Finding Neverland

Mrs. Snow: Mr. Barrie.
James: Mrs. Snow.
Mrs. Snow: Thank you. That was quite the nicest evening
 I’ve ever spent in the theater.
James: Very kind of you to say. Thank you. Where’s Mr. Snow
 this evening?
Mrs. Snow: Oh. I’m afraid he’s left us. And he would so 
 have loved this evening. The pirates and the 
 Indians. He was really just a boy himself, you 
 know. To the very end.
~ Finding Neverland

This was the script from the movie “Finding Neverland.” I went to see this movie years ago. One of the couple I was working with this past week reminded me this post and reminded me this script I kept years ago. I went to dig out my old diary. As I typed this script onto the screen, I found myself felt really sad. Sad for Mrs. Snow. I am sure she would love to enjoy the show with her husband. I am also sad for her that the show reminded her beloved husband. I am also sad as it reminds me lots of little girls and little boys in the miserable couple relationship waiting for their partner to release that little boy/little girl.

This specific couple made me think about this movie for a specific reason. In spite of all the self-help book telling us not to project what we didn’t get from our parents to our partner, unfortunately, we are going to try to fulfill the unfinished business with the parents with our partner.

Remember years ago, there is a movie called “The Story of Us?” I always remember in one of the scenes, the husband, and the wife are fighting and they heard their parents talking and giving them advice in the background.

Consciously or unconsciously, the reality is, we learned how to resolve the conflict and ask for comfort from our relationship with our parents and from watching our parents handled their conflicts and communication.

Like it or not, we have learned behaviors that we copied from our parents and we have childhood behaviors that were from interacting with our parents that haven’t completed finished the process.

Therefore, my take on the couple relationship is this: we all need to be free to be the child we want to be with our partner, and be the parent to our partner to let our partner be the child he/she needs to be. When we feel free to be the child you always want to be from the nurture of your partner, and the parents that can provide the nurture to your partner to let him/her free as a child, that’s when you can feel satisfied and nurtured in the relationship.

The hardest thing in the relationship is when you are unconsciously behaving like your parents the way you don’t want to be and asking your partner to fulfill your unfinished needs as a child. When you are unconsciously doing this and your partner is also unconsciously doing this, that’s when you have 6 or more people fighting against each other and your relationship is completely lost in the translation.

There is a little boy/girl in every adult’s heart waiting for his/her partner to release him/her. This is also a dad/mom in each adult’s heart that can give his/her partner nurture to release that little boy/girl. May you indulge and be indulged by your partner and share that magic moment like Peter and Wendy flying across the dark sky.