Jessica Simpson, when talking about how disappointed she was that former boyfriend John Mayer told people about their sex life, said, “That’s not the John I knew.”
I've seen that in clients over and over and over and over. People become attracted to someone, usually for their looks or fame or money or charm or “S/he will make me look / feel good,” and immediately they imagine good traits that aren’t there and ignore harmful traits that are there.
That is why as the relationship matures what was once attentive is suddenly recognised as controlling. Carefree becomes irresponsible. Relaxed is later seen as lazy. Outgoing shows up as flirtatious. Oh so in love is really obsessive / desperate.
People like Simpson and Mayer and others that people seem to admire (and I do not get why that is) are in fact so relationally dysfunctional that they go full blast into relationships based on nothing but assumptions and wishful thinking. Simpson laments the fact that John speaks about their sex life when for most of those people, sex is all they have to offer a relationship. There is simply nothing of substance below the surface.
So, Yes Jessi. That WAS the John you knew. You just weren't willing or perhaps able to recognise it. And I know it sucks, but because emotional health attracts emotional health and emotional sickness attracts sickness, this isn't the last schmuck that you'll be with. Not by a long shot.
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Selection bias... where are all the stories about how happy Harrison Ford and Calista Flockhart are (without even being married, I might add)? Who would have thought Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones were in it for the long haul... certainly not many at first. The media will focus on drama because people like watching it, I guess. Personally, I didn't know about this Simpson/Mayer relationship until just now, and I think I was happier before I knew. But anyway...
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting you say "over time," because quite often marriages that were snap decisions in the past turned out very successful. It was not uncommon at one time for people to marry someone after knowing them for less than a year, if not less than a few months. That doesn't seem to be the case anymore, perhaps because Americans would rather throw something away and start over than fix what they have.
I would recommend being with someone two and a half years before marriage, because after two years you start seeing them differently and those trait transformations you described really materialize. It also helps if you both gained weight. It's like the modern child, which keeps a couple together. "Well, it's easier to work out our differences than to work out at the gym and get back into dating shape..."
'Sup Theo
ReplyDeleteI don't admire many people. But if I were to be honest, I saw a poster of Jessica promoting the movie "The Dukes of Hazzard" that admired a little to long?
Late, feeno
"because quite often marriages that were snap decisions in the past turned out very successful."
ReplyDeleteQuite often? I don't think so. And picking out the exceptions to make a rule is probably not helpful either.
Bottom line, never get married until you find out where your partner likes to set the thermostat.
People did not date for as long before engagement, and engagements were also shorter. It is fairly common for couples celebrating their 50th anniversary to have only seriously dated a short time before marriage. I credit this to, like I said, the difference in attitudes between this older generation and the ones with higher divorces rates that followed.
ReplyDeletePeople today would rather end it than mend it. They may go through the motions of trying to repair a relationship (counseling, for example), but unless an individual is willing to change their expectations and actions, it's all futile.
"They may go through the motions of trying to repair a relationship"
ReplyDeleteI once had a couple come in and say, "We both have appointments with our lawyers this afternoon but someone said we should try counselling first." True story.
Otherwise, you're bang on. Attitudes and expectations were indeed different.