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Individuality vs. Couplehood
IreneDAdler
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Tori Amos wrote:I walked into your dream
And now I've forgotten how to dream my own dream
You are the clever one aren't you
Brides in veils for you
We told you all of our secrets
All but one
So don't you even try
The phone has been disconnected
Dripping with blood
And with time
And with your advice
Poison me against the moon
Mother the car is here
Somebody leave the light on
Green limousine for the redhead
Dancing dancing girl
And when I dance for him
Somebody leave the light on just in case
I like the dancing
I can remember where I come from
This is a portion of the lyrics to Mother, from "Little Earthquakes," and I feel it expresses the gist of what this thread is about: how do you maintain your self-identity in a serious, committed relationship? How do you reconcile your individuality with being half of a couple? This question may sound odd and froofy to some people, because it did to me at one point. But I've come to realize that I am a different person when I'm by myself than when I am with my boyfriend (of nearly 7 years). It's not that I'm being oppressed by some overbearing male -- I just seem to have a different personality while in his presence. I find that, when I'm not with him, I am more outgoing, assertive, and motivated; but when I'm with him, I'm so focused on the "us" that I give very little thought to "me."
It is possible that the way I feel is just a vestige of my old co-dependence on him, but I'm having difficulty envisioning a true partnership wherein I maintain my individual motivations. That is to say, if I maintain my focus on myself and my own interests, then it seems he would just become a satellite to my life instead of a partner with an equal share in it.
I'm sure there is a range of personal philosophies on this issue, and I am interested in hearing them. I think it would be particularly interesting to hear from other members in long-term, committed relationships (marriage, etc) and hear from them their experience in this regard. Do you think a "true partnership" exists? What do you think a "true partnership" consists of? Are there necessary conditions to achieving such a state?
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
IreneDAdler on
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This stuff is entirely dependent on the individual relationship, I have similar feelings to you, but I have known a relationship where people were almost entirely separate and anyone who did not know them well would believe that it was just a "friends with benefits" kinda deal... they were not married, had made no major purchases as a couple, had no legal documents of any sort other than their wills which identified them as a couple, had almost completely separate circles of friends, hobbies, vastly different jobs and world views, etc.. and yet when I met them, they had been together for thirty years.
In my own case, while I can clearly identify between us and our interests in the relationship, I certainly tend to think alot more of Us, than I do think about Me. My character also changes alot when she is around, especially when I am in public.. although apparently the polar opposite of the way your character changes (perhaps gender has something to do with it?).
When I am with my wife, I am more confident, more assertive, and definitely more aggressive.. this comes into play all the more if I feel my wife is being manipulated, is in danger or getting upset, although I will not act most often out of concern for her feelings, I will become extremely intimidating towards the threat, glaring and actually making growling noises if it goes on long enough. I also, perhaps unusually, tend to be more flirtatious with both her and other females in her presence, something I try to keep a lid on but she tends not to mind too much.
When I am alone I have a tendency to keep my head down, lack confidence and generally just amble around keeping to myself. I also get extremely distressed if she is not around for long enough, worrying about her and generally stressing out.. normally this only comes into play when she is out of the house without me and isn't back within the assumed amount of time whatever it was would take. Since we have vastly different sleep patterns, it occasionally happens that I end up sitting awake most of the night while she is asleep for long periods, and we get to spend very little time together.. sometimes this continues for up to a week, and I become very upset during the time I am alone awake, and tend to feel miserable in my sleep (if that makes sense).
My wife has also stated that I "make her feel safe".. has been known to wake me up because she is lonely in times when we haven't been able to spend much together, she also has a noted preference for me to be around when she is going anywhere she finds stressful. Obviously I cannot speak for how she is when I am not around.. because.. well.. I don't see her then!
We tend to do anything important together.. we are choosing college courses at the moment, we went to the adviser meeting together, and a consideration in what subjects we would study was that we wanted to go to the same college facility so we would not be apart, although we are not studying the same subjects. We are seriously considering opening a business in the future and have owned one together in the past. Interestingly, when it comes to professional matters... all the things I have said before, and we become business partners, not husband and wife.. if one of us does something they should not, they know all about it and being fired is a very real possibility. Dispite the fact that the house we live in was purchased entirely with my wife's money, before we were married and when I was living in a forge in country, I was involved in the buying process up to the point where legal papers were signed. We are also in the process of slowly getting just about every legal document you can imagine put in our joint names.
I think in part this whole thing is rooted in our pasts, our character's, and the progression of our relationship.. she has a history of being treated like crap by men, where as I have a history of taking relationships very seriously and my father would go to any lengths he needed to protect and provide for our family, within the law. I have a protective, if dominant and controlling, nature.. I've been referred to friends as having a "Pack Alpha" mentality.. where as my wife tends to be less aggressive, more "go with what happens" and submissive. For many years, no matter how much we wanted it, we physically and financially could not be together, half the planet separated us.. so now we are together, we want and need to do everything we can together. We are also extremely detached from the outside world.. there is Us, and there is everyone else.. more so me than her. I am often more about nurturing her desire to go out and do things than I am about finding what I want to do myself.
Since you opened with a song, I think telling of our relationship is the song we had played at our wedding.. Fall No More, by a band called Bella Morte.
My instinct is to protect... and help her get where she wants to be.. and yeah, I really do have a tendency to sit there and watch her sleep.
Okay, enough rambling.. as for the whole "true partnership" thing.. I don't think that can be generalised, because relationships are so incredibly personalized.. now, I'm off to check on my wife because I just heard her making scared sounds in her sleep.
I do think that two people entering a relationship should have their own independent lives, at least for the first year or two. If they each have separate sources of income, separate living places, separate friends, and separate hobbies, then the chances of codependency happening are pretty low. (BTW, I'm uncomfortable with the application of "codependency" concepts to relationships that don't involve addiction, but that's a thread in and of itself, and I don't have any other suitable language to substitute.)
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I have to agree with you there Feral, even taking into account the individuality of different relationships, any couple should maintain separation, especially legal separation, to some extent at the beginning.
When it comes to legal matters especially, things need to be considered extremely carefully before becoming "codependant".. wow, yeah, thinking about it that really is uncomfortable language... it almost makes it sound like a bad thing.
Definitely 1.. but the second one is probably what is making us uncomfortable
And personally, my girlfriend and I spent the first year and a half or so avoiding completely entangling ourselves. We each went out with friends the other didn't get along with every week or so, we didn't meet after school every single day, and we didn't start out saying "I love you more than the moon and the stars". We met as strangers, started dating because we each thought the other was cute, and stayed together because we were interested in each other.
A lot of young people, especially women, enter a relationship thinking that they need a relationship to feel whole. That's no way to enter into an intimate relationship, especially considering their already dependant state. The abused girlfriend defending her boyfriend on Maury Povich saying "well, sometimes he hits me, but he loves me!" illustrates the extremes of this behavior.
You really ought to be comfortable being alone with yourself before you get comfortable in a relationship. If you can't stand yourself, nobody else will be able to stand you either. Basically, you should feel complete as a person inside and out of relationships.
@Irene:
It's normal to act differently in different company. Everyone has sides of themselves that they show to select audiences, and one hopes to be able to show one's "truest" face in intimate relationships like that.
PS: Go, go Tori fandom!
A relationship being someone's first priority, is not unhealthy unless that relationship is inherently unhealthy.. nor does it mean they are not comfortable with themselves or allow themselves to be abused.
Also, people are different.. some people view the individual as something special, and compromises on things like hopes, dreams, aspirations, ownership and future unacceptable. In general, I don't... I view society as a whole more important in many things than myself, and this certainly carries through to my relationship.. this is not inherently unhealthy, as I am not being abused or abusing my wife.. we are both content, as far as I am aware (and we discuss things like this at length, especially when there is a problem) and that is, surely, the important thing.
Putting priority on a relationship != needing the relationship to feel whole. You make an excellent point, but I'm not sure it's very related to my comment.
When someone is a in a commited relationship, there is a level of responsibility they take on. Essentially, they take on an ability to dramatically impact someone else's happiness. To some extent, this is true in platonic relationships as well. To me, this implies I need to make that relationship a priority, given the level of responsibility I have. It doesn't mean I put the other person's needs first all the time, but the overall health of the relationship. For example, if I don't spend some time doing Hobby X, or spending time with Friend Y, I will be unhappy at that will negatively affect my relationship with my wife.
The qualifier here, to keep it from getting creepy or unhealthy, is that the other half of the relationship is in it with the same attitude and is participating in good faith. Otherwise, there is potential for abuse.
The whole priority thing can get weird pretty quick. The transition from my immediate family as a high priority in life becoming superceded by my newly created family unit became very clear during wedding planning, for example.
Well, perhaps I should clarify a bit -- personal independence is taken as a given in my question, because I don't think that anyone should completely lose their own personality in a relationship (I've been there, it's not good). The question is more like, "At what point does asserting personal independence turn a relationship into a friendship with benefits?" I suppose one might also ask, "Is friendship with benefits a good thing?" As someone mentioned in an earlier response, some couples take that tactic when balancing their individual lives with their relationship; that, however, doesn't sound like my ideal partnership.
Hard to tell.. from my point of view, I don't understand "friend with benefits"... I have never had benefits (I presume we're talking about sex here) with anyone who I was not in a lasting and meaningful relationship with. I think "friend with benefits" becomes a relationship however when it starts getting beyond sex, when there is a definite emotional attachment and when you start to consider doing things like buy homes or most importantly have children... this is not to say it cannot become a relationship before that point, but rather that someone who gets to that point and who still thinks its "friend with benefits" is kidding themselves.
"Is friendship with benefits a good thing?"
In all honesty, I don't believe so.. from personal experience I know that it can cause ill feeling in future relationships if that friend is still around. Of course, my experience is extreme since said "friend with benefits" from my wife's past is our housemate and is pretty much at this point considered my brother in law. I'm glad to say I have managed to overcome most of my dislike of the situation, but it does still crop up during stressful situations.
When one (or both) people are looking for a relationship because they don't feel confident or happy by themselves, it spells trouble.
I tend to gravitate toward independent women with their own career goals and ideas on where they want their lives to go, though, so I might be biased in that regard.
XBL: QuazarX
As a fellow female in a long term relationship, I understand where you are coming from. My family has complained that my fiancé tends to make me act less assertive when I'm around him and that I value his advice more so than that of my family.
I've come to realize that it's really difficult to make a partnership "completely equal", but there are many parts where I can make it as equal as possible. Understanding which parts belong to which category and how long they belong there requires a lot of courage, ability to discuss really difficult issues and an intelligent awareness of the social stigmas attached to male/female and social circumstances. When I see my S.O., I try to take equal responsibility for basic stuff like cleaning and paying for stuff. However I know my S.O. is just better at certain things like cooking and economics, so I try to be ok with that and learn about those things the best I can. I'm the more diplomatic and visual of the both of us, so I'll usually handle unfamiliar social situations for the both of us (if needed) among other things. My S.O and I have different weaknesses which we try to offset when we are together. We also try to learn from each other's strength and weaknesses so we can apply them in a individual context.
Once again (everyone's mentioned this) communication is important ! Just because someone is better at something doesn't mean you should stop pursuing that area. And if the other person is being particularly condescending or is misinformed about a particular subject, it's really important to say so. Fights and arguments are a normal part of relationships and I wish that notion was more socially acceptable today
Ideally speaking, it shouldn't be an "individuality vs. couplehood" issue, we should be asking how we can be make those two things contribute to one another.
edit: And maybe I have no right to comment on this as I am still a student, but I've heard countless married friends and relatives tell me that maintaining a job is an important part of maintaining individuality and as much equality as possible as a female in a marriage. The capitalistic socioeconomic system puts a huge emphasis on the individual and place a high value on opportunities that lead to high economic standing. That means in the system of economics, childrearing and taking care of the home are socially undervalued. So hypothetically, if a female ends up having kids and is too busy to have a job, she'll be seem as a "dependent" on the husband and not as much of an equal as she could be. So the woman is seen as "socially less powerful" in comparison to the husband.
Any comments? (I also want to mention that I have no personal experience to defend the above comment, nor have any proposed solutions to it if it is a prevalent situation)
/end rant
All this is super important and bears repeating.. there really is no need for both partners to be "completely equal" because for two separate individuals to be complete equal.. they need to be pretty much identical. Each person in a relationship is going to have different strengths and weaknesses, my wife for example is far better than me with numbers, where as I am in many situations better at dealing with difficult people.. this is not a bad thing.
Nothing to me is a bigger sign of an abusive or at least unhealthy relationship than someone telling me they never fight (and honestly meaning it)... my wife and I rarely fight, but we do.. no fights and no disagreements simply means one person is always rolling over.
I think there are two types of equality that play into relationships. One is the equality of one partner with the other in the relationship, and my stance on that is pretty cut-and-dried: it's almost impossible to achieve 50/50 all the time, but as long as there's give-and-take, it's fine. The second is, to me, the sticking point: the equality of the relative importance of your partner and yourself; i.e. your personal priorities. I may be splitting hairs here, but I think the distinction is that the first equality deals with the interpersonal relationship, and the second deals with the intrapersonal relationship. I hope that's not too much five-dollar-word mumbo jumbo.
Basically, how do you place the other person's needs in equal importance to your own when so often they are mutually exclusive?
Bearing in mind that I am married, and believe that marriage is for life, sickness and in health, richer poorer, all that type of thing.. very little what my partner might need is mutually exclusive from what I need, because her happiness, well being, contentment, etc has a direct effect on my own.
Of course, it happens from time to time.. but compromise is the key there.. and it isn't a compromise if one person is always the one doing the giving.
Compromise. On the little stuff, it's easy. I hate Thai Food, she doesn't like Subway, so we more or less alternate. On the big stuff, it's not only hard, but it's sometimes impossible. Either you're going back to school, or you're not. Either you're moving across the country, or you're staying put. Some big decisions can't have a win condition for both parties. It sucks, but being clear about what the benefits to both sides of the decision are and coming to the final decision together helps keeps from having left over bad feelings. It's something my wife and I learned in our first year of marriage: there's not always a clever compromise.
Seconded! There have been times where I have not seen my S.O. for up to 6 months because of important schooling situations and other big decisions. This means that sometimes we have to make decisions that suck for both of us. The other thing to consider is that there's a huge focus on the promotion of the individual in Western society and the perception that the notion of compromise "attacks" a person's individuality which makes them "weak". This notion makes a lot of people feel insecure about their person(including myself) and wonder, "am I being stepped on by giving in and doing xyz for my partner?". Figuring out that most of the time, xyz issue isn't worth worrying too much about and only a limited number of issues require serious discussion is the hard part.