It’s a crazy midterm-y type of day, and I don’t have much time in which to post. Yesterday’s post about having “so much love to give” struck a nerve with some folks. Hilary writes in response:
I’ve been reminiscing about what I could have done better as a girlfriend in my previous relationship, what I would change if I could go back, etc. My list of changes includes more sex, more time/work/reciprocity invested, more communication, less arguments, less jealousy, more love. Shit, that’s a lot of changes. I’ve learned a lot about myself and I feel I’ve vastly matured as a feminist, an independent, single woman, and a girlfriend. But I’m a bit nervous about my feelings of seeking to be the perfect girlfriend. I guess what I’m afraid of is being left, being cheated on, being criticized, because I know what all of that feels like and if only I could be the perfect girlfriend, that wouldn’t happen…right? What also scares me is that I’m not wondering to myself what I’ll get out of the relationship. Rather, I’ve been wondering what I can give to the relationship.
Conventional relationship advice to someone in Hilary’s position would applaud her focus on what she will do differently in her next relationship. After all, it seems mature and commonsensical to focus on self-improvement, on learning from past mistakes, and so forth. I’ve said a time or nine that one of the chief purposes of relationship — particularly an intimate and enduring one –is to serve as a vehicle for our personal growth. Given that we all know the dangerous old axiom “‘Tis better to give than to receive”, Hilary — and those like her — have nothing to worry about, right?
The problem, of course, is that as Hilary herself recognizes, her desire to be the “perfect girlfriend” is rooted in a fantasy that her perfection will ensure she will never be disappointed, betrayed, or left. Many of us, men and women alike, imagine that if we could just do things a little bit better, we could control how everyone else reacts to us. As anyone who has struggled with people-pleasing knows, the great dream of every people-pleaser is to be able to orchestrate everyone else’s emotional responses. “If I say things in just the right way”, the people pleaser imagines, “my boyfriend (girlfriend, spouse, mother, etc.) will follow the script I’ve written for them.”
The reason this fantasy is so much more common in women than in men is because of our cultural myth about male weakness. We teach women, in contemporary America, that men are less emotionally intuitive and less capable of exercising self control. At the same time that we warn women about trusting these reckless, myopic, be-penised creatures of impulse, we also suggest that men’s weakness allows them to be manipulated by a “smart” woman. We suggest that if a woman knows how to push a man’s buttons, feed him the right foods, fuck him the right way, soothe his fragile ego with just the right words, then he will never, ever leave. Women’s magazines have made a fortune in the last century offering “new” tips along these lines.
Of course, men and women alike are complex, multi-faceted creatures. Men are not as weak as we imagine (though some lads do their darndest to live down to expectations.) Women, of course, are not as intuitive as they have often been taught they are. But as long as we continue to believe in male weakness — and concomitantly, in women’s power to direct a relationship — then we continue to place the success or failure of that relationship entirely in a woman’s hands. If a man cheats, as Laura Schlessinger recently suggested, it’s in some very real way the result of his wife’s failure. As outrageous as this claim was, it resonated with many women because it was tinged with the perverse flattery of feminine omnipotence: the idea that a smart woman, a good woman, has the power, always, to control the outcome of a relationship.
So part of the job for women isn’t just letting go of the relentless pursuit of unattainable perfection. It’s also resisting a cultural myth that the success or failure of any heterosexual relationship rests primarily with the female partner. No matter how thin you are, or how good in bed you are, or how patient a listener you are, there is nothing you can do to control an adult man. You may be able to get yourself the temporary illusion of control, but it will be assuredly fleeting. Self-improvement for the sake of obtaining the power to direct a relationship — for the sake of keeping the self safe from heartbreak — will never, ever, ever, ever, succeed. The purpose of improving the self is to improve the self, not to become a more efficient and skilled screenwriter/director making the movie of one’s own life with a cast of thousands.
In the end, all real relationships are fraught with risk. They also have within them the certainty of loss: every single relationship will end with death or another kind of separation. The purpose of self-improvement is not to gain a greater measure of control over risk and heartache; the purpose of self-improvement is to become a more effective and loving human being, to become “actualized” as the followers of Maslow would say; to become more like Jesus, as Christians would put it. We can challenge each other, support each other, care for each other on that transformative journey. But we sure as hell can’t script each other, even if we were to attain that longed-for perfection.
No matter how beautiful, smart, kind, giving, sexy, ambitious, or self-sacrificing you are, you will know pain if you love other human beings. There is no “endless love” between people, though the fortunate remain in love until one partner goes forward into death. Knowing that, and accepting that, is hard wisdom. But with that wisdom comes the freedom from the illusion of control, and that’s a precious freedom indeed.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Very true, Hugo. Thanks.
Very beautifully put! I have only recently come upon your site and have been reading your posts with pleasure. The past two days’ posts on this topic have really been eyeopeners. I always respect and admire someone who can challenge the way I’ve been thinking with (compelling) reason– and actually get me to stop for a second and actually really think about what I’m doing (part of the reason I became vegan, actually).
So, a big, heartfelt thank you!
Argh. My husband and I were just talking about that (and I betcha he’ll be emailing me your post). Not necessarily what I want to hear, but, I suppose, what I need to hear.
Very true. We expect too much of women, and too little of men, and in doing so, reduce the very complex reasons a relationship fails to ’she did something wrong’. I pretty much agree, so this will be my shortest comment ever. :)
As I reflect on my previous relationship, I realize that most of my issues were about not seeing my ex as he was. It wasn’t that I tried to please him constantly, but I did try to control his behavior. In that, I made him out to be somebody that he simply wasn’t. I now kick myself, wondering why it took me so long to realize that we were incompatible in many, many ways.
I am currently reading a book called “Why Men Love Bitches.” At first I was a little suspicious of it, but it makes a lot of sense. Many guys really aren’t attracted women who drop everything for them. Like, the book suggests that if you invite him to dinner at your house, make him something simple like hot dogs. Don’t give too much of yourself away in the beginning of the relationship. Don’t talk about your ex. Don’t drop everything to hang out with him if he calls you last minute. The book’s main thesis is that “guys like a challange.” Damn, the dating game sucks. Don’t do this, do that. Be assertive, but not bitchy, etc. etc., etc.
Mermade,
Initially some guys may like a challenge, but the relationship will change and the challenge changes too “she’s unreasonable,” and “too much of a challenge,” “too demanding,” etc. I don’t know if it’s true that men love bitches, but I do think they like to BITCH about them. A challenging woman will become too much of a challenge and it will creae a lot of friction in the relationship. The book, Emotional Unavailability resonated more with me. Also, there’s a good book about “people-pleasing,” can’t recall the name…The control issue is something I think most couples deal with and have to keep reminding themselves about…especially when difficulties arise. It is something that I’m currently dealing with now with a man whom I thought was a friend and now, despite no encouragement on my part, is revealing his romantic love for me (he’s in a difficult mariage). What once was a relationship that offered me support, encouragment, respect and empathy, now is creating intense emotional pain. Yet, I cannot control his behavior. “All real relationships are fraught with risk….They also have within them the certainty of loss: every single relationship will end with death or another kind of separation. We can challenge each other, support each other, care for each other on that transformative journey. But we sure as hell can’t script each other, even if we were to attain that longed-for perfection.” So true Hugo…and thank you for a beautiful post.
you speak truth, dear hugo.
Initially some guys may like a challenge, but the relationship will change and the challenge changes too “she’s unreasonable,” and “too much of a challenge,” “too demanding,” etc.
Is it different with women? Your comment sounded to me (perhaps wrongly) as if most men expect women to put themselves in the centre of their lives without doing the same in return. Why is it worth to be in a relationship with one, then? /depressed/
Karen, having read the book a little more, I realized that it focuses less on making yourself “a challenege,” and more on emphasizing the importance of having your own life, needs, and priorities. If you drop everything just to be with him all the time, then that will likely turn him off and cause resentment within your relationship. I certainly don’t agree with everything the book says. In all this, it seems like men never do anything wrong and, if something goes wrong in the relationship, it’s all our fault. Like, the book says to not have sex for a month. If you do, the guy will assume that you’re cheap. Of course, the book never asks you to wonder how “worthy” a man might be if he sleeps with you on the first date. They still play on the double-standard, even though “Why Men Love Bitches” preaches a lot of feminist ideals.
I’ll write up a full post about it over at my place, once I move my blog.
Kate,
Some men and women do expect to be the center of attention and they do not reciprocate. It is called being self-absorbed, selfish and narcissism. It is important to become aware of this problem. I would say that self-awareness is far more important, because you cannot change other people. You can change yourself and your response to others and often times that means leaving a relationship when it feels destrucitve or unhealthy. When I spoke of guys who may like a challenge it is because that daily challenge often creates conflict and constant conflict is often cited as a reason why people leave relationships. Only you can decide the worth or value of the relationship…If you’re involved with a guy who drinks heavily don’t delude yourself that he will change. Only he can change himself and all your love and support will not change him. If you were involved with a guy like this the important question to ask is who does he remind you of and what qualities does he have that remind you of say a parent….That is the self-awareness that I speak of.
I don’t think anyone can really love a doormat. You don’t have to be a “challenge” but you do have to be your own person - there are things about you that made your partner love you. So many people (mostly women but some men) are far too quick to give them up to better serve their partner.
Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. Hugo, I call bullshit on your post.
How passive. How utterly passive your view of control within relationships is.
And absolutely glaring the omission of the “reciprocal” means as used by men to control relationships. Neverfuckingmind perfection. Talk about making your partner economically dependent on you. Talk about threatening, intimidating, undermining the other’s self-esteem by comments and actions. Talk about men killing women who leave them. Talk about earning more money so your wife won’t have to work and won’t have an independent income. Talk about driving down women’s wages in the workplace so they’ll have to marry “providers”. Talk about improving your physical fitness, bulking up, eating “like a man”, while she starves herself to attain beauty standards that exacerbate sexual dimorphism and the advantage of physical power of one partner over the other. Talk about men’s pantomime of incompetence, used to coerce women into performing domestic services for them within loving families.
Talk about objectifying women to the point where the only way women can conceive of controlling men is by being the perfect objects of their desire, indeed.
Look at the frelling politics, if you want to talk about control, and leave your lunacy of manipulations through perfection — which is far, far from the “people-pleaser” position, as a friend of mine pointed out — out of it. Objects do not direct relationships. Actors do.
Ide, I’m writing about an illusion — an illusion with which many women, alas, are raised. Control through manipulation and “pleasing” is a myth, but it is one we ingrain in our daughters.
It may be a myth we ingrain in our daughter (I think your perspective here is slightly US-centric), but when you go on to state that “part of the job for women isn’t just letting go of the relentless pursuit of unattainable perfection. It’s also resisting a cultural myth that the success or failure of any heterosexual relationship rests primarily with the female partner” you are supporting, not debunking, that myth. You are stating here what “the job for women” is in order to fix relationships, thus leaving the responsibility for the relationship squarely on women’s shoulders. If it’s our job to fix ourselves and thus fix our relationships, we are still victims of the myth of female power in heterosexual relationships.
In actuality, most women (with the exception of some, not all, white upper-middle class, highly educated women) have almost no power over the relationships they’re in, for the reasons Ide Cyan stated above. There is need for not just for removing the myth of female power over relationship, but for a radical rethinking of power in relationships: a rethinking which needs to be done by men.
Lalouve, we all have jobs to do in relationships. If you read through my archives on the subject, you will see that I have written five times as often about what men need to do as I have about what women’s task it.
It is NOT women’s job to fix their relationships; it is always every adult’s job to fix herself or himself.
I’ve noticed a pattern lately - people treat Hugo’s posts like they’re in a vaccuum. If he writes about one gender, a bunch of people jump on him for singling that gender out as the “one who has to do everything” or somesuch nonsense. It’s too bad more people don’t read these thoughts in the context of your entire blog, where you write about both genders and encourage both to grow and challenge themselves.