Living death - the hidden perils of relationships

[mental_traveller]

I was having a chat with one of my best friends last weekend, and the conversation turned to relationships and how they affected one's direction in life. We discussed what had happened to several friends & acquaintances we knew from college and when we were in our 20s. Going through a list, we were both horrified at what had happened to many of these guys (and the odd woman) as a result of their long-term relationships and/or marriages. In many cases, people who seemed to have great prospects had seemingly lost direction, become unhappy. Basically they had turned their lives into a form of living death. I'll give some examples:

 

"J" was a guy my friend knew via work. This guy was average in looks, but dressed snappy, was smart, outgoing and very confident, and had a great job as a management consultant at a top firm in London. We both expected that by his early to mid 30s he'd either be earning shedloads in a more senior position, or working at a successful startup venture somewhere, and that he'd either be living a bachelor/playboy life or married to a pretty smart, sophisticated, and attractive wife. What actually happened was rather different. He got married to an unintelligent, plain-looking shrew from the American mid-west, had a couple of kids with her, and they moved to Iowa where he now works in a crappy middle-management job at a big company there, earning about 2/3 of what he was making in his late 20s, and probably 20% of what he would be making now if he stayed in London. He works just as long hours, but hates his job and gets paid a relative pittance. He is a hardcore atheist yet his wife is a bible-bashing christian fundamentalist and insists their kids go to Sunday school and attend church regularly. He is 4000 miles away from his friends and family, working at a job he hates, married with children to a woman whose fundamental life values are completely different to his own. If, as my friend predicts, he gets divorced in 7 years, he will get financially creamed and move back to the UK, where his CV will be something of a mess. His life has gone from one of success, fun, and great prospects, to a living hell with no end in sight.

 

(continued)

[mental_traveller]

Our second example is "R". This guy on paper you would expect to have everything going for him. He's a good-looking, fun & friendly guy, always been popular with the ladies, and right out of college he landed a job as a fighter pilot in the air force. He scored so well in the tests that he was immediately made an instructor and fast-tracked. At 37 he can retire and collect a pension which is about 50% higher than the average national wage. Anyway, he was in a relationship with a fairly attractive, reasonably smart girl he met in college, and they stayed together once they left and he joined the air force. However, over time their relationship seems to have suffered a slow but steady degeneration, especially from his point of view. Firstly, his interest in her has declined, and over the years he has cheated on many, many occasions. She also cheated once or twice. Basically they aren't really in love with each other, it's more of a "companions" thing. Whenever he goes away on trips with his male friends, he views it as a welcome release from home life, and gets drunk, will sometimes end up with a woman etc. Anyway, a couple of years back he had a career choice to make, and had to choose one of 3 planes to specialise in. 1 was the air force's top jet at the time, but the posting was in a remote area. The 2nd was a good plane, not #1 but still a worthy and respected alternative, and he would be in a more accessible place, but still somewhat out of the way. The 3rd was a complete dog of a plane, generations out of date, and seen as a total career backwater. However, it happened to be within a 1 hour commute of his girlfriend's parents. At her insistence, he took the crappy plane so they could be nearer to her relatives. Furthermore, she pointed out that the air force pay a marriage allowance, and he could earn about 500 more per month if they got married. So, during a holiday to Africa, they had a civil ceremony and became man and wife. Then, last year his now-wife insisted on having a kid, and he reluctantly went along with it. The child was born earlier this year, and within 6 weeks he sent a panicked email to my friend, saying he thought he had gotten himself into something he really didn't want, and was worried as to how he would get out of it. My friend also recently suggested a 2-3 week trip away, maybe tour round SE asia or Latin America, I said why not ask "R" to come, but my friend said there was 0% chance of that as his wife would put her thumb down and he would acquiesce. This same guy used to love coming with us on short breaks to Europe.

 

So here we have someone who could have gone for pretty much anyone he wanted, could have had a great career & wife, or stayed single and partied like Howard Hughes, but instead he is now married to a nagging, controlling hen-pecking wife who has made him give up his career prospects for her convenience. And he is now saddled with a child which at this stage he didn't really want. If he gets divorced, he will probably have to give over half his pension, and then child support on top of that. He seems to feel, rightly in my view, that he has virtually thrown away his life prospects, and sees no way out of his current mess. And let's remember, this is without his marital straying having come to light - the sh*t will really hit the fan then.

 

(continued)

[mental_traveller]

3rd example is another sorry tale, a woman "W" who moved from abroad to marry her husband here in the UK. Things seemed to go well for quite some time, but he then had a mid-life crisis and started an affair with a stripper he met at a lapdancing bar. Rather than just get his sexual kicks, he actually moved out and was considering divorcing and marrying the stripper - he ran quite a successful business and she wanted the money, the house, everything. Eventually he came to his senses, in a way, and returned asking for forigiveness. However, his frustrations reared their head again, and he proposed having an open/swinging marriage. At first W wasn't keen, but then went along with it. Fast forward a couple of years, and in between sleeping with other husbands & wives at the local swinger's club and/or private parties, or meeting up solo in hotel rooms with random people from adultfriendfinder.com, he gets drunk regularly, verbally abuses her, and on occasion has actually hit her. She seeks solace by trying to develop friendly relationships with the guys she meets from the "dating" sites, but obviously most of them just want no-strings sex and are not interested in becoming the agony aunt for a married woman.

 

Currently she visits a marriage counsellor (her husband won't go), and sometimes a divorce lawyer, but she has decided to stick it out "for the sake of the kids", who are 9 and 11. So basically she has condemned herself to at least 9 more years in a hell of a marriage, while indulging in a self-destructive lifestyle which she is basically unhappy with.

 

(continued)

[mental_traveller]

"B" used to be a bit of a party animal and skirt-chaser in his 20s, some of his drunken exploits entering local folklore. He met an Italian tourist in London, chatted her up, and snuck her into a hotel where he managed to find an empty unlocked room for a night of passion. Since she lived abroad, he persuaded her to have an "open" relationship so he could still have some "fun" here. He used to brag about how he could have his cake and eat it, and seemed to be really enjoying life. However, she was smarter than he had anticipated, and each year she pushed for a bit more commitment, but only one small step at a time. Fast forward 7 years and he moved to a provincial backwater in her country, where he does not speak the language (he has learned a bit now), so his only employment option is teaching English - hardly the best-paid profession. They currently live with her parents, until they save up enough for a house. She insisted a long time back that he become monogamous, or she would exercise her options too - being the jealous time he immediately came into line. However, now she realises she can successfully manipulate him, and get away with a lot. So for example, while I went to visit them earlier this year, she would say in front of him, for example, that she quite fancied a threesome with 2 guys; that she thought his brother was sexier than him; that his stomach was too fat to have sex with him (he has something of a beer gut, but is hardly fat). Also on a trip last year she ended up snogging one of his friends. At home they argued quite a lot, she would nag him frequently and he would flare up as a result. It was clear she didn't really respect him. Also, she is hardly a stunner or head-turner, whereas he used to have no trouble finding attractive women. He's moved away from his friends, family, and culture, to go and live with this mediocre "catch" who does not respect him and makes jokes about his perceived inadequacies in her eyes. When I consider what he used to be like, it's similar to thinking of prime Muhammad Ali mouthing off or dancing round his opponents in the ring, and then seeing the brain-damaged shell that he has become now. It's like he's lost all his energy and ambition, and has settled for a mediocre life with a mediocre woman.

[mental_traveller]

The thing that struck me about all these people, is that it has been their long-term relationship which has been their undoing. They seem to have stuck with it, at the cost of compromising several aspects of their integrity and core values. It's like they would rather give up many things they hold dear, than to accept it is not suitable and move on to someone better for them. But what have they gained by sticking it out? In each case - shattered dreams, loss of ambition and direction in life, a deteriorating sex life, and frequent bossing, nagging, and harping on from their girlfriend or wife (or in W's case, husband). None of them are truly happy in their relationships, and most ("B" possibly excepted) are positively unhappy.

 

People talk as if "love" and a great long-term relationship (and/or marriage) are the keys to happiness, but with these people it seems to have given them only a form of living death. A rather cynical female friend of mine once said "I don't see anything natural in spending the rest of your life with one person in a box" - I thought that rather negative at the time, but when applied to these friends, it certainly rings true.

 

So I was just wondering, why on earth would someone voluntarily screw up their life by sticking in a relationship at the cost of their values & dreams? It seems to make no sense. Why do they seem to have lost the ability to say "no" or "I've had enough"? After discussing what happened to these people, it just reaffirmed my belief that you have to be firm in your relationships & life in general, never ever compromise your principles for what seems like the "easy" option. It's much better to have a big bustup over a disagreement, and break off on the spot, than to cave in piece by piece until no happiness or self-respect remains. This served as a warning really, of exactly how miserable you can become if you allow your life to degenerate into a series of small compromises. It reminded me of the story of how you can boil a frog by slowly increasing the water temperature - it doesn't notice small changes and so doesn't leap out until it is too late. That seems to have happened here. A don't think any of the people at the start of the relationship would have accepted the state of affairs they finally found themselves in - and yet there they are.

 

Finally, it made me wonder just how many people out there are in similar situations. I would much rather be a single, 40 year old Alphamale, suffering the mild inconveniences of the dating scene, than to be stuck in the living death that these people have found themselves in. Don't be afraid to be blunt, to brutally state your principles and refuse to shift from them. Don't take any sh*t from anyone, and if you feel pressured or nagged into something uncomfortable, just get up and walk.

[kulyok]

Don't be afraid to be blunt, to brutally state your principles and refuse to shift from them. Don't take any sh*t from anyone, and if you feel pressured or nagged into something uncomfortable, just get up and walk.

 

Absolutely. That's how all the happy relationships work: before getting into it, people would make sure they are compatible, and when together, they will always do only what they both agree on, i.e. she'd never have a child if he is against it, he won't have sex with other women if she is against it. Same with giving up job projects, locations, etc.

 

Although on occasion it might take a bit more diplomacy than this.

[Guest]

So I was just wondering, why on earth would someone voluntarily screw up their life by sticking in a relationship at the cost of their values & dreams?

 

Well well well. Here I thought that series of anecdotes would end with 'that just shows why getting married is stupid'. Congratulations for making a far more rational analysis of what went wrong with your friends' relationships and how to avoid it happening.

 

I completely agree about not abandoning one's values; I think it's vital to spend one's life with a person who is similar in thinking. Vast differences in religious belief are fatal; same goes for people who have very different ideas about travel, career, family, etc.

 

I fear that many of your friends believed the myth that 'love will conquer all'. It can't conquer fundamental differences or bad choices.

[Steph21]

Just because someone is rich and sexy does not mean he/she is happy. Sometimes it's a risk, but you want to find out if there's more to life than those things. A life that revolves around money, sex, and outward status can get old. If you're an intelligent and attractive person, it's almost boring because it's so generic and anyone can do it. A relationship, on the other hand, is more challenging. It doesn't follow a formula and there's excitement in not knowing how it will turn out. The funny thing is that the people who are best at being rich and sexy are sometimes the worst at relationships.