Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site philabs.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!pjs
From: pjs@philabs.UUCP (Paul Shapiro)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Marriage v. Committment
Message-ID: <390@philabs.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 18-Jul-85 11:31:46 EDT
Article-I.D.: philabs.390
Posted: Thu Jul 18 11:31:46 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 20-Jul-85 16:23:12 EDT
Distribution: net
Organization: Philips Labs, Briarcliff Manor, NY
Lines: 32

In response to the questions about the "unexplained" changes as the level of
commttment changes during a relationship:

In my own case, I found that an increased committment on my part (marriage) also
lead to new expectations.  Prior to getting married I was extremely
tolerant- after all, what right did I have to make demands, to expect certain
behavior, to judge someone else's values.  Obviously I made my own
interpretations of my SO's qualities, but that is a very different thing than
making demands and judgements.  After getting married, however, I seemed to
feel that my committment "bought" me the right to these additional impositions
of my will on my SO.

While I was coming to grips with these issues (during and after my divorce), 
I realized that this coupling of increased expectations with increased 
committment is a too-common attitude on my part.  A friend of mine describes
a "simple" solution to this problem:

   The time to be harsh, to be judgmental, is before you make decisions.
   A committment should be your announcement of the fact that after all due
   consideration, you have decided that this person is really the person with
   whom you believe you can spend your life.  After that, you should ideally
   devote yourself to making the relationship work, not to questioning it.

The difficulty is being able to see the difference between working on a
relationship and working on changing another person to better fit your idea of
an ideal relationship.  My committment should be just that- my decision about 
my own behavior, not my license to start judging another person. 

Hopefully, we learn from our mistakes, and go on to do better things.

Paul Shapiro
pjs!philabs