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From: laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: net.singles,net.social
Subject: Re: Living in sin? (why marriages fail)
Message-ID: <4994@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 31-Jan-85 02:50:14 EST
Article-I.D.: utzoo.4994
Posted: Thu Jan 31 02:50:14 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 31-Jan-85 02:50:14 EST
References: <198@tekred.UUCP> <1091@houxm.UUCP>, <2294@nsc.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 59

Ahem.

There seems to be a general assumption here that if a marriage or
a relationship ends, then something rotten has just happened. After
all, the expression that has been kicking around here is ``the
failure of marriage''.

I think this aint so realistic, gang. We got enough people running
around with rampant insecurity without labelling them failures.
Face it -- I have needs now, and I will have needs in 5 years and
I will have needs in 10 years. I have no guarantee that the person
who fills my needs now will fill my needs in 5 or 10 years. I have
no guarantee that the person who needs I fill now I will be able
to continue filling in 5 or 10 years.

I can work at it. But the minute I start *expecting* it, I am
not loving, I am *clinging*. And clinging is bad news.
I find it incredibly unreasonable of me to expect that any other
person should sacrifice himself or his needs to meet my needs or 
for the sake of a ``relationship'' or for the sake of a ``marriage''.
How can I love an institution more than a person? 

2 years ago, and to some extent last year, was divorce year for my
friends. I got to watch a lot of divorces. The real spiteful and
awful ones were all where one or both parties felt that they had
been betrayed because the other person was supposed to keep on
filling needs forever -- after all that was why they got married!
In addition to this (and if this doesn't make sense, think about it)
both parties felt like failures because the marriage was not working.
So there was a hell of an effort spent in saying ``well, it failed
but it was all NASTY ROTTEN SO-AND-SOs FAULT!!!'' (except for a few
masochists who wanted it all to be ``MY FAULT''...)

This is all a viscious con. Relationships end. Marriages end. Some,
of course, don't end. But, for the life of me, I can't see how it is
possible to plan out your psychological, emotional, social and 
whatever needs so that you can keep having them met by your partner,
and I can't see anything so wonderful about the institution of
marriage itself which makes it worth sacrificing your needs.
[Don't tell me that you are doing it ``for the sake of the other
person'' ... if they were decent about it they wouldn't want you
to make the sacrifice. If it isn't a sacrifice then it isn't a need,
just a want which you don't want as much as the relationship, which is
not what I am talking about...]

Recently I got told something I have believed for a long time. [but
more succinctly!]

	Relationships only last as long as both parties are
	willing to see them end.

Hardly the established wisdom, is it? But I do guarantee that I
would have seen orders of magnitude less guilt and anger if my
divorced friends had remembered this one. And I suspect that most
of them would now be friends with their ex -- which now sure isn't
the case.

Laura Creighton
utzoo!laura