In one of my jewelry classes -- all women, as is fairly usual for these classes - we fell into a conversation about the romantic life of a woman none of us even knew, except for one woman who was her friend. It was a familiar enough story: The woman in question was forty-something, with a live-in boyfriend who had been a long time coming; they got along well, but she wanted to get married and he seemed reluctant.
Well, everyone had an opinion. the majority, predictably, said she should immediately dump him if he wouldn’t marry her. I -- as per usual -- found myself the contrarian, the lone voice. What’s her alternative? I said. It took her a long time to find him - she wasn’t one of those women who moves from boyfriend to boyfriend. She hadn’t been happy living alone, and except for the marriage thorn in her side, she and the boyfriend seemed to enjoy their life together. (Her friend was our go-to authority on the facts of the case.) No matter, was the consensus. If he won’t give her what she wants, she should leave.
Well, this kind of reasoning makes me apoplectic! What about her giving him what he wants? What is all this anyway about other people ‘meeting your needs’ and ‘giving you what you want’? The whole array of language is mistaken. The boyfriend is not on this planet to give her ‘what she wants.’ No one is here for the exclusive purpose of making you, or me, or anyone, ‘happy.’ (Ridiculous word, anyway - but more on that in another blog!)
(Note: For more on this enlightened observation, I recommend THE ROAD LESS TRAVELED by M. Scott Peck.
[http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Road-Less-Traveled/M-Scott-Peck/e/9780743243155]
I am usually rather suspect of literature in the self-help vein, but I read this book at exactly the right moment in my life and it made an impression that has stayed with me.)
Now, of course one has the option to depart a relationship if one concludes that it is unsatisfactory, and maybe our woman in question will, finally, find it unsatisfactory and leave. But the underlying logic seemed to me deeply flawed - not only should Madame X leave this man, it was as if she were obligated to leave him.
I take another view. About human relationships in general, I think there is one question we have to ask ourselves: Do I want to know this person? If the answer is ‘Yes’, then we must take them as they come. Wishing they were otherwise will not make them so. No doubt they -- the other persons -- are unsatisfactory in myriad ways. But we do not get to write the script, alas. They write their own scripts.
I also hasten to add that I think living alone and being alone is a perfectly satisfactory arrangement (one I happen to have fallen into myself). In fact, my friend Susan used to say that she was worried about the fabric of society -- when women found out how much better it was to live alone, she said, nobody would want to get married anymore.
Reference: The Road Less Traveled, by M. Scott Peck
Well, everyone had an opinion. the majority, predictably, said she should immediately dump him if he wouldn’t marry her. I -- as per usual -- found myself the contrarian, the lone voice. What’s her alternative? I said. It took her a long time to find him - she wasn’t one of those women who moves from boyfriend to boyfriend. She hadn’t been happy living alone, and except for the marriage thorn in her side, she and the boyfriend seemed to enjoy their life together. (Her friend was our go-to authority on the facts of the case.) No matter, was the consensus. If he won’t give her what she wants, she should leave.
Well, this kind of reasoning makes me apoplectic! What about her giving him what he wants? What is all this anyway about other people ‘meeting your needs’ and ‘giving you what you want’? The whole array of language is mistaken. The boyfriend is not on this planet to give her ‘what she wants.’ No one is here for the exclusive purpose of making you, or me, or anyone, ‘happy.’ (Ridiculous word, anyway - but more on that in another blog!)
(Note: For more on this enlightened observation, I recommend THE ROAD LESS TRAVELED by M. Scott Peck.
[http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Road-Less-Traveled/M-Scott-Peck/e/9780743243155]
I am usually rather suspect of literature in the self-help vein, but I read this book at exactly the right moment in my life and it made an impression that has stayed with me.)
Now, of course one has the option to depart a relationship if one concludes that it is unsatisfactory, and maybe our woman in question will, finally, find it unsatisfactory and leave. But the underlying logic seemed to me deeply flawed - not only should Madame X leave this man, it was as if she were obligated to leave him.
I take another view. About human relationships in general, I think there is one question we have to ask ourselves: Do I want to know this person? If the answer is ‘Yes’, then we must take them as they come. Wishing they were otherwise will not make them so. No doubt they -- the other persons -- are unsatisfactory in myriad ways. But we do not get to write the script, alas. They write their own scripts.
I also hasten to add that I think living alone and being alone is a perfectly satisfactory arrangement (one I happen to have fallen into myself). In fact, my friend Susan used to say that she was worried about the fabric of society -- when women found out how much better it was to live alone, she said, nobody would want to get married anymore.
Reference: The Road Less Traveled, by M. Scott Peck
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