Shade* whom I met through a mutual acquaintance had had her own fair share of heartache she was bitter enough to let it bubble out like over-cooked stew in the midst of first-time acquaintances such us me. She told how her boyfriend whom she supported financially, psychologically and let’s not forget sexually for five years had discarded her like a bad buy from last season just a few days ago, citing a sudden revelation of how she just wasn’t ‘the one’- Really? I couldn’t blame her indiscreet telling of her story after she also mentioned she had gone for FIVE abortions at his behest! I was simply tongue-tied while I listened fervently albeit with some head nodding as I could offer her no comfort without coming off as an ‘over-do’ – I had only met her that afternoon. However, after I had digested her story in the comfort of my room, I couldn’t help feeling one distinct emotion; anger. Anger at how we hinge our happiness and wellbeing on a man’s approval and appreciation, anger at how we hang on till the last hour! I felt terrible realising that I thought she had some fault in the whole affair. Isn’t it obvious enough that a guy who didn’t stop you from aborting his babies or even take a step towards making things official probably never saw you as someone he’d want to do it for all along? Of course, you can’t blame me for initially having such thoughts, I’m one of those people who grew up seeing things in black and white, but maturity and life have thought me that there are many shades of colour to life and not just the typical gray too. I could understand how in the beginning she might have justified it all with her loving him enough to do anything for him. And being honest, no matter how unhealthy and bad a relationship could be, there would have been good times or even moments of peace. But what I couldn’t understand was how she gave away five years with abortions in each one to someone who didn’t respect her enough to give her a better reason than he did. I know there are two sides to a story and the victim’s always sounds more potent but the basic structure of the story’s usually accurate. Anyway, this brought me around to why most of us ladies find ourselves in such situations.
I’m sure one out of every five women reading this blog knows a Shade either closely or from a distance. It’s common knowledge that we’re emotional beings but at the same time we should be aware that to survive, we have to use our heads too. Some might argue that Shade* thought things would get better with time. Maybe ‘loser boyfriend’ gave her excuses that made sense during those five years; he was still a student and couldn’t start a family or he was financially unstable. That may have been the case seeing as she was the golden goose in their relationship. But I ask myself why she put herself in the position of getting pregnant when she knew his ‘solution’. That’s where I believe she could have had some control (seeing as she couldn’t possibly make him marry her) and I think that’s where her problem lay. I’m sure she had myriad reasons why, but the honest truth would most likely be that she had ceded all control to him. In every relationship, whether we’d like to admit it or not, either party always has more control than the other. We bring in emotional qualities to quantify the control. Such as saying one party cares, loves or gives more than the other. Unfortunately the society we live in often gives the man the upper hand, this basically means the lady works harder to maintain a level of control in the relationship as well, call it love, lust, generosity but whatever you do that makes your partner stick around is what makes up your own percentage of power or control in the relationship. In Shade’s case, she had the finances which was a major part of her input into the relationship, but she was smart enough to balance it out with giving him her love and support, she however didn’t factor the mental energy required in successful relationships. The sad truth is that love isn’t always enough. You also have to think about what’s good for you as an individual in a relationship, what’s good for you as a couple in that relationship as well as what’s good for you and your partner as a unit. Well Shade obviously thought about the latter but not the former, because if she had thought of herself she wouldn’t have gotten those five abortions.
We tend to believe that once we’re in a relationship, there’s no ‘ME’ but an ‘US’. That is the first step to dissatisfaction and self loathe which ends up negating any good energy from the relationship. Men tend to unconsciously get the ‘ME and US’ hypothesis right. Unfortunately, we ladies let our emotions rule most of the time and forget about ourselves in our love-hazed emotional state at the beginning of the relationship. Then it seems like the worst just happened all of a sudden when ‘loser-boyfriend’ gives us the boot, forgetting we’re obviously better off without him.
The start of the relationship is usually when we fail to wake up and smell the coffee. We’re so hell-bent on being the best girlfriend he’s ever that we also forget to work on making him the best boyfriend we’ve ever had! That’s a good example of the ‘ME’ and ‘US’ hypothesis at play. Once we realise that we need to be happy individually and as a couple can we experience great turn-around in our relationships. This responsibility would unfortunately have to land on us women-folk because it’s usually we getting it wrong. Ever wonder why out of the blue, you start feeling unhappy and bitchy towards your partner (and it’s not even PMS!). It’s basically because we’ve neglected our own wants and needs as a person and substituted that with the wants and needs as Mr. A’s wife or girlfriend. The needs and goals of couples/relationships are actually quite the same for most couples believe it or not and it could get boring for a couple when it’s met. Now what can be interesting is the goals and needs of the “individuals” that make up the couple seeing as we’re all unique creatures. Sadly, most of us go through our lives not realising our own personal needs. We’re too busy thinking of getting a job we don’t like to support the family, not travelling far so we can be available for boyfriend who’s depressed, not taking a vacation we need because it’d clash with boyfriend’s schedule and the list goes on. Now when the couples’ needs are met and Mr. A gets bored because he knows he could probably get those needs sorted with Miss C he met a while ago, he packs up and leaves, we feel like our world has ended because we had already assumed the couples’ needs to be ours as an individual and so it happens that we end up telling our bitter tales to whoever’s ready to listen.
It’s time we woke and smelled the coffee! You have your world as a person and your world as a couple, don’t live in one and neglect the other. And for Pete’s sake don’t spend five years with a financially stable and mature man who hasn’t proposed after you’ve tried everything; the truth is he never may.
* not real name.
