Hugo Schwyzer

Reprint of a post from April 2008.

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.