The Most Important Part Of Your Identity Is Already Established

I have been observing an increased resistance to change, acceptence of responsibility and, this topic of Identity that my Father has been lecturing and writing about for decades. 
 As a woman living in a modern era, I have found this topic to me very personal because, in many ways, us women find it so important to find ourselves. As my father mentioned last week, many little girls are taught and told that they, "Don't need a man to define who they are", and I have myself, been back lashed on a social media because I said once that "I couldn't imagine my life with out my sweetheart" and that "he is the better half of me". Some were nay sayers from men, but the men were saying things like I sounded like a little girl that did not know what love was. The others were women who were actually belittling to me and said that I am co- dependant on my sweetheart and that I was basing my relationship on sand and not a solid true view of love. They were especially bothered by the fact that I said he was truly a part of me. 
 My mom and dad will be the first people to tell you how independant I am. My mom once said, "Well, we can tell Dena this or that, but she sure will make her own decisions". This rings true for all my siblings. In our own way, although we are a very close knit and large family, we all have found our identity and indiviuality in our family, with our spouses, and with our world as we live in all parts of the world and USA. 
  For the women who feel like they will lose their independence if they find their identity with their spouse, I challenge you. 
 I challenge you because I feel that I am more liberated and more "free" than you. I feel this way because I feel like we women will find more freedom in embracing that we need families and spouses in order to have our place in society. Children need to see a good functioning relaionship with a loving mother and father in order to see how they can work out in their life, relationships work. I am talking about a good healthy and safe environment. Let's face it, women! There are somethings we women just can not do!! And men, there are somethings you can't do without us! 
I have for years fought this "depend on those you love", for years.  But, I have realized that I do need those I love in my life and part of that is undertanding that I can still be me, be individual, and still find myself with my loved ones, and especially my sweetheart. 
 Changing yourself and becoming a better person is finding that you actually can be more better defined when you have a good spouse at your side who loves you and you both edify each other. 
     Take Care, Dena Jensen

Now for the regular post from my father::

What if you married a person like Ruth? Ruth is full of expressive love for her God, who she literally worships. She prays in the morning and throughout the day, and at night; always giving thanks and saying she submits her will to Him. Many a man has married a woman like Ruth. Logically it doesn't look good for the new husband. He certainly will always be second place and Ruth's husband's will is gong to plae in comparison to His will. For Ruth, God will be her head. 

John thought and worried about this when he married Ruth, but found to his surprise that Ruth was a delightful wife. Even though Ruth always saw herself as a daughter of God, she was equally as comfortable as being the wife of John. Relating with God adds for Ruth, not diminishes the totality of being a woman. Ruth moved through life being known by her children, friends, and even John as a woman of God. Beginning with her relationship with God, Ruth became a greater person than she could have been alone. 

On the surface, it appears that some think little about God. A supreme being seems to have no part in their life. But, that may not be a complete and accurate picture. A common observation among soldiers is that in the foxhole, men who had nothing to do with God were capable of praying, or as they say in the military, "You find God in the foxhole", Is there, for all persons a latent concern or awareness of God? Is this activated when extreme circumstances evoke a dormant knowledge? I don't know the answer to these questions. I am well aware of public opinion polls, survey data, and historic documentation revealing that people that have been through the centuries and world wide expressed not only an interest, but proclaimed a definite and sure knowledge of God. 
    God is almost always understood in terms of personal lives. The Ancient Greeks, for example, prayed, sacrificed, and asked favors of distant, non-loving and not so admirable Gods. Relating with God is even more personal with many modern Christians who believe God the Eternal Father is a kind Heavenly PArent who has personal love and concern for each of his children. 
     In such a case it is easy to see how a God, who is a father, who is involved daily in one's life, becomes part of a person's identity. The inclusion of Godf as a part of one's identity thus dramatically impacts beliefs, desires, and all that a person thinks about, and certainly the choices made. 
     IF you are a person who believes in God then the understanding of your relationship with God will truly be essential for adequate self- understanding of those you love. In such a case, God becomes part of your marriage that will enhance the meaning and possibilities for making you a better marriage partner.  

How To Increase Your Individuality In Your Marriage

Allowing others to be apart of your identity increases your individuality. 
  
 There is in existential thought the belief that we are not just solitary isolated object but, rahter, we exist in relationships with the environment, the culture and others. Heidigger especially emphasizes that humans, "being in the world", are embedded and cannot be extracted from meaning ful social interactions. 
This philosophical concept shows that self identity must inclue other people. At the univeristy, most students come seeking to find and wanting to establish their individuality. In marriages, many partners fear they will lose their identity. They are on guard and want to protect their existing individuality. This usually entails making a clear separation of self from other, but, with age, we find that this approach is not healthy. The false nature of this beginning is told in the following story:

Many a young girl like Laura was told during her last years of the 20th Century not to depend on someone else, not to sacrifice self for another, to be totally independent, and self- sufficient. This well meaning advice sounds nice, but htere really has never been anyone who has done it, especially in a marriage that was happy, and long lasting. 

Laura was more than just uneasy when heard the words of the marraige ceremony saying, "...to be one, to cleave unto another..." and then cam a binding ring, a taking on the name of another, the word belonging, and being Mrs (Someone) else rather than two seperate persons. She was even asked to put his needs ahead of hers. 

At age 22, this way of being was a serious problem for Laura, but at age 62 it became laughable. Over the years she learned through family life and love that she had lost nothing by being with the imperfect man she loved, but, instead grew to be a more complete person.

A boat without water is not the same thing as a boat in water. A mother with a bear cub is a different animal than the same mother bear without the cub. The expression "no man is an island" is true when talking about personal identity. 
So, If you want to understand yourself, you must also consider how you define yourself with significant others and most importantly, how you define yourself with the one you love. 
A mother is an almost perfect example of this sharing an identity. Even before her birth, her baby has become part of her. Her life and identity will from then on never exist from her child. A mother and child share, in the course of living, their idenity with one another. The mother does not exist seperately from the child. 
This can be true of husband and wife. A consequence or outcome to the first person is a consequence and outcome to the other. Indeed, people who I have a shared idenity readily state that when an honor is bestowed on the other, it is as if they had recieved it themselves, or if the other suffered, they too suffered. 
      The concept of shared identity may have a very practical meaning for you. Do you find that your idenity is closely bound up to the idenity of one or more other persons?
If so, then to understand yourself you must consider that they are actually part of your identity. Your answer to the above question will open the door for yet another intrusion upon your individuality. I will discuss this at a later time.

Expanding Your Identity

Let's focus for a while on what we will become once we change. The following questions will help if they are answered. 

• Does consistancy cause change?
• Does change cause stability?
• How much are other people a part of my identity?
• How much do I share an identity of a Supreme Being?
• How much does my identity change from time to time?
• How much does my identity change from place to place? 
• How much do I want to change?

Existentialists mention a, "Choosing Self", choosing, acting, or living to become just who we are. The existentialist Martin Heidegger refers to this process with the words, "being in the world".  Of course we can't choose, or whatever we want, for, we are certainly limited at least by our body and environment. This is a fact and is called by this philosopher, "facticity". But, at any present moment in time we can, by our facticity, choose to be self creating beings. We are not an object solely shaped by a determining past. Instead, we are free and choose our future being. The past may inform us about our facticity, but does not determine us or what we become. Life is always moving forward and each person is past of the ever - changing flow forward. So, our identity, what we are, is always in a state of forward movement ans results from our choices and what we do in the present, and not so determined by our past as commonly taught.
Now, we come to an application. 
We will talk about that in the following week.