Compatibility Is An Achievement Of Love…
Posted by Michelle Moquin on May 29th, 2016
Happy Sunday!
Readers: How’s this for a Sunday write?
Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person
It’s one of the things we are most afraid might happen to us. We go to great lengths to avoid it. And yet we do it all the same: We marry the wrong person.
Partly, it’s because we have a bewildering array of problems that emerge when we try to get close to others. We seem normal only to those who don’t know us very well. In a wiser, more self-aware society than our own, a standard question on any early dinner date would be: “And how are you crazy?”
Perhaps we have a latent tendency to get furious when someone disagrees with us or can relax only when we are working; perhaps we’re tricky about intimacy after sex or clam up in response to humiliation. Nobody’s perfect. The problem is that before marriage, we rarely delve into our complexities. Whenever casual relationships threaten to reveal our flaws, we blame our partners and call it a day. As for our friends, they don’t care enough to do the hard work of enlightening us. One of the privileges of being on our own is therefore the sincere impression that we are really quite easy to live with.
Our partners are no more self-aware. Naturally, we make a stab at trying to understand them. We visit their families. We look at their photos, we meet their college friends. All this contributes to a sense that we’ve done our homework. We haven’t. Marriage ends up as a hopeful, generous, infinitely kind gamble taken by two people who don’t know yet who they are or who the other might be, binding themselves to a future they cannot conceive of and have carefully avoided investigating.
For most of recorded history, people married for logical sorts of reasons: because her parcel of land adjoined yours, his family had a flourishing business, her father was the magistrate in town, there was a castle to keep up, or both sets of parents subscribed to the same interpretation of a holy text. And from such reasonable marriages, there flowed loneliness, infidelity, abuse, hardness of heart and screams heard through the nursery doors. The marriage of reason was not, in hindsight, reasonable at all; it was often expedient, narrow-minded, snobbish and exploitative. That is why what has replaced it — the marriage of feeling — has largely been spared the need to account for itself.
What matters in the marriage of feeling is that two people are drawn to each other by an overwhelming instinct and know in their hearts that it is right. Indeed, the more imprudent a marriage appears (perhaps it’s been only six months since they met; one of them has no job or both are barely out of their teens), the safer it can feel. Recklessness is taken as a counterweight to all the errors of reason, that catalyst of misery, that accountant’s demand. The prestige of instinct is the traumatized reaction against too many centuries of unreasonable reason.
But though we believe ourselves to be seeking happiness in marriage, it isn’t that simple. What we really seek is familiarity — which may well complicate any plans we might have had for happiness. We are looking to recreate, within our adult relationships, the feelings we knew so well in childhood. The love most of us will have tasted early on was often confused with other, more destructive dynamics: feelings of wanting to help an adult who was out of control, of being deprived of a parent’s warmth or scared of his anger, of not feeling secure enough to communicate our wishes. How logical, then, that we should as grown-ups find ourselves rejecting certain candidates for marriage not because they are wrong but because they are too right — too balanced, mature, understanding and reliable — given that in our hearts, such rightness feels foreign. We marry the wrong people because we don’t associate being loved with feeling happy.
We make mistakes, too, because we are so lonely. No one can be in an optimal frame of mind to choose a partner when remaining single feels unbearable. We have to be wholly at peace with the prospect of many years of solitude in order to be appropriately picky; otherwise, we risk loving no longer being single rather more than we love the partner who spared us that fate.
Finally, we marry to make a nice feeling permanent. We imagine that marriage will help us to bottle the joy we felt when the thought of proposing first came to us: Perhaps we were in Venice, on the lagoon, in a motorboat, with the evening sun throwing glitter across the sea, chatting about aspects of our souls no one ever seemed to have grasped before, with the prospect of dinner in a risotto place a little later. We married to make such sensations permanent but failed to see that there was no solid connection between these feelings and the institution of marriage.
Indeed, marriage tends decisively to move us onto another, very different and more administrative plane, which perhaps unfolds in a suburban house, with a long commute and maddening children who kill the passion from which they emerged. The only ingredient in common is the partner. And that might have been the wrong ingredient to bottle.
The good news is that it doesn’t matter if we find we have married the wrong person.
We mustn’t abandon him or her, only the founding Romantic idea upon which the Western understanding of marriage has been based the last 250 years: that a perfect being exists who can meet all our needs and satisfy our every yearning.
WE need to swap the Romantic view for a tragic (and at points comedic) awareness that every human will frustrate, anger, annoy, madden and disappoint us — and we will (without any malice) do the same to them. There can be no end to our sense of emptiness and incompleteness. But none of this is unusual or grounds for divorce. Choosing whom to commit ourselves to is merely a case of identifying which particular variety of suffering we would most like to sacrifice ourselves for.
This philosophy of pessimism offers a solution to a lot of distress and agitation around marriage. It might sound odd, but pessimism relieves the excessive imaginative pressure that our romantic culture places upon marriage. The failure of one particular partner to save us from our grief and melancholy is not an argument against that person and no sign that a union deserves to fail or be upgraded.
The person who is best suited to us is not the person who shares our every taste (he or she doesn’t exist), but the person who can negotiate differences in taste intelligently — the person who is good at disagreement. Rather than some notional idea of perfect complementarity, it is the capacity to tolerate differences with generosity that is the true marker of the “not overly wrong” person. Compatibility is an achievement of love; it must not be its precondition.
Romanticism has been unhelpful to us; it is a harsh philosophy. It has made a lot of what we go through in marriage seem exceptional and appalling. We end up lonely and convinced that our union, with its imperfections, is not “normal.” We should learn to accommodate ourselves to “wrongness,” striving always to adopt a more forgiving, humorous and kindly perspective on its multiple examples in ourselves and in our partners.
Alain de Botton (@alaindebotton) is the author of the novel “The Course of Love.”
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*****
Readers: I think this is a good write. What do you think? I have to admit I’m a romanticist at heart but I am realistic too – I do not expect what was stated: “…that a perfect being exists who can meet all our needs and satisfy our every yearning.” Geez, do people really think that someone perfect exists and can satisfy all? If I thought that I would never have been in any of my past relationships. Nor do I expect to be able to satisfy every need and yearning of my man – Whoa, that’s a lot of pressure.
Over the years of relationships I have come up with some reasonable needs that are nonnegotiable. Happily I’m all for a dose of pessimism – albeit its usually mixed in with a touch (or more!) of humor (Gotta have that in my relationship!) Can you tell with my writes here? :)
Care to share your two? Blog me.
Oh…before I sign off, please remember my California peeps, the Presidential Primary Election is coming this June 7th. Don’t forget to send in your vote by mail ballot this Tuesday (If you haven’t already) or visit your local polling place to make sure your vote counts. This goes without saying but I’ll say it anyway…Hillary Clinton for President.
xox
Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)
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May 29th, 2016 at 4:41 pm
Personally, I think marriage in either of the above scenarios is just an outdated notion. Understandable long ago (thought I’ll never understand why women couldn’t inherit land/money on their own) and now ‘bottling the moment of joy’ to rely on and call upon for the duration of your life sounds dangerously delusional.
I’m all for “I dig you a lot let’s see how we roll’ … it’s possible I’m easier going about this bc while I mAke future plans I always leave room for something else mind blowing to happen and if that person feels same well cool beans …
but too much ‘compromising’ never works (and much of the time, but not always, it’s the woman doing the compromising) because there’s little personal growth involved if you’re busy accommodating. Not good for either party.
If you manage to have complimentary neuroses, lol, you may a chance, about a 50/50 chance.
My last word, my opinion/experience only…is men with mother issues are OFF my list, whether they were narcissistic or neglectful or absent, those men have always subconsciously wanted someone to ‘make up’ for that lack/whatever you may call it, unless they’ve done the inner work of handling their own trauma.
Headed to Hong Kong for the day, luv where I live, catch up with you all later, have a nice sleep!
Luv, Zen Lill
May 29th, 2016 at 4:58 pm
I did marry the wrong person. Looks like someone nailed the reason why.
May 29th, 2016 at 5:05 pm
Zen Lill your certainly correct about most of the time it is the woman doing the compromising. I have 4 sisters and 2 brothers. All of my sisters and a sister-inlaw are doing the compromising in their marriages. I did too for 9 years. Then one day I said fuck it. I refused to do any more compromising without some from him.
Guess what. He refused to do any. So I packed up and left. He wanted to continue the relationship and suggested counseling. I reluctantly accepted. He told the counselor that I was refusing to do the things I had been doing for years. The Counselor to his credit said “N____, have you ever thought about doing __________,” he refused and accused the Counselor of taking my side.
Long story/short. It didn’t work out. Three years later. He has been remarried and I am happy for them both.
May 29th, 2016 at 5:09 pm
Great topics, as usual, Michelle. I was a compromiser. NO more. I quit and divorced the self-centered creature 11 years ago. He remarried 5 years later and divorced after 4 of those. Now he is constantly at my door step attempted to lure me back with his money.
I take it as often as I can. But no way would I go back. He is one of those males, Zen Lill with mother issues.
May 29th, 2016 at 5:10 pm
Last I checked God made man the head of the household and I don’t remember reading anything about compromising with your woman.
May 29th, 2016 at 5:17 pm
If I didn’t compromise, the children would have grown up in a divorced home. I stuck it out for them. The thanks I get after 23 years is “how could you break daddy’s heart like that?”
Sure he was a great bread winner, he never beat me or put me down in from of the neighbors or the children. But the man would do nothing for himself. He didn’t like to socialize. He was 12 years my senior and I gave up my prime social years because of his reluctance to make friends.
When I decided the kids were old enough for me to get a job I did. That’s when I found out there is a whole other world than kicking it with stay at home housewives. I never had an affair though I had plenty of offers. But I learned that I had more to give and that I expected more out of life than my husband was giving me.
I told him I wasn’t happy. To his credit he didn’t make it too difficult for me to leave. I did. Not that my youngest has finished high school. I want to find my special someone. Your article Michelle is so needed.
May 29th, 2016 at 5:19 pm
Last I checked John@5, God never had a wife or husband. Either way no man gets to be head of my household unless he earns that respect from me.
May 29th, 2016 at 5:28 pm
That is just a little to late to be of good to me. But I can see what I did wrong. I was one of those women who defined themselves by the type of man she could get to date or marry her. I married a rich successful older man. I spend 29 years in a mini hell because I didn’t love him as much as I loved not being single.
I had 4 of his children when I never wanted and still don’t want children. I am not one of those women who fell in love with the thing they handed to me after I gave birth to it. My children adore me because I am a very good actor and we had plenty of servants to look after them.
My husband adored me because he loved his trophy wife. I made it my business to use everything science had to offer to stay that beautiful trophy wife he adored. When he passed away, I dutifully morned him for a year and then started dating, but only people my age or younger, much younger.
I will not marry the wrong person again because I no longer need to have a man on my arm to feel complete or like somebody. Reading the article wakened in me some of the flaws that has caused me to select some of the choices for partners I have in the past. Thank you Michelle for thinking of us with this article.
You are my idol!
May 29th, 2016 at 5:33 pm
Australia has always been my home. But you Michelle have stolen my heart. I love the way you select and serve up bits and pieces of advice designed to make women think.
I so now wish to come to America to meet and work with you. I am a 36 year old, married woman with two lovely boys and an adorably sweet man. I am biochemist whose skills are in such demand, I would have no problem relocating to the USA.
May 30th, 2016 at 1:57 am
Michelle, it is certainly nice to find you back on. That is needed and welcomed by many, I am sure of. I found this an interesting write and to hear your current reflections on relationships. It seems we have both taken time of introspection over the past few years. I trust that you are doing well.
May 30th, 2016 at 2:58 am
Alain de botton has written several introspective and insightful books, I like the pragmatism of this write though I like to think we ALL think we’re romantics at heart…under certain conditions. I know I still am when the conditions feel right. ~ ZL
May 30th, 2016 at 4:32 am
I thought I married because the man I loved, I loved because he made me happy. So I don’t agree with this author at all. I am still married and still happy.
May 30th, 2016 at 4:41 am
Patricia@12, on the contrary I think he was spot on. I too married for love and the fact that he had an uncanny way of making me feel good even when I felt bad. He is very “good at disagreement.”
We have three children. All are adults now two with families of their own. We had a tumultuous 37 years of dealing with ourselves and our children. They were difficult little devils. We had to learn to get along under many a difficult situation.
Yet, today long after the children have gone, I still him “very good at disagreement.”
May 30th, 2016 at 4:44 am
Michelle was it a typo or is it my english or that I am Dutch? I don’t understand what you meant by “Can you tell with my writes here? :)”
May 30th, 2016 at 4:56 am
Most of my friends had their husbands chosen for them. I chose a Viennese who stole my heart with his smile and golden hair.
Nine years and a boy and a girl later I still love him. I have been reading you for 4 years Michelle. You helped me stay through the tough times when his bigoted family was the worst.
I waited 3 years to have a baby even though he wanted a family right away. I was 19, he 22. It was before I read your vetting article, but thank God my family values forced me to anyway.
I don’t know about him, but I cheated on him once with a co-worker. He doesn’t know and I would never tell. It was only a fling and something I wanted since my husband was only the third man I had had sex with before we married.
It didn’t help that his family didn’t like my brown skin or my Polynesian features. They always used to complain that I tanned to easily. Or would suggest that I stay out of the sun.
My husband was always there to defend me or to assure me that it was he who married me and not his family. He’s sweet.
We have had our share of arguments. But they have always been civilized. Now that we have two little ones, we make compromises. Yes, Mr Botton has a point.
May 30th, 2016 at 5:00 am
So Doug B#10, what is your take on the author’s claim that the marriage is doomed when one or both parties refuse to compromise?
May 30th, 2016 at 5:08 am
Michelle, don’t answer if you feel I am being too personal but since many people seem to treat your blog as their personal confessional, I was curious to know why after, was it 20 years, you and Doug decided to call it quits.
I ask because I was married for 18 years to whom I thought was the perfect partner until I discovered he had an affair when he was away on business. I guess even that I could have forgiven, but he made that business trip half a dozen times and continued the affair until he was promoted to partner in his firm.
We were making more money, but he became less in my eyes. So I asked for a divorce. We are still friends, I still love him a little, but the trust is gone. After reading this article, I do wonder if one indiscretion warranted a divorce. He still wants to remarry.
May 30th, 2016 at 5:13 am
Yikes, do you bitches ever quit bitching. I have been married for 27 years. We have 2 children. I have cheated on her for at least 23 and counting of those years. What you don’t know can’t hurt you. Besides it has kept our marriage together.
As for this nut who spouts off bullshit, what do we know about him. Zen Lill you say you have read some of his other books, but what do you know about his marital or other romantic relationships?
If he hasn’t experience marriage what the fuck does he know.
May 30th, 2016 at 5:18 am
Doug B., I’m tired of hearing these women proclaim Michelle this super woman. What was she like when you were married to her? From your write above it doesn’t sound like you two have kept in touch.
How difficult was it to be married to the head “GirlZ? My sister who introduced me to this blog lives by the woman’s bullshit. She takes my wife’s side against me almost every time. We used to be so close. Now I can’t share a damn thing with her without the fear she will share it with my wife.
May 30th, 2016 at 5:27 am
Funny, reading this article before I get married has me worried. I’ll probably marry him anyway. He is rich and a producer. I want to continue my acting career and he is that ticket.
I do like him a lot. He is interesting and people are afraid of him. He commands respect in Hollywood. But he never wants to compromise or see my side of an issue. We have been dating for 3 years and some months. He asked me to marry him, I said yes originally because I was afraid my career would suffer if I angered him. I thought to put up with him in bed for a year or so more by then my career would be where I wanted it.
But it hasn’t worked out that way, so marriage is my next option. It isn’t that bad, he is nice looking and not too much older than me. I figure a few years of marriage, and if I’m not a star, at least there’s alimony.
May 30th, 2016 at 5:39 am
I’ve been married twice. Once for 5 years and the second time for less than 2. After the first marriage, I knew better than to think that time would help. Once you discover that a man is narcissistic, and most are, get the fuck out as soon as you can. I mean if you can, some of us girls need that financial support.
Fortunately for me I don’t. As a model I can call my own shots. I’m 29 with at least 10 good years left. I have a great financial manager. If only I could find a romantic one. This Alain de Botton makes a good point. The first time I married to be not alone. The second, because I was looking for that perfect childhood I didn’t have.
All I know is that I want a partner who I can trust and respect. He has to have the ability to compromise and to not to take himself so seriously. I don’t need him to tell me I’m beautiful, everyone else does, but I do need to know he prefers me over all others.
May 30th, 2016 at 5:48 am
Zen Lill#1:
Women couldn’t inherit land/money on their own because men needed something to keep women sucking their dicks. That’s why we could hold jobs. They wanted to keep us dependent upon their ability to provide our survival. It is still true today in some form or other witness Amanda#20.
Men use religion, money, and anything they can to control our pussy. They want at it and they don’t care what they have to put us through to get it.
I’ve done 4 years for blinding and maiming one, and other 11 for killing one. I’m not bitter because if the law knew the truth, I’d be on death row.
Men own the system and women just live by their rules. I’m 49 and about to marry for he 3rd time. I hope it is truly the charm cause I’m not going back to prison.
May 30th, 2016 at 5:55 am
Yeah, Doug B. what is your side of the story? Michelle disses men at will. I can see that she is hot, but what about her personality? What was it like to be married to a person so sure of herself.
I had been checking out her blog for almost 2 years. My ex used to quote her every time we had an argument, so I was forced to check out her computer to find out who the bitch was. When I discovered it was some smart ass writing a blog I said I’m going to check this bitch out.
She sounds like a real ball-buster to me. You don’t have to go into detail but your ex was the cause of my marriage dissolution. I’m betting I’m not the only one. You for one seem to be a casualty.
Just give us men a little insight of what it was like.
May 30th, 2016 at 5:59 am
Malcolm, lol well aren’t you just the catch of the century…& yes the writer is married.
Is isn’t ‘bitching’ to state that a man makes less (or no) compromises, it’s an observation and if you don’t like it here bc we “yikes” never quit bitching why don’t you go hang out on one of those pathetic pick up hot chicks fast sites?
Irene, May 25, I’m just catching up on previous posts, another reason Drumpf shouldn’t get a minute of our time (and def not a nomination) … The man is easily the biggest most obvious narcissist on the planet. Americans’ biggest problem: generally speaking, we like big decisive talkers…and this is just the tip of the analysis iceberg
Luv, ZL
May 30th, 2016 at 6:01 am
If I had read this article a year ago, most certainly I would not have accepted his proposal. Now I am canceling it. I’m only23. I need more time to check out what my options are. I love him, but I love my dog too.
Thanks Michelle, you are the best.
To my friends at home, I say 日本のGirlzはミシェルが大好きです。あなたは私たちに参加しませんか？
May 30th, 2016 at 6:03 am
I get that Zen Lill. My friends love Trump because he exaggerates his claims and they feel part of something big.
May 30th, 2016 at 6:05 am
Trump is a bigot playing to bigots.
May 30th, 2016 at 6:06 am
I live in China and I just want to say I was appalled by that racist ad.
May 30th, 2016 at 6:08 am
Helena@22, if you don’t want to go back to prison stop killing men or marrying them so you won’t be tempted to harm them.
May 30th, 2016 at 6:11 am
Malcolm#18, bet you have never heard the refrain “who’s making love to your old lady, while you’re out making love…”
May 30th, 2016 at 6:12 am
Marriages in my country are arranged. I would love to be able to make the mistakes of romantic love you people get to make.
May 30th, 2016 at 6:17 am
Just so you know that other Helena#22 is not me.
May 30th, 2016 at 7:02 am
Die’ dui wo ye <I'm sure I screwed that up
Helena 1 yes got it and Helena 2 best of luck in your upcoming nuptials I hope it works out better than the first two!
claudia, I couldn't stop laughing … Although Malcolm is the type to be indignant if he found out.
Rim, understand why you'd say that and we feel for you.
May 30th, 2016 at 7:08 am
Irene, yes a part of something BIG, that’s the illusion he’s creating but BIG doesn’t necessarily mean good and in this case, it’s more like creating a HUGE fiasco…
How this country allows a commander in chief to be CEO of his own company concurrently is beyond me (and reason)