Friday, February 17, 2012

Fulfillment and Relationships

These days, it is a valid question to ask somebody: Why do you want to get married?

Marriage used to be an arrangement of living, a complimentary role fulfillment, a division of labor, a natural progression of maturity, a prerequisite to having a family, an expected step to become part of the adult world, and most of all, a start of being responsible for someone in your life.

Our biological relations were handed down to us, and to get married is to forge a new blood line. It is a miracle that almost all human beings alive are a consequence of a male and a female deciding to commit their lives together and to (unconsciously perhaps) restrict their life choices in order to bring up up their children.

It was hard for a single man, or for a single woman, to be happy or to flourish.

Not so much any more. And anyone these days who professes a need to have a relationship is seen, especially since the advent of new age spirituality, as being an incomplete or an unfortunate or an unhappy person.

It is frequently heard that two happy people (i.e., who don't need each other to be happy) can have a happy marriage, and that if you are unhappy due to being single, you will not be happy after getting married. It is said that you should have a rich inner life, lots of hobbies, and should have your "own space".

I think this way of thinking, though a sign of the times, is not a good portent to stable marriages.

A marriage will survive if two people need each other to be happy and if they need each other to live well. If they are self-sufficient, and each can do anything that the other can also do, the stability of their marriage is going to be an uphill struggle. There will be frequent validations required, a search for ways to "keep the spark alive", a persistent need of expressions of love, chronic feelings of inadequacy, and a predilection to go one's own way if the going gets tough.

In the past, if the man was being a good provider and protector, and the woman remained pretty or in shape, was a good homemaker and a mother, it was very easy to have a happy home. Now-a-days, if both earn, and both act as a mother to the children, and both do housework, it is not easy to see why a marriage will last long. Emotional bonds, in the absence of other factors, are fickle. Sexual desire, or shared hobbies, or shared values, can bring two people together, but cannot sustain their being together.

People who seek the amorphous goals of "fulfillment" and "growth" through their relationships are not going to have an easy time. Fulfillment and growth are side-effects, as it were, of a healthy relationship. A relationship can't be based on these goals, but needs to have something more concrete at its foundation.

Consider two scenarios:

A: A wife tells her husband that she is going to be away for two weeks, and the husband says, "No problem, I'll manage without a hitch." Or, a husband is to go on a business trip for a week, and the wife says: "Have fun! I will too."

B: A wife tells her husband that she is going to be away for two weeks, and the husband says, "Aw shucks, how will I manage?" Or, a husband is to go on a business trip for a week, and the wife says: "Oh dear, it is going to be so difficult for me alone."

Which scenario makes you think that the husband and wife are going to have a long, stable, happy marriage?

And which scenario is the current ideal for an individual in our society?

I think increasingly, due to prosperity and various other factors, people are relating to each other for purely emotional or sexual reasons, and they can manage their lives and homes and careers just fine (or so they think) on their own. They want to feel great with each other, to spend time with each other, and so they invent activities (mostly related to vacuous show-business events or to spending money eating out, shopping or seeing a "new place") to do together. They have a nagging suspicion that it is too much effort and that they would rather spend time with themselves.

We are told by the media that emotional or sexual reasons are primarily why we should get married. That love is all-important, and nothing else matters. I think that is a very wrong message. A couple certainly needs emotional and sexual compatibility, and for them to love each other is great, but that is not enough, not by a long shot, to want to spend their lives together.

A nut and a bolt may love each other, but even if at times they don't, they are and will feel incomplete without each other, and will not be fulfilled for long on their own. Two nuts, on other hand, may decide to be together because they feel they have a "connection", but they are tempting fate.

...

Here's an interesting, small book titled "The Family and Society" by Leonid Zhukhovistky, about this and other topics. I found it a breezy, and quite a fascinating and at times touching read.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Two nuts, on other hand, may decide to be together because they feel they have a "connection", but they are tempting fate."

It is nutty to feel that way.

Anonymous said...

Harmanjit you are very good at pointing out the problems that we have but you don't present any solutions to those problems. What good can come out of this?

One can develop a nihilistic viewpoint reading your posts if you present no solutions.

Anonymous said...

Harman,

As time changes so the society values too. If some one blame independent personality who can exist and happy without each other, is reason for unstable marriage than, please revisit your observation once more and closely. A person who has gone through the bitter broken relationships and has long impact on enter life, knows that there are various reason for not working a marriage. As I always say, Success of relationship/marriage is depends only and only on the two persons who are involved and how mature they are to react in given situation, how flexible they are to adjust and understand that even after conflicts they appreciate/respect each other view points.

Of-course, Any relationship needs to show that they are incomplete without each other, but that does not mean that two strong person can not have strong bonding!! Lets take you example of Nut- Bolt, they are together because they are equally strong and thus fits into each others grip perfectly, Imagine a bolt or nut either of them are weak, how long they would sustain.

Real problem has nothing to do if both are equally strong and can even exist without each other. Problems starts, when they are not compatible and one can not sustain/ understand the responsibility of marriage. If you treat your better part as friend rather than as your asset, I give you guaranty of success of that marriage.

Remember, it is unrealistic expectations from each other, and continuous dependency , which creates insecurity major caused of failure of any marriage. You are thinking as being a male and the way you see a marriage success definition, giving respect each other strength and accepting weakness and ready to live with it in any situation would surely make a stable marriage.Its mutual thinking not independent thinking. Marriage is like a see-saw, where each one has to lift oneself so that other can move up and visa -vesa. otherwise non of them can enjoy this game. Agreed!!!

I am not a gender biased person, who just jump in any conversation because it is said by other gender. I believe in analyse situation/ thought putting myself in both shoes and then react on it. But Guys, even old time marriages were not successful, it was just that time divorce option was not there and no research was being conducted and published to see increasing rate of dissatisfaction/failed marriage.

Anonymous said...

"I swear - by my life and my love of it - that I will never live for
the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine." (Atlas Shrugged)

Harmanjit Singh said...

@anonymous:

"I swear - by my life and my love of it - that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."

I understand. I also used to think like this. It is a charming and enticing philosophy, this extreme individualism which doesn't consider the complex inter-web of social and personal relationships.

If your mother (or your father, for that matter) hadn't given up her/his pleasure and years of leisure for bringing you up, I wonder if you would have even existed.

Same goes for countless other people who have come before you and who are currently working in their own way to make your life more comfortable.

Of course, you don't think you are obligated to them in any way, and that is a real tragedy.

Selfishness and altruism are both important drives, relevant in their own contexts, and to choose only one over the other is neurotic.

Anonymous said...

Harman, while I agree that a few decades ago marriages didn't break because of social norms/restrictions/lack of options I don't think we can just assume they were happy marriages.

Being handed a divorce by my ex-husband I often contemplated whether I would have been happier in an earlier decade where he would not have dared do something like this without thinking about the consequences but on the other hand I am not sure if living with tears everyday is a better life than living as a divorcee.

I agree that I still sometimes wish he had not done that because despite the pain at least I was "respected" in society and I wouldn't have had to see other relationships (with my father for example) crumble because I am now a divorcee but is it better to keep up a pretense for the rest of my life rather than finding happiness in other things?

At this point you are probably rightfully thinking "What a crazy girl! What makes her think she can be happy without having a husband and a married life?" Well, I can tell you that not everyone lives a blissful married life and constant pain can sometimes numb you to an extent where you lose your identity and become just an existence.

Now, don't get me wrong. I am a 100% proponent on working out your issues instead of giving up and just thinking of divorce. I am also an old school sucker for inter-dependency. I like it if a man can open that hard to open jar of olives or if I can iron a shirt for him just to see a smile. But there is no reason I should have to put my life on hold if I can't find the olive-jar-opening-man or a guy can't find the shirt-ironing-woman. A marriage should be built using the glue of respect and not necessity.

Anonymous said...

@Anonymous (last comment)- you spoke my mind..and truly agree what you said!!

You can't judge a person or blame coz of failed marriage/relationship. No one ask for divorce willingly, but one should not either feet guilty or take burden of failed relationship entire their life.

Life is much easy to live if you could breath without any fear/guilt/regrets.

Anonymous said...

In a way it can be a good thing that marriages are breaking up provided they break up before a couple has children. Children of couples who are unhappy are more prone to being unhappy themselves. Divorces may break that chain which has been going on for long.

Modern Man said...

Greetings Harman,

You wrote: "They want to feel great with each other, to spend time with each other, and so they invent activities (mostly related to vacuous show-business events or to spending money eating out, shopping or seeing a "new place") to do together. They have a nagging suspicion that it is too much effort and that they would rather spend time with themselves."

Excellent analysis.

Have you seen the movie, "Shame," yet? I recommend checking it out if you have not.

-MM

Harmanjit Singh said...

@MM: Yes I saw Shame in a proper commercial theater, of all places. It was quite good, though it did pull punches. It was, I thought, more about the inability to love and have responsibility for another rather than shame.

Anonymous said...

At least in India , in the olden days I don't think people got married to seek happiness only in their marriage or their spouse. Happiness was a result of many many relationships - with a large family, with their village community, with nature, with the farm animals etc etc.
For the past 7 decades with nuclear families and people withdrawing into smaller and smaller circles (of real relationships not virtual ones like FB) . So the happiness pressure as I call it (happiness/number of people making you happy) was lower then than it is now.Especially if you think your spouse is the only one who can make you happy then imagine the pressure!!! No wonder marriages break easier now....
People did not have such high expectations of marriage in good old days. They knew It was just a legal way of continuing a bloodline nothing more.

Jogeshwar said...

http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/specials/shobhaa_1/selectedspouse.htm