Giving back power, keeping balance in the relationship 3 of 5
Help him keep the balance
She wouldn’t let me break up!
Ai was clearly very angry, she had me cornered and was aggressively explaining things to me. At the time my Japanese was not so hot and my ears where nearly bleeding in the effort to understand. She dumbed it down even more and I finally started to get it. She was looking at me with frustration trying to explain, she said, “every girl you have dated, did you leave her or did she leave you?” I was a bit surprised at the question because I don’t think I have ever thought about it. “I guess I was always the one to leave.” I said wrinkling my brow not knowing where this was going. She continued, “I think you are a coward mike.” (okay at the time I didn’t know the word coward and I was quite embarrassed/shocked/angry when I found the word in my $400 dollar Sanyo electronic dictionary) My face hardened a bit not enjoying the insult, “what do you mean…” I said without a question mark. “You always run from the girl, you always leave because you are too afraid to try.” My face turned to a pained sick expression at the realization she was absolutely right. I was running I was too afraid to give a good thing a chance. She nailed me and I knew it. To rub salt in the wound she was much younger than me and clearly wiser! It was the first time I had ever been denied a breakup and I will forever respect her strength.
Sure Ai was correct but there was more going on here. Sure I was a coward but a big problem was that we didn’t have very good balance. Ai was the first really generous kind person I have ever seriously dated and because of this I felt totally unbalanced with her. She was younger than me and I don’t think she sensed the balance like I did. All she knew was that she loved me and she wanted to express that. My bone head brain saw this as weakness and was pleading with me to go back to the really crappy girl I felt balance with. However I decided to that Ai was right and it was time for me to grow.
Law of reciprocation
A lot of guys/girls resent the whole dinner and a movie thing. The guys feel like if they don’t pay for everything they are not men. The girls often resent this because the feel like they owe the man after said dinner. “hmmm” she says to herself, “does that lobster dinner equate to me letting him touch my breasts?? I don’t know… his hands are kinda hairy…”
Humans always feel the need to reciprocate it is something we are all born with to keep social harmony. When one of us does not… we feel a pang of guilt maybe even slight anger that we may project onto the giver. I am sure we all know girls that love having men buy them drinks. Are these nice girls? I would say they are bathed in self-loathing for taking advantage. Humans must keep the balance or we feel like scum.
Giving the power back
Everyone has given back power before. Someone tells a vulnerable story and we share one as well. A person cries and we want to share their pain. This is normal among friends but if the guy texts too often… “Jeeze!! Was a fricken moron! Doesn’t he know I am working?? And I just met him! You don’t text me good morning after the first date! Yeah this is going to last…”
What if you are passing up a wonderful person because they couldn’t sense the balance? What if he is really a great guy but you threw him back because he seemed needy? Did you really make the right decision? Or could you have given power back to him? Or educated him on what made you feel creepy?
I stayed with Ai for years and she was hands down the most amazing girl I have ever dated. If I had not pushed power back at her, toned down my aggressive nature and explained when I was uncomfortable we would have lasted only a month.
- If you sense and imbalance give some of your relationship currency away
- Are you pushing away something great because you feel unworthy of accepting it?
- It is okay to coach him/her on how to woo you, most guys haven’t a clue…
- Don’t mistake kindness for weakness
Continue on to How him “wearing the pants” leaves you naked 4 of 5
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Mike – I know I go on and on about how old I am, but after 25 years of marraige (and 1 of living together), the balance thing makes sense to a certain part of me, but then the reality part of me screams “NO NO NO”…balance in any relationship is great, but we are all human, none of us perfect…and sometimes the relationship is very unbalanced…but because you love your partner, you accept it and know that the teeter totter of life will change. It is like that with my friends too – and these are friends that I am still close with after 40 years! I am not saying it is easy – oh hell no – but it is reality. I do so agree with you on not confusing kindness with weakness tho! We change, we grow, together and apart, but acceptance and tolerance is key.
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Also, another childish thought. If you have 2 people who are “unbalanced” by themselves, and you put them together, do they balance each other out?
Actually, I think that is a question for my gal Jillian.
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I agree with you! the balance is always shifting. I am not saying that it always need to be in place. That is one of the things love/marriage does, it holds you together when the balance is crap. When we talked last you told me about what your husband did for you. He joined you without complaining. I think he scooted forward on the teeter totter and you appreciated it. The bonds of a marriage lengthen the teeter totter and there is a lot more play but ultimately if the balance is thrown off too far for too long some one will crash to the ground.
As for an unhealthy (unbalanced) person, I believe they can only find balance in another unhealthy person. This is why you find so many sweet guys with nasty girls and vice versa. The sweet guy/girl is not healthy either. They are allowing someone crappy to walk on them because the feel they deserve it. I think this often stems from a father/mother figure that has trained them to accept this. They seek out such relationships to feel comfortable and to unconsciously solve parental issues that have been plaguing them life long.
Jillian jump in…
It was kind of rhetorical….like if a bear shits in the woods how do you know? But , yes, the teeter totter can be unbalanced for a really long time (like years) and you have to have support when it does come crashing down. And, partners need to be willing to change for the good of the relationship. And accountability (there is that word again) has got to be part of all of it. Trust me, I am not claiming to be any kind of relationship expert…but I had plenty of them and played plenty of the games before I ever met hubby….we didn’t marry til we were almost 26 (oooops, just gave away my age) and I think my relationship experience now is based on a sometimes very rocky marraige. Today, I love my husband. Tomorrow, I might need to kill him. One day at a time.
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Hi again RTM–you are so right about accountability! I have *only* been married 13 years, and I’ve been blessed so far with a pretty even-keeled experience and accountability is definitely part of how we keep things going. I have some war stories on the accountability front…
On a previous post I put a question out there about “forces” that help balance a relationship (and yes, relationships get out of balance all the time, just as you say); I would add to accountability, respect (for yourself and your partner), honesty, courage, and a set of boundaries that both parties agree to (tacitly perhaps, but agree to nonetheless). Marriage, as a particular kind of relationship institution, comes with many of those boundaries built in–in getting married we agree in a legal and contractual way to attempt to do what it takes to keep it all together or suffer some pretty stiff social and economic consequences.
But beyond these things, I think it takes plain old tenacity–there is something each partner saw in the other that was worth committing to legally, emotionally, and (in many cases spiritually or religiously), and we have to be stubborn and fight for it “for better or worse, for richer for poorer…” in bitchy moments, or sweet…. It’s hard, but if we’re fortunate, it’s worth every ounce of the fight and that tenacity can haul a system that is out of balance back toward something resembling balance–always dynamic and shifting, sometimes resembling quicksand, but in the end something homeostasis (after all, all systems tend toward homeostasis and relationships are just another kind of system).
Another word for this tenacity is commitment. I don’t mean the fresh-as-a-rose-we’re-in-love level of commitment, I mean looooooong term, in-it-with-all-you’ve-got-binding-no-holds-barred-there’s-no-simple-escape-mechanism COMMITMENT. The kind that scares the shit out of most young men and even a few young women.
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Oh Mike, just shoot me now. There I go again. Guess I have some ideas on this topic.
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Sarah, you are so right on the money! And I believe that the spiritual part is huge. The day after we renewed our vows at 10 years (how corny, huh?) I seriously asked myself “what the fuck was I thinking” and the next 10 were so very unbalanced – and yet at 25 years I honestly consider him my best friend, would be absolutely devastated if anything happened to him.Even if he is a bit weird. Now, granted, we are dealing with a person who is bi-polar (him) and that’s where accountability comes into play, but I am that “fire” person….the reactor. Balance in a relationship is hard enough – throw in some chemical imbalance and hop on to the roller coaster of life! Commitment is scary, but worth it. Oh yeh, Mike, isn’t this your blog? I think we just took it over. Sorry.
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We renewed at 10 years, too–not so corny!
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You guys always take it over!
And what the heck are two married women doing on a dating blog!?? Jillian too! I think I need to create some rules here… No disagreeing with me EVER and you must have had some romantic interaction with me in the past. That should make things interesting.
I just wouldn’t be RTM without disagreeing. And as far as the romantic interaction in the past, I believe I am old enough to be your mom and it would have been during my “lost years” anyway. My husband is happy that I disagree with you so I don’t have to disagree with him. haha.
Just because we’re married doesn’t make us dead. We’ve made all the mistakes prior to and probably during marraige!
Just admit it….you want to think you are “the master” but we know better
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Mike, is the door open for future arrangements?
Now, to the topic at hand.
@RTM The way I see it is this: Balance is often an internal factor that has little to do with the relationship, rather it is a lack of balance within one individual that sneaks into the relationship through negligence of both parties to address the problems within the relationship. There are two ways of considering it and they depend on the severity of the imbalance:
1/Unbalanced people can become balanced – This isn’t easy and it requires someone to feel the imbalance and choose to change. For this to happen, the incentive to change must have a reward that is greater than whatever they are receiving from their current behavior. We continue behavior because it serves us in some way, even what we consider the most dysfunctional behavior, because it has allowed us to adapt to situations in the past.
2/Imbalance feeds imbalance – If an unhealthy person chooses another unhealthy person, they feed off the negative emotions of one another like a wildfire to a dry forest. It causes some high level emotions, which feels desirous and passionate, but it is likely to burn both of them out and can cause serious dysfunction, with both feeling tapped out and wondering what happened. It can also cause the phenomenon known as “obsessive love.”
Most of us have hit that at some point, right?
It’s hard to be in perfect balance and it’s important for partners to recognize when the other is off kilter and attempt to compensate. Also, the partner who is overstepping boundaries is responsible for finding other ways to communicate feelings so compensation can take place. It’s a natural give and take that leads to healthier relationships. It’s not possible in a relationship where you have two unbalanced people.
Did that answer the question/make sense?
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@jillian – you go so deep into the process….easy for me to forget the hell that went before the progress! When I think back on it from your point of view it makes me want to self medicate again!
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Ok, Mike, so I have no idea what you just said? I think I’m hearing that you had forgotten the trouble that the two of you have before finding balance?
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Oh, and any of the married people that want to leave Mike’s blog, we can congregate on mine. I don’t talk about the same stuff Mike does, but I allow open topic on my posts.
Will you be welcoming us back now, Mike?
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@RTM, I thought it was MIKE responding, not you. My bad!!! I’m sorry, when I get the email notifs, they say they are from Mike. NOW the comment makes so much more sense!
Was it too deep? I can break down into bite sized pieces.
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Morning Fellow Married Ladies–the way I see it, we’ve successfully negotiated the whole dating scene and are in long term relationships that require maintenance and dedication, so perhaps we veterans have some insights that might help those looking for dedicated relationships.
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And Mike–pthththtpththt :p
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@Jillian – no bite sized pieces necessary – sometimes I am just old and feeble and it takes longer to digest. It hit the nail on the head tho.
@Sarah…I like the word “veteran” – sometimes I feel like that too (No disrespect intended to our true men in uniform!)
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I really value all of the comments on the post thanks so much for taking the time to hang out.
I want to respond but I think I am going to pass out instead, sleepy…
I think Mike is using us for our comments. I may start to strike until he starts leaving comments on MY blog. Alas, it only work if your friends are dependent upon you for their self-esteem.
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