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Posted by Kate Lloyd in Family on Thursday, June 17, 2010 10:00 AM
Much as I like it, dating can be really tough.
I know a couple (I’ll leave their names out because I think the girl might be a bit embarrassed about the whole thing. Not that I am her or anything. But even if I was her, would that matter? And anyway this story is totally not about me. Not that it would be anybody’s business if it was.) ...
Phew, where was I? .... Oh yes, these unnamed friends of mine ran into a lot of problems when they first started dating. To tell the truth, I think most of their problems came from fairy tale movies.
Movies? What’s wrong with movies? Personally, I love movies. How can they damage a couple’s relationship?
This couple’s problem started because the poor girl (What? Really, not me! I just happen to have a lot of sympathy for this person. And why does anyone need to know who if it was me anyway? Can’t we just talk here?) had way too many unrealistic expectations.
Things weren’t always fun, and sometimes stress levels were high. Falling in love had been wonderful, but why was dating such a strain? The problem was, this girl (Stop it! I can feel you thinking this is me!) didn’t understand what a good relationship was. She thought that a dating couple was supposed to love each other passionately all the time, walk around holding hands, and sit on the beach sipping lemonade at sunset.
Frustrated, she thought, Hello. WHY is there no sweet, sentimental music playing right now? On top of everything, she began to realize that she didn’t know him as well as she thought she did.
The girl (being the person she was) tried to put the blame on the boy, and he (being who he was) graciously let her.
This demanding girl’s expectations didn’t stop with lemonade on the beach, either. Because she felt that everything was all wrong, she subconsciously began to pick apart everything that was awkward and imperfect about the relationship. And as anyone who’s ever been in a real relationship knows, there’s always plenty of awkwardness and imperfection for the picking.
Like any starlet, the girl (Why do you insist upon thinking this is me??) wanted to be rescued, so she began to make a big deal out of everything that bothered her. This became a habit. She started to only see the negative things in the relationship. The problem escalated, and pretty soon all this particular couple was ever doing was having big deep discussions about their feelings.
Bleh.
One day the girl was complaining to my mother the most practical person she knew who suddenly stopped her.
“Are you crazy?” my mother she said. “Look at the guy! He would do anything for you!”
Then this obnoxiously clear-thinking, practical, and wise person went on to mention all the lovely things the boy did for the girl when she wasn’t looking. He was always patient when she needed to vent, and was completely understanding. Slowly, as the girl thought about it, she realized that the boy meant a lot more to her than she was admitting to herself. Something had to give, and the girl was pretty sure that it was her turn.
The whining, complaining, and wanting everything to be different had to stop.
I’m still not perfect, but I stopped. I mean ... she stopped. Or whatever.
The point is, that yes, dating is exciting and fun, but dating is what we make it. We’re not characters in a movie, and that’s good.
This doesn’t mean that if someone has an unhappy relationship they should necessarily stay in it. It just means, it’s okay if at times it’s hard, and both people need to sacrifice a little. We can expect a relationship to be good, but we can’t be too hasty to deem something not good, simply because it’s surprisingly hard.
Maybe this isn’t everyone’s experience. I just know it’s been the experience of the girl in the fairy tale ... She’s a real girl, who discovered that although real life is hard in ways she never expected, real life means real people, real love, and the unshakable joy that only real love brings with it.
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OK, I know this mother who has a wonderful son who has a wonderful girlfriend, and this mother is learning so much from your blogs that could apply to her son and his love. In fact, it is such a close fit that someone might think it is actually them you are writing about. And I do know that this mother’s son would do anything for his girlfriend- he loves her that much.
This is applicable to marriage too. It’s so important to remember that you need to be your love’s safe harbor where he can vent to unload stress and which will also include accepting him even when he’s just plain no fun to be around (and you’ll be the ugly one at times too).
Are you only here for a week??? Why can’t you stick around? I’ve been forwarding your posts to my youth group teens and younger sisters all week! They’ve all been responding with, “oh my gosh, that’s hilarious and SO true and it’s given me something to think about!”
Yes, very true. I think so many of us do that. But then sometimes we think we are being smart and “not of the world” when we stick through all the many, many struggles and after many “deep talks” (we did that too) still get married and experience the most painful, lonely time of your life in that marriage. It doesn’t seem to make sense but you can love someone so much but just not get along in the end. This is just my story, but we should have let it go. Still struggling each day just to co-exist. Ok, done being Debbie Downer. There’s just a flip side here as there is to everything.
Katie, this just scratches the surface of something that a lot of people REALLY need to hear! (Especially, it seems to me, at a certain college.) Thank you! This is, like Maureen commented, something you need to think about before _and_ after marriage. My experience was that I tried pretty hard to scrub out my unrealistic, romantic ideas about marriage while we were engaged, (at the suggestion of my fiancee,) but there was no real way of being prepared; it’s impossible to get rid of _all_ your unrealistic ideas. So the only thing you can do is to say “okay, I really don’t know what to expect, but I’m going to do my best to stay open and not be crushed by little disappointments. I will keep the main thing in mind, which is that this love is real, this person is who God meant me to be with, so I will take whatever comes along with that. He is my vocation, and if that means some disappointing or unexpected things, and plenty of boring, unromantic times along the way, I’ll take it because the main thing is that I have him!” This isn’t easy, by any means. But the first step—which you are portraying very well—is to step back and look at yourself from the outside, and see how ridiculous it looks to be romantic! The other temptation, in my experience, is to look at the romantic, happiest times in your relationship and say “this is what it’s all about, this is my _real_ relationship.” This is true in a certain way, but it can be as dangerous as looking at the dull, unromantic times and saying “this is _not_ what it’s all about, where did our romance go?” You have to learn to see both of them as part of the rhythm of life, because marriage is life—it’s not something separate, it’s real life as lived with another person. And underneath both of them—and the inbetween times too—you see the underlying love that is the real foundation of your relationship, just like underneath the ups and downs of life is the real joy of life, that makes you thank God just for being alive no matter what is going on in your life.
I agree with you but I just had to include a quick note defending romance. Early in marriage I was dissatisfied that my husband was not the kind of romantic that I wished he would be. And I’ve learned to adjust expectations. BUT he has also tried to fulfill my needs for romance. He learned ball room dancing for instance, just because I wanted to, even though he wasn’t interested. I’ve made efforts to please him too. We should never settle for mediocrity in anything - especially in how we love our spouses. If our model is Christ and the Church then consider how many devotions the Church has for us to show our love for Christ: rosary, sacramentals, novenas, benediction, etc. Our marriages should have similar devotions: time spent with the other, small gifts, etc.
I agree with Susie. It’s about balance. Romance shouldn’t be absent from a marriage, but it’s not the sole purpose of it either.
I think a lot of women err on the opposite end of this spectrum too. They hear “relationships are hard” and when their boyfriends treat them like dirt they think that’s what people mean. I have a couple of girlfriends in this position and it breaks my heart. So many people don’t really believe in love anymore because they’ve never seen it modeled.
I Katie’s point about learning to see the romance in the everyday is fabulous. As I type this my husband is building me shelves in the garage and wiring the garage door opener so I can get into the house when I lock myself out (which is freequently) all while our youngest kid plays in the exersaucer near him. It’s not dancing in the rain or seranading me in the bathtub (which he also does) but it’s definitely an expression of love.
Totally awesome post! I loved reading it so much I had to read it a second time. It is so true what is said in this post that people real people in reality are not characters in a movie.
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