a very big decision, but once made, was there relief after? I have heard for some people in similar situations, afterward was the first time they felt they could really breathe in a long time.
Lucky you have a lot of experience with food ;)
haha!
The end of my marriage got spectacularly complicated. Turned out, he wasn't healthy at all, and would soon start showing symptoms of ALS. It then became financially prudent for us to remain married, although we lived apart and estranged, more estranged than we would have been had he not become sick and had we divorced. Our staying married was dictated by financial, especially insurance, concerns. While I was in a terrible position socially as the estranged wife of a dying man, so that there was no relief at all there (it was awful actually), remaining married benefitted me financially greatly in the end - money started pouring in after his death. I did not expect that! There was great relief there, and I had plenty of money to get two kids through expensive colleges and up and running on their own financial feet.
Insurance is another trap that causes us to behave against our own self interests as human beings. Money, as we use it today, is an enslavement tool. I don't think a method of exchange is inherently evil, but our money has been usurped by slave masters, and it looks to me as though even greater attempts to enslave us via finances are well underway globally. Hang on!
That sounds like a terrible situation.
Why was this?
As a mother of three minors, I received generous monthly checks for each of them from social security, and another for myself; I was unexpectedly swimming in mostly tax free money. Along with all his assets becoming mine (mostly real estate by that time) and life insurance, I suddenly had plenty of money, after a few years of not being able to make ends meet. Thank goodness. We needed that relief. Watching him die was awful, and extremely stressful. Was I lucky? No, but at least I had enough money.