This kind of pisses me off.
click on image to read entire article, which begins like this:
Sadly, and to my horror, I am divorcing. This was a 20-year partnership. My husband is a good man,
though he did travel 20 weeks a year for work. I am a 47-year-old woman whose commitment to
monogamy, at the very end, came unglued. This turn of events was a surprise.
It pisses me off for some reason I can’t quite put my finger on. Nothing whatsoever to do with ethics or values. Something to do with how a person understands their own heart and the expectations they place on the heart of another.
10 comments
It made me angry, too. I also heard an interview with the writer, and finally it hit me. I was so frustrated because I felt like she was being selfish under the guise of self-discovery or happiness or fill-in-the-blank. Sadly, I don’t think she is going to be any happier. Marriage is work, but I believe it’s the best place in the world to work on yourself, and realize true happiness doesn’t come from another.
Yeah, there’s a dissonance that’s tough to place.
I learned long ago never to judge — or even try to understand — other people’s relationships, so I’ll refrain from thinking too hard about the one in the Atlantic. But shortly after my marriage ended in separation a few years ago, a friend told me she believed marriages die when something dies in one or both of its partners.
At the time, I considered her observation to be an empty bit of sophistry, perhaps even cruel. But now I think maybe she was right.
It took me a while to realize that not only was I a very different guy than the one who walked down the aisle all those years ago, I’m not sure that 20-year-old me would have liked the person I’d become. We all change with time, but how we react to that change makes the difference. Some people give up on themselves. Small wonder they do the same with their marriages.
The article’s author said she’d simply lost the will to “work on” her marriage. That’s probably the wrong place to put the effort. Boredom, infidelity, anger and frustration — these all symptoms, not the problem itself. The first place to look when a marriage goes bad is inward. It takes healthy people to make a healthy union.
Is there anything sadder than hopelessness? This article rang over and over of bitter hopelessness. It didn’t make me as angry as it made me sad. Thanks for sharing Susan, just when I think that I am hopeless, I see something like this and am reminded that hope shines a bright light.
For me, mostly sadness and memories of love gone wrong. I feel a dissonance, too–for me, it’s between the tragedy of the loss, and her delivery/tone. I’ve marveled from afar at women who have that badass quality, being more of a wimpy sort.
I also have interest in the variety of responses that inevitably come up with the public acknowledgement of this issue, so I enjoy reading the comments. I wasn’t sure if the author’s “prescription” was tongue in cheek. Surely she is not generalizing her own experience to the degree it appears?
In the last 30+ years, I’ve certainly been ALL over the map with motivations (like I understand my own, HA!) and justifications for my actions and decisions in the theatre of love. But I’ve only confided these to *very* close friends. Loh hangs it, and herself, right out there for us.
Actually, I found the article strangely comforting. I am of a similar age, in a long term relationship that is currently quite shaky, also with two children in the mix. I have thought and felt much of what she describes and it was such a relief to see it out there – being spoken out loud. It helped me frame, for myself, where I really stand in relation to my partner, to our place on the edge of being together or being apart. I give her a lot of credit for putting it out there.
I think there is huge pressure, especially on women and extra especially on mothers, to stay put and not attend to their own needs within relationships. To do so is labelled “selfish”.
If we are really paying attention to our lives, then we will know what to do: it might be exploring our own expectations of our partners or it may be to leave and move forward alone. I don’t think we need to get pissed off about one person’s choice in that regard.
robyn…as per your comments, well i’d like to hear the guys’ sides of the story, too…you know the drill: ”there’s her side, his side…then somewhere in the middle…”…sounds like both parties have started long ago a pattern of taking one another for granted…or maybe some of their malaise goes back to the origins that many make mistakes with: they weren’t really suited to one another to begin with, but got emotionally entangled and it’s only after they’ve done their dues to mother nature’s spell (gotten married, had kids/”extended the species”) that some of the truth comes out…i mean for a dude to bookmark porn?…that sucks…but is she also driving him away in some manner, too….i don’t know…are we really made to be serial monogamists? I sort of think that…being with one person for one’s lifetime is not very common with our society: and is even done less in a happy and fulfilling manner for both parties….god bless those who do make it work ’til death do us part’..they’re the ideal that many of us still strive for with vigor (albeit in vain largely).
did you read some of the ‘letters to the editor’ afterwords…i did some digging…
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200910/letters
No, didn’t see these letters to the editor. Thanks for link!
The questions you raise are provocative…
the questions i raise hopefully are provocative….how do we balance our needs for stability and love (very unbuddhist like ’tis one part of our nature) yet acknowledge that the very fabric of life is all about change…and in relationships many don’t last the ‘forever’ goal…but why write it off as a failure, which many of us do….i’m trying to find a balance, susan, between being romantic and hopeful aside being realistic and pragmatic too.
what i mean about being unbuddhist like is our need/yearning/clinging for stability/permanence (yet i’m not a buddhist) …sometimes accepting change can mean growing together…sometimes it means letting one go, too.