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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 |
One thing love can't change is someone else's personality.
"Personality" is an individual's habitual style of dealing with the world. This is expressed in their interests, their political opinions, the way they communicate, what they communicate about, how they spend their free time and how they respond to problems. Personality is ones recurring patterns of behavior and perception, expressed in a variety of situations. It can also be thought of as a person's unique mental illness, dictating their delusions and the kind of self-destructive mistakes they are likely to make.
Let's say you are waiting at an airport gate for an outgoing flight that has been delayed. As the delay stretches from minutes into hours, you begin to see what your fellow travellers are made of. Some people repeatedly go to the podium to complain. The longer the delay is, the angrier they get. Some people pull books or laptop computers out of their bags. They figure that if they are going to be delayed, they might as well use the time for something. Other people head for the airport bar and wait for the flight there, and here in Las Vegas, others spend the time in front of the slot machines conveniently located near the gate. A few people might just wander around, observing the other passengers and drinking it all in. To them, the delay is not an inconvenience; it just another adventure.
How someone responds to a stress like this is an expression of their personality. The operating style of the angry people is fundamentally different from those who take advantage of the time. Under a similar level of stress in entirely different circumstances, you can expect that each of these people will respond in a similar way.
If you have raised children, you know that each of them has their own style, which starts becoming apparent at an early age. There are colicky babies and calm ones. There are children who like dolls, those who like to take things apart, those who prefer sports, those who whine a lot, those who are quiet and self-contained and those who talk non-stop. The older a child gets, the more pronounced and stable their traits become.
By the end of high school, teachers have a pretty good idea where each kid is headed. One kid will probably be doing mechanical work for most of his life, like auto repair. Another kid is destined to be an artist. A third is a charismatic leader and a born manager. Another, if he hasn't dropped out of school already, will probably be a scam artist or lifelong drug addict. The exact career path each kid follows remains to be seen, but by the time of graduation, you have a pretty good idea of his lifelong predilections.
We can argue about how much of ones personality comes from nature (genes) and how much from nurture (environment and upbringing). If you discover, at the age of 35, that you have an identical twin sibling you didn't know about, and you go to visit them, you will probably find both some uncanny similarities and some striking differences between you. This would be a graphic illustration of the nature vs. nurture issue. Your similarities are probably an expression of your genes, while your differences are an expression of the different environments you grew up in and the different opportunities you had.
Personality is a quality of your behavior, not your appearance, but the body you were born into is inevitably going to shape your personality, because it effects how people respond to you and what you are physically good at. A boy with a linebacker's physique is likely to become a linebacker and not try out for ballet. It is often a cruel hand that biology deals us, but the characteristics of our body can't help but influence our methods of interacting with the world.
Personality is not just a style of behavior; it also embodies ones unique perception of reality. You may think there is only one reality, but in fact it differs greatly from person to person. One person, raised in a relatively warm and benevolent environment, might perceive the world as basically fair and just, while another, the product of a less stable childhood, might regard the world as inherently treacherous and deceptive. The real world, in fact, is more complex than either prediction. Each is a personality judgment.
Fundamental self-worth is contained in ones personality. Is a person highly self-confident, or do they feel themselves worthless and expect to be cheated? Do they fundamentally distrust all parental figures or all members of the opposite sex? Do they have an impulsive need to defy authority? Do they have a fundamental belief in the goodness of others? These are all instinctual operating theories that will have a profound effect on a person's relations with the world.
Personality defies language. You cannot dissuade someone of their fundamental beliefs about life using words alone. We are used to communicating with each other in words, and because we all speak English, we tend to assume that we all speak the same language. This is true only for physical objects; if you say, "Put the red ball in the blue box," everybody knows what you mean. Language becomes far less effective when you try to talk about relationships.
What, for example, does "love" mean? It is going to mean different things to different people based on their background and personality. In fact, nearly all the language commonly used to discuss relationships is open to interpretation. The language might have sentimental value when used in a greeting card, but it is pretty much useless for getting anything done.
If I say, "You are selfish and immature, and you don't understand me at all!" the only thing I have really conveyed to you is my own emotional unhappiness. I haven't provided any useful information about how to be less selfish and immature or how to understand me better. That's where language breaks down. "Be more mature," isn't an adequate instruction, because obviously you believe that you are already mature and have been doing things the best way you know how.
At the beginning of a romantic relationship, couples think they are in sync with each other when they exchange relationship words with each other—like "love"—and each seems to agree with what the other is saying. In fact, each may be interpreting the language in entirely different ways. Only later, in times of stress, do you realize how useless the language is. You can give your partner specific instructions on one thing you want changed—like "Pick up your own clothes!"—and they may indeed try to change, but they will probably miss all the other circumstances that concern you, like cleanliness in other parts of the house.
What you may find over time is that you are both speaking the same verbal language—English—but that no real communication is taking place. These communication gaps are a reflection of differences in your basic ways of processing the world. Unfortunately, there is no real cure for these communication breakdowns, because each of your personalities is already fixed.
Campbell's Third Law is: "Nothing you can say or do will change another adult's personality."
It's a hard lesson to accept, especially if you are romantically bonded to someone and have invested a lot of yourself in them. You can try to a change specific behavior, like leaving their clothes on the floor, but even changing this one specific habit is going to be difficult. You are never going to turn a messy person into a neat one or an irresponsible cad into a devoted partner. If you have already made an investment, you may try changing them anyway, but you're probably going to fail in the end.
When responding to personality traits you object to, you have only one form of effective discretion: You can withdraw or not withdraw. Withdrawal, in fact, may be your sole means of helping the other person change. While you can't repair someone else's personality defects, you may be inadvertently reinforcing these traits by protecting this person from the natural consequences of their actions. When you stop picking up after them, it lets them experience the world more directly. The dirty clothes will pile up and eventually something will have to give.
Who should you choose as your long-term partner? Someone whose personality is as close as possible to yours. If you can find your missing identical twin, they would be ideal! You don't have to have the same background, career or outward appearance, but you need to have the same basic worldview. Then there will be fewer gaps in your communication.
If the two of you have fundamentally different personalities, you are probably not going to get along in the long run, because there are too many opportunities for misunderstanding. Getting married isn't going to erase your differences, no matter how much you may want it to. It will only stretch out the amount of time it takes to reach the final conclusion.
Continued in Chapter 23
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