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The Case Against Marriage
A Book in Progress by Glenn Campbell “Read it or weep!” Chapter 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 Production Notes This is a ROUGH DRAFT of a book that still needs a lot of work. I have set it aside for now but expect to come back to it later Your feedback is encouraged, but I recognize that the chapters don't yet flow together as they should. FamilyCourtGuy<at>gmail.com |
A parent is unconditionally responsible for their child. If your child is the Elephant Boy, hideous to the rest of the world, you don't love him any less. If your child is sick, you are going to care for him and try to get him the best medical attention. If your child behaves badly, you are going to try to be firm with him and do what you can to change the behavior, at least until he is an adult.
Responsible married people are tempted to apply this same standard of unconditional love to their spouse. After all, they said in their marriage vows, "For better or worse," and "In sickness and in health." If your partner gets sick or loses his job, you are going to stick by him. If your partner fails to do what he said he would, you give him another chance, and another and another. If he lapses into alcoholism, you try to get him into treatment. You know he had a terrible childhood, and you are willing to make accommodations for it. "Marriage can sometimes be tough," you say, "But I have be willing to make sacrifices if I want the relationship to succeed."
Unfortunately, this is a defective attitude that is only going to get you deeper into trouble. By attending unconditionally to your partner as though he were a child, you may be inadvertently "enabling" him and encouraging him to act like a child.
If your partner behaves badly, even once, there is really only one solution: withdrawal. If you aren't married, this isn't a big deal; you just go back to your natural independent position, living your own life and relying on your own resources. It may or may not be a permanent withdrawal, but your partner's psychological problems are simply not yours to solve.
There is a difference between a child and a grown adult. Children are still developing, whereas adults have reached a steady state that we on the outside have very little power to change. A small investment in a child can have substantial effects on their development, whereas a huge investment in an adult will probably have very little effect on their long-term behavior.
A tragic childhood can help explain an adult's bad behavior, but it shouldn't change your response to it. If the behavior is noxious to you, you need to get away from it.
Romantic love is not a charity. It exists for your benefit, not your partner's.
Let me repeat that: The purpose of romantic love is to serve your own needs, not those of the person you love.
You are not a therapist. You are not a provider. You are not a parent. You are consumer. You should choose a relationship solely because you believe it will give you good value for your investment. If the costs of the relationship exceed the benefits, or if you can clearly get better benefits elsewhere, then the relationship must end.
This may sound cold and selfish, but it's the only approach to love that's going to work.
Cooperative love between adults is completely different than a parent's love for a child. A parent's love exists mainly for the child's benefit. Romantic love is more of a business proposition. In this special case, you only have one open position. You can be bonded to only one partner at once, so either this is going to be a competent employee, serving the needs of your business, or you should leave the position open for someone else.
This position is not a therapeutic one. You shouldn't hire someone because they are needy and you want to feel needed. You take them on only because you expect them to perform a service for you, just like any other employee. You can make an ongoing investment in training, but you expect a quick response. If the employee fails to perform to adequate standards within a reasonable time, then you have to cut them loose.
What is their job description? You expect your love to understand you, be interested in you and have enough language in common with you that you can freely talk to each other. They should speak not just English, but a functional dialect similar to yours. You expect to be able to share with them things that are important to you, and you expect to get intelligent and constructive feedback from them that is different than what you would tell yourself. You don't need a sycophant or worshipper. You are looking for a confidential observer who sees the world through different eyes and who can give you important new data about yourself and your problems. It is a lot like a president hiring an advisor. The advisor, knowing the president well, can give him an honest assessment of his own policies when no one else can.
What is the price of this arrangement? You have to be willing to do the same for the other person.
Sex can be included in this business arrangement. There should be tenderness and intimacy, because the closer you are to each other, the better you can communicate. When your employee is facing personal problems, you can do what you can to help. You are willing to invest a large portion of your time and resources in this employee, because you know how valuable they will be to you in the long run.
If they fail to perform their duties, however, they're out! A president wouldn't accept an advisor who came to work drunk. Correction: A president probably would accept an advisor who came to work drunk, because they have no doubt known each other for years and are familiar with each other's weaknesses. What the president could not accept is defective information from the advisor. If the advisor wasn't really advising and wasn't providing honest and reliable information when it was needed, then he would have to be replaced with another.
If you find yourself repeatedly digging your employee out of his own problems, you probably don't need them. Whether you keep them on the payroll comes down to a cold, hard calculation of whether the salary you are paying is worth the information you are getting.
Is this such a terrible expectation: to invest in a relationship for the practical ongoing benefit you are getting out of it?
Remember that this is your only opportunity for this level of intimacy. It isn't like a parent who can raise six kids at once. You can have only one intimate advisor, so your standards need to be high. If you aren't going to get adequate return on your investment, then it is better to be alone and leave the position unfilled.
If you want to treat alcoholism, give to the Salvation Army. If you want to devote yourself to helping others, then focus on those who can most realistically be changed—using whatever extra resources you have at your disposal after you have provided for your own needs. Your one special position must be exempt from all charity: It must not be used as an avenue for directly helping others. An intimate relationship can be therapeutic for both parties, but this is incidental. The real purpose of the relationship is to give you advice and counsel you can't get elsewhere.
What happens if your partner gets sick, really sick, and can't perform the duties required? Let's say they get Alzheimer's Disease or some other wasting illness beyond their control. Would you abandon them because they aren't performing their job? Probably not. You would then revert to a parental role, in part to repay them for their past service, but then your special position would be open again.
A bona fide illness does not include personality disorders. This is your partner's self-destructiveness due to some defect in their childhood. These diseases are untreatable by medical means and are probably also untreatable by therapy. The subject remains physically sound, just self-destructive and perhaps abusive of you. The only thing you can do is cut them loose because they aren't performing the job and because anything you do is only enabling them.
If the employee isn't doing their job, therapy is beyond your abilities. For the sake of your mission, you need to fill the position with someone who can do the job. Forget about "For better or worse." You've got a business to run.
Continued in Chapter 14
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