I had another subject picked out for today's post, but after the conversation I had tonight, I can't let this one go. Whether we like it or not, there is a fundamental difference between the way men and women view things and communicate. One would think that after 4 years of marriage and a divorce, I would not be surprised by this, but here I sit, surprised yet again at the vast difference.
The conversation began innocently enough. I'm not even sure how we got on the topic of love and romance. I do know this - the conversation did not end in agreement. My guy friend - who shall remain nameless....have to protect the innocent, after all - made the statement that love is a decision. I had to read it a few times to make sure I didn't need to replace my contacts. A decision? How exactly does one "decide" to fall in love? What are the requirements before deciding this is the person I'm going to love? My Nancy Drew instincts took over and I was compelled to investigate this mystery.
As it turns out, my crazy friend is not the only one who feels this way. As it turns out, 2 people - men, doctors, no less - wrote a book by this title. I find it interesting that there was no woman cowriter on this project. Therein lies the problem: this is a man's way of thinking. Women don't feel that love is a decision. It's a feeling. We do, however, decide whether or not to pursue this feeling. We are all equipped with Windows Vista Love 5.0. Here's how the message box reads: "Feeling attraction and affection, Allow or Cancel?" Basically, my friend and I concur on the subject; but, because we express it differently, we both left the conversation thinking that we disagree. Interesting....
While I don't believe that falling in love or feeling love is a decision, I do believe that cultivating a mature and loving relationship is all about decisions and committment. Couples don't stay married for 25 years because of the butterflies they felt when they were 20. A wife may love her husband more than life itself, but after a few years of picking up after him, it becomes a decision not to murder him in his sleep for throwing his socks on the floor NEXT TO the hamper. A husband may love his wife enough to protect her from anything that may come along, but he must decide to eat the burned meatloaf and not criticize her. But that same couple did not decide when they met to fall in love. That part you control as much as you control the rain.
The heart of the problem lies not in whether or not we decide to love someone or not, but in the fact that many couples never learn to communicate. When we finally decided to go to counseling, we joked about the fact that our counselors were basically translators because we were speaking two different languages. When I tried to explain to him how I felt, all I got was the blank stare....or screaming frustration, depending on the day. What we had was a failure to communicate. I recently found this quote that expresses our relationship the best: "When you said forever, you meant a few months. When I said forever, I meant every day until I died. When you said always, you meant until you couldn’t handle it anymore. When I said always, I meant until time ended. When you said you loved me, you meant I was no different from any other girl. When I said I loved you, I meant I had never felt what I felt for you."
I would love to end this post on a positive note and say that I have an answer to this age-old debate. I have no such answer. I don't know any more now than I did before my investigation. I still don't know if love is a feeling or a decision. I still don't know how to solve the world's gender communication problem. So for today, I must resign myself to not having all the answers.
No comments:
Post a Comment