Love: Inequality and Balance
Jul. 3rd, 2010 12:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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I don't think a romantic relationship can ever be equal. Those who have been reading this journal for a while probably know why. I don't think most anything can be equal, whether it be with so-called equal rights, life's opportunities, or relationships. We have an ideal in mind, but in reality, it is much more difficult to put that ideal into practice and have it work 100% of the time. Why? Because we are imperfect. We may strive toward equality, but the problem is we're forever dealing with apples and oranges in these types of situations, and one can't force an apple to be an orange or vice versa.
In relationships, we're faced with how people feel about one another. These people are the culmination of different upbringings, opinions, experiences, and feelings. They may view life similarly to each other and have many traits in common, but they are never exactly the same. They can try to change themselves or work on seeing the world through the other person's perspective, but however successful they are, they will always have a signature unique to themselves. They will look at a situation through the lens of their own making and treat it accordingly. They will take what happens in that situation and add it to the bank of influences that color their views. They will continue to evolve from their starting points and change in their own ways, perhaps with guidance from other people but still under their own personal trajectories.
What, then, happens to the other people in that relationship? They undergo the same process only through their own viewfinders. They cobble together their own opinions and react to situations in ways their partners can't always understand. They are at once together and separate from each other. Though they are in a relationship, these partners are, inevitably, also disparate, their own people no matter how long they have pressed themselves together.
Because they deal with two distinct people, relationships will never be completely settled. However, this is not to say that this inequality is doomed to one-sidedness. I believe that people are forever struggling with issues of balance, both in their own lives and the lives they live with others. Over the years, one might find the pendulum swinging largely in their favor-- his life is what he pictured it would be and he feels more for his partner than she could ever feel for him. Then unexpectedly, it swings back-- his life is far from the ideal he fantasized about while building his life with his partner. These upswings and downswings happen in seasons of people's lives and are constantly changing, flipping back and forth in varying degrees based on many factors, some controllable and others not.
And if that uncertainty wasn't enough for one person to follow, each of us has her own pendulum, relentlessly swinging and most likely at a pace that doesn't match those of our partners. If we are swinging in different directions and at different speeds, how could we possibly see each other as equal? We are forever passing by, hoping for a hint of parallel movement or even just a taste of similarity in a sea of our own lonely uniqueness.
Metaphors aside, I suppose what I'm trying to say is this. I don't believe that relationships can be equal, but I believe at different times, one partner is always going to be compromising more or feeling more strongly than the other. This is not to say that one partner should always be expected to compromise over the other. Our differences make it impossible to be perpetually on the same page with someone else, and sometimes, that means making sacrifices and not always being able to have what you want when you want it. However, I also think because of our nature, this inequality will always be trying to right itself in one way or another. At any point in a relationship, one of the partners (or both!) may believe he or she loves the other person more and, therefore, is doing more to keep the relationship together. Whether this is true or not is largely up to personal perspective, but one hopes not to be trapped on the side doing all the compromising. This kind of relationship, I believe, will end up strained and eventually suffer under the weight unless balance can be created or restored because no one person should be expected to carry the relationship, regardless of what the other partner believes. Both partners must be willing to make compromises and work on the relationship, or eventually resentment will grow.
I've been on both sides of this scenario, and neither is satisfying in the end. When I've loved less, I always felt like I cheating my partner of all I could be. When I've loved more, I always felt like I was missing something. Don't even get me started on compromise because that's all I seem to be able to do. Still, given the choice, I would want a relationship that seeks balance, which (surprise!) takes a lot of hard work. Depending on what the situation necessitated, I or my partner would compromise more. Concerning love, there would be times he would love me more than I could dream feeling and times where he couldn't begin to match my love. We would catch glimpses of equality before swinging off in our own directions again, forever fighting the imbalanced qualities that strive to tear us apart but also celebrating the differences that keep us together. This is also, perhaps, a difficult and unobtainable ideal, but considering what I've had to work with the last few decades, it is one of the only viable theories I have left.
I don't think a romantic relationship can ever be equal. Those who have been reading this journal for a while probably know why. I don't think most anything can be equal, whether it be with so-called equal rights, life's opportunities, or relationships. We have an ideal in mind, but in reality, it is much more difficult to put that ideal into practice and have it work 100% of the time. Why? Because we are imperfect. We may strive toward equality, but the problem is we're forever dealing with apples and oranges in these types of situations, and one can't force an apple to be an orange or vice versa.
In relationships, we're faced with how people feel about one another. These people are the culmination of different upbringings, opinions, experiences, and feelings. They may view life similarly to each other and have many traits in common, but they are never exactly the same. They can try to change themselves or work on seeing the world through the other person's perspective, but however successful they are, they will always have a signature unique to themselves. They will look at a situation through the lens of their own making and treat it accordingly. They will take what happens in that situation and add it to the bank of influences that color their views. They will continue to evolve from their starting points and change in their own ways, perhaps with guidance from other people but still under their own personal trajectories.
What, then, happens to the other people in that relationship? They undergo the same process only through their own viewfinders. They cobble together their own opinions and react to situations in ways their partners can't always understand. They are at once together and separate from each other. Though they are in a relationship, these partners are, inevitably, also disparate, their own people no matter how long they have pressed themselves together.
Because they deal with two distinct people, relationships will never be completely settled. However, this is not to say that this inequality is doomed to one-sidedness. I believe that people are forever struggling with issues of balance, both in their own lives and the lives they live with others. Over the years, one might find the pendulum swinging largely in their favor-- his life is what he pictured it would be and he feels more for his partner than she could ever feel for him. Then unexpectedly, it swings back-- his life is far from the ideal he fantasized about while building his life with his partner. These upswings and downswings happen in seasons of people's lives and are constantly changing, flipping back and forth in varying degrees based on many factors, some controllable and others not.
And if that uncertainty wasn't enough for one person to follow, each of us has her own pendulum, relentlessly swinging and most likely at a pace that doesn't match those of our partners. If we are swinging in different directions and at different speeds, how could we possibly see each other as equal? We are forever passing by, hoping for a hint of parallel movement or even just a taste of similarity in a sea of our own lonely uniqueness.
Metaphors aside, I suppose what I'm trying to say is this. I don't believe that relationships can be equal, but I believe at different times, one partner is always going to be compromising more or feeling more strongly than the other. This is not to say that one partner should always be expected to compromise over the other. Our differences make it impossible to be perpetually on the same page with someone else, and sometimes, that means making sacrifices and not always being able to have what you want when you want it. However, I also think because of our nature, this inequality will always be trying to right itself in one way or another. At any point in a relationship, one of the partners (or both!) may believe he or she loves the other person more and, therefore, is doing more to keep the relationship together. Whether this is true or not is largely up to personal perspective, but one hopes not to be trapped on the side doing all the compromising. This kind of relationship, I believe, will end up strained and eventually suffer under the weight unless balance can be created or restored because no one person should be expected to carry the relationship, regardless of what the other partner believes. Both partners must be willing to make compromises and work on the relationship, or eventually resentment will grow.
I've been on both sides of this scenario, and neither is satisfying in the end. When I've loved less, I always felt like I cheating my partner of all I could be. When I've loved more, I always felt like I was missing something. Don't even get me started on compromise because that's all I seem to be able to do. Still, given the choice, I would want a relationship that seeks balance, which (surprise!) takes a lot of hard work. Depending on what the situation necessitated, I or my partner would compromise more. Concerning love, there would be times he would love me more than I could dream feeling and times where he couldn't begin to match my love. We would catch glimpses of equality before swinging off in our own directions again, forever fighting the imbalanced qualities that strive to tear us apart but also celebrating the differences that keep us together. This is also, perhaps, a difficult and unobtainable ideal, but considering what I've had to work with the last few decades, it is one of the only viable theories I have left.
