Relationships are freaking hard.
"Duh" you say? Hold on to your horses because I am actually going somewhere with this one and not because I am in the midst of any revelatory relationship crossroads or other such zentastic juncture in my existence. Maybe it's from watching the fairly long term marriages of people close to me (3 I can think of off the top of my head) completely disintegrate. Maybe I'm just a midge more melodramatically melancholic than someone in his mid thirties really ought to be but, who's keeping track?
There are a lot of things going on at any given time in a relationship of any kind, but more specifically in the 'romantic realm' between men/women, men/men, women/women, Richard Gere/hamster, Michael Hutchence/David Carradine/leather belt, or whatever other variation there may be. There are issues of interest, shared space, personal space, trust, respect, and in the "digital age" (does that make me sound gregariously grandfatherly enough?) there's always the lecherously lurking possibility of some extra-relationship MySpace mischief, Facebook philandering, or sexting/textual intercourse creeping in. As if having to worry about your partner becoming interested in a "real person" wasn't bad enough, now the utterly ugly possibility of them finding 'virtual love' makes things that much stickier. The fact that most peoples' online profiles are about 5% reality and 95% wishful thinking doesn't seem to matter much in some people's quest to be "happy" or, at very least, to find some distraction from what Wordsworth described as the "dreary intercourse of daily life".
Not that I don't understand the desire to have a little fantasy along with your Frosted Flakes, whether it be Tony the Tiger or Tina the Tigress is entirely up to your discretion but, there are lines that need to be respected in order to prevent the Nuclear Family from reaching critical mass and turning into Chernobyl II overnight. Maybe those lines have become maddeningly murky since most people don't consider texting (and to some extent email) to be 'serious' conversation, or maybe we foolheartedly feign stupidity to help us minimize and rationalize what we would otherwise characterize as a one of the most damningly dastardly deeds someone in a relationship could commit - cheating. Whether you do it with your body or your words, the knife cuts just as deep. If you're lucky the wound develops a scar and, while it is ugly to think about and look at, you can generally get on with your life pretty much the way it was before save for those fleeting moments you're drying off after a shower and catch a glimpse of that gimp gash out of the corner of your eye and feel like crap all over again.
Maybe it all starts before it even starts? It seems like we've done a really good job of teaching people how to be independent. This is a great thing since far too many people, women in particular, were thrown out into the cold after a relationship (generally a marriage) ended badly and they were left with no job, no money, no credit history or references and no idea of how to get any of the above. Men have generally always been taught to be independent, at work and at play, and now we've driven the same message home for women but, somewhere along the line amidst all this talk and teach about 'standing on your own two feet', separate bank accounts, cars, sinks (which I actually kind of like), being prepared 'just in case', and so on; we've forgotten to talk about being interdependent, about finding that shoulder you can lean on, about giving yourself to someone else wholly and completely instead of piecewise and halfheartedly, we've forgotten to talk about Trust. I think (maybe I do that more than I should) that if someone really places a value on trust, on the trust someone bestows upon them and the trust they've reciprocated with, it becomes exceptionally difficult to toss it out with the trash when Boy/Girlfriend version 2.0 comes along. Maybe it's always been this way but, it seems that like diapers, toilet brushes, and so many other things Trust has become a disposable commodity.
This all begs the questions: does all the preparation someone is doing 'just in case' their partner decides to leave them become a self-fulfilling prophecy? and, can anyone ever really move in when they're already emotionally prepared to check out?
It's not a question I have the answer to but, I hope someone figures it out real soon. Maybe that Jesus, Yaweh, Allah, Buddha, Krishna, Ron Jeremy - dude might have something to say.
You never know.
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