Coupling and Uncoupling

[grahami]

I am new to this forum - in fact forums of any type. I have felt encouraged to post and ask the community for help on a session I had with the sticks last night on a matter that concerns me deeply. I suspect that it is the challenging nature of my concern that makes it hard for me to fully 'get' the answer and not the apparent contradictions within the various guides that I am using, but when I read through the texts I have been left confused and wondering what the Yi is really trying to say to me.
The short of a complex situation and the question posed is as follows. The result was 44.6 > 28.

I was widowed last year when my wife passed on, leaving me with 3 youngish children. This has been a huge thing for me, and since then my life has been overwhelmingly challenging. In March this year I became involved in a new relationship with someone who, within 2 weeks, returned to her home, halfway around the world. After 4 months she returned to live nearby and we began to try and consolidate our new relationship. Fairly quickly I realised I was not ready for a relationship of any intensity or 'seriousness', but struggled to communicate this with my new girlfriend for fear of hurting her. Over the last 4 or 5 months our relationship has grown less green and 'sappy', and more strained. Our differences have started to hurt.

About 6 weeks ago we found out she is pregnant.

She hasn't children, and isn't sure about having them, yet, being in her late 30s, is nervous at missing her chance. I don't feel at all comfortable with abortion, but appreciate that it's her choice. I love children, and could quite happily add another to my family. But the pregnancy has forced me to admit to myself my unease in our relationship, and brought into sharper focus our differences in values. She is contemplating abortion, but hasn't much longer to decide. She wants to try to make it - the relationship and probably the baby - work, but is very hurt by my reaction, my unkeenness, my drawing back. I have always thought of myself as someone who would do the 'right thing', which in this case means to lie in the bed I've made. But in this situation I find myself very resistant to doing that, and somewhat shocked by this uncharacteristic reaction.

Last night I asked, out of this conundrum, "what if I were to finish with this woman? how much can I trust my resistance to this relationship? how should I best proceed with this?" As I said, I received the result 44.6 > 28.

Of the texts I have available, I first selected Jack Balkin's Laws of Change and entered into what can only be described as one of those remarkable moments in divination when the oracle seems to be speaking directly into my very being. I read such things as "these couplings are significant, but they are not designed to last", "the woman is powerful/ do not marry her", "there is a relationship that cannot and should not last", "misfortune comes from making a relationship permanent", "... there is someone simply not right for you". And the interpretation for the top line was strikingly pertinent. This left me feeling some sense of powerful confirmation of my heart's leanings.

Yet when I next went to Stephen Karcher's "I Ching" and then his "How to use the I Ching" I got a much softer and ultimately more ambivalent response. "A time to welcome what comes to you", "Do not try to enforce your will", even though the interpretations spoke of the temporary nature of events.

As much as I might be interested in it, my question is not really one of practice: the potential divinatory confusion in referencing different texts with different spiritual/philosophical/ethical stances underlying them. I haven't yet the experience with the Yi for this. But my need pushes me more to the question itself, and the request I have of the forum is how I might proceed given my situation, my question, and the specific response received from the Yi, who seems to be wanting both to "nip it in the bud" and to "welcome... an intense personal encounter".

I am normally at peace with apparent contradiction, but I feel somewhat pressured to be very honest with my girlfriend so she can make her choice, as to whether she keeps the baby, unencumbered by false hopes, so I would dearly like to act from a place of conviction. My desire to do the right thing means I find it hard simply to run with the interpretation that induced in me the strongest affect.

Any thoughts on this would be most appreciated. With anticipated thanks, Graham.

 

[Tim K]

You shouldn't ask three questions in a row, it makes it harder to decode the answer.
Clear question -> clear answer.

what if I were to finish with this woman?

44.6(Seduction) -> 28 (Great excess).
I think here the oracle is just stating your current situation.

You've got involved with a woman, which is carrying your heir (in LiSe version).
Line 6, in Wilhelm's book says:
When a man has withdrawn from the world, its tumult often becomes unbearable to him.
(You have not been in a relationship for a while, you were free, and now you have to "get into the trenches" again)
Such persons are reproached for being proud and distant, but since active duties no longer hold them to the world, this does not greatly matter. They know how to bear the dislike of the masses with composure.
(If you end the relationship you will be open to criticism and reproach)
--------

And Hex 28 is all about excessive pressure ( The weight of a roof put on a central pillar of the house that is beginning to bend) that has to go somewhere and very soon.
Concerning your question - i think the relationship will collapse, if you choose to finish it.
Hex 28 also holds an option to be great, to gather all your strength in a very critical moment and dive into a crisis completely.

If you haven't read it yet, take a look at the first post here Blog-post-Advice-for-relationship-readings

And i think you should ask some more questions: like what potential does this relationship hold, how your children will react;
it is a tough situation you are involved in.