05.03.10. An Adult Relationship
By Michael Sugarman taken from asocialmess.com
I recently had lunch with a girl who had just broken up with her boyfriend, and I asked her why they broke up. She answered, “Because he changed”. Being curious, I asked how he changed. In the long answer that followed, it became apparent that this guy was initially able to date this girl because he was on his best behavior when they first went out. He asked her out days in advance of their date, he made reservations, he had a plan for the evening, he brought her flowers, and in time, they stayed in and he cooked for her. In other words, he did all the things he needed to do to begin seriously dating a girl (as opposed to just hooking up). While being on your best behavior is both exhausting and calculated, it’s also a tried-and-true dating strategy, one endorsed by women, and increasingly these days, even expected by them. However, as this relationship progressed, the nature of the relationship began to change. Their time together not only became more frequent, it also began, in her eyes, to deteriorate. First, the flowers fell by the wayside. Then, the dates made in advance became rare. Gone were the evenings involving meticulous planning. Hopefully, anyone reading this will understand what’s happened: over time, the honeymoon phase of the relationship became the committed relationship phase where both parties stopped being on their best behavior and started acting like their true selves, warts and all.
My friend, like many of her gender, took offense at this change. She didn’t see the blossoming of a committed relationship with a guy who felt comfortable and loving enough with her to let his guard down and simply BE with her. Instead, she began keeping an internal ledger of all the things he stopped doing. Bad move. Unfortunately for this particular girl, her boyfriend unexpectedly lost his job. Now, instead of being in a comfortable relationship, he not only had the stress of needing to find a new job, but he has the added concern of maintaining his relationship (feigning unconcern at his job prospects while still continuing to buy drinks/dinner, and pretending unconcern in front of friends and family) as well. I’ll give my friend the benefit of the doubt and assume that she was helpful and supportive during the tough time her boyfriend was having, but whatever they were, her efforts didn’t help. He began to pull away from her as his unemployment stretched from days to weeks to months. But the problem here is not that he just became distant. My friend combined his emotional distance with his failure to do the things he used to do when they first started dating, and THAT is why she broke up with him.
Wow. Though I had the torpedo tubes locked and loaded with my hand on the firing button, I didn’t pull the trigger. Instead, I asked more questions. Didn’t she know that he’d eventually get another job? Didn’t she feel that most relationships usually mature from just dating into something more committed? Did she really expect to be treated the same way she was treated on the first or second date as she was four months into it? Her response was truly disturbing: “No”, she said. “But his refusal to meet my needs forced me to end it with him.”
FIRE FORWARD TUBES 1, 2 AND 3!
If I ever meet this guy, I’m going to tell him how glad I am that he didn’t try to get my friend back. That sounds harsh, but essentially, she’s saying that she blames him for not treating him the way he did when they first met, even though he was clearly having trouble dealing with being unemployed. But here’s the kicker. In telling me how their relationship ended, and her motivation to end it, she used a variety of sentences all starting with: “He didn’t understand that I needed…” or “He didn’t get that I wanted him to…” and the ever-popular “Why couldn’t he have just…”. This was a level of selfishness that I hadn’t seen since 3rd grade when my best friend wouldn’t let me play with his new tonka truck. Since she was a friend, I didn’t rip her a new one right there; I mulled it over.
The best I could come up with is that my friend’s selfish attitude is far from uncommon. I can hardly go a week without a girl complaining that a boyfriend totally changed from how he was when they first met to now. I tell these girls the same thing I’ll tell you: most guys that I know aren’t looking to date infants. I’m not talking about pedophilia. I mean that most guys I know aren’t looking to be in committed relationships with girls who want/need to be taken care of. They, like me, are looking for partners, in the true sense of that word. We want someone that wants an equal share of the good (and bad) that comes with any solid relationship and is willing to shoulder to invest the same effort. But it was clear from listening to my friend that she was a little girl; she expected to be constantly treated as if each day was a first date. The sheer unreality of this attitude was, and is, over-whelming. But to say that this attitude is prevalent these days is to horribly understate the problem. The way my friend feels is a direct by-product of the way she was raised, where traditionally, girls are taught to expect to be cared-for and protected. If proof is needed, consider the fairy tales about Prince Charming rescuing the princess that girls are told as children. Interestingly, the very women who rail hardest against this role are also the women who want equal rights, equal pay, to fight side-by-side in the military; stereotypically and ironically, these are the same women who have no use for men at all, at least from a relationship standpoint.
As I’ve said before in other postings, the hardest thing that a guy has to deal with is managing a woman’s expectations. From the bedtime stories girls hear to the magazines they read when they get older that tell women that they’re fat or ugly by glorifying anorexic supermodels, our culture has raised women to be both dependent and selfish. Put the girl who’s been raised this way in a relationship that’s enduring some hardship, and its no wonder that the relationship failed. What is amazing that any ever succeed…
Take from this what you will.
