“My Mamma Told Me, You Gotta Shop Around” (Foundation of Lasting Love, Pt.4)
We all inherit cultural scripts of the perfect partner.
Because of the gendered ways we are socialized, for women these scripts are often about the undying love and romance of a knight/lady in shining armor (ala romance novels & films); while for men they are often about access to wild sex – that is, until an irresistible (yet inexperienced and innocent) sex goddess makes them work to win her – then transmutes into the whore in the bedroom (à la porn), the cook/ maid/ laundress in the castle, and the Madonna/chaste-and-unassailable mother-of-your-children in the living room (à la a 1950s sitcom or “family values” movie).
We further complicate these internalized social scripts with our own personal baggage: our prior relationship experience (including rejections, betrayals and breakups) and the multiple traumas (sexual, physical, emotional, mental, verbal) of our childhood and adolescence.
After which, we expect the individuals with whom we have sexual chemistry – those we meet by chance and with whom there is (hopefully mutual) attraction – to meet our internalized scripts – intuitively – without the need to communicate or negotiate our scripts – with the other’s.
Ultimately, we wonder why it goes wrong.
For myself, unfortunately, while I have found chemical attraction to be a pretty significant prerequisite to becoming intimately involved with someone (this is not equally true for all people, even for all women), I have not found libido or chemistry to be an accurate predictor of good character or of a good relationship.
Yet, this is how most sexually-intimate, long-term relationships start.
We find someone with whom we have chemistry. On that ground, and often that ground alone, we let ourselves develop deep feelings of attachment and “fall” in love – often before we know this person very well.
Then, as we do get to know them, we find that they don’t really fit our bill – aren’t really what we thought we were looking for – and rather than letting go, we begin the process of trying to mold that individual into someone who fits ourscript.
But our trying to change them simply doesn’t work, and in the long run, they are simply who they always were – and if the ways in which they don’t meet our script are significant – if it turns out that they don’t meet our most central needs, or if they have character traits we simply can’t live with – we (and they) may be the worse for having engaged in that relationship.
When we are partner shopping (girlfriend/ boyfriend/ lover/ spouse/ etc.), we stop looking all too fast.
Or we pause in our search, over and over, investing in relationships that – if we looked a little closer before we closed our online profile and took ourselves off the market – we would have known clearly didn’t fit the requirements we were looking for.
Then, we have to start over, over and over again. WE pull our profile down or stop "playing the field," each time with a heart more successively damaged, battle-worn, and trigger shy.
It is imperative, when looking for a relationship, to really know yourself – to know what it is you most want and need (and on what you can compromise) – and to keep on looking until you find someone with those qualities and specification – rather than taking Mr. or Ms. Almost Thereand trying to transform theminto the person you are looking for.
Ask yourself, for you, what are the characteristics of yourperfect relationship?
What are you looking for?
What do you need, in a partner, for true emotional and physical intimacy, with a partner?
An interesting exercise is to imagine yourself into the perfect day, thirty years in the future, with that perfect partner.
What does that day look like? What are the two of you doing together? What do you have to talk about? What do you have in common? What have you done together, built together, across the years?
The connections we share as human beings can be real and deep.
When we meet someone new – someone with whom there is no expectation of sexual connection – we don’t try to change them, and they don’t try to change us.
Instead, we become to each other whatever is real to the interaction between us.
Whether we remain passing acquaintances, colleagues, boss and employee, or become friends or true and abiding best friends forever, in non-sexual relationships, the depth of connection is based on whatever is natural to the interaction and the opportunity (proximity) we share.
It is only when sex/romance enters the picture that we try to make something that doesn’t quite fit, fit anyway. It is only with sexual relationships that we attempt to take an interaction that isn’t quite right and make it more than what comes naturally to both parties.
To find lasting love – in which you can know joy and true intimacy – when you meet someone – you need to allow a time frame, a period of natural growth, even a period of “probation” – in which you take the time to get to know them – and give them the time to actually get to know you (to get past where you each puts your best foot forward and to see each other when you’re stressed and angry) – and see what develops naturally between you – without force.
Each of you has the right, and should have the wisdom, to take the time to assess whether or not you provide to each other – naturally and without great effort – the kind of deepening, long-term connection that makes for loving life-long partners.
Yes, relationships are work, but they shouldn't feel like working, in chains, on the rock pile.
(P.S. If you are already in a relationship, do you (can you) love your partner/s as they are? Are you (and any dependents) safe (emotionally, mentally, sexually, physically) in your relationship/s? Is the connection between you healthy or, as is sometimes the case, is the relationship causing one or more of you more harm than good? If you are safe, is what you have both a romantic connection and a friendship? And while it is best to be a good match from the start, and it is next to impossible for one partner to build the relationship alone – even though less than ideal, is there a way to feed the flame of connection between you? What would it look like to build on what you already have? How can you deepen what you have in common?)
© 2013-2018 Nadine Rosechild-Sullivan, Ph.D.