Don’t be cynical about relationships and marriage
By Earl Williams
In a recent Viewpoint column ("’Arc of a love affair’
encompasses ideal relationship," Oct. 10), Adena Chung outlined
some of her thoughts about relationships and marriage. Since she
candidly stated her personal slant up front  "It’s hard to
write about this without sounding totally … jaded," Â I
should do the same.
I have been happily married for more than two years, and I do
not share Chung’s deeply cynical attitudes about relationships.
Such cynicism can be a powerfully negative force in our lives,
harming our personal well-being and particularly our ability to
form lasting relationships.
I also do not share Chung’s negative views about commitment and
the marriage ceremony. I would like to offer some reasons not to be
cynical about relationships and marriage, in response to individual
points in Chung’s column.
First off, Chung feels that lots of partners are bad, and lots
of relationships are unhealthy. Well, some are, but your attitude
about whether people and relationships are good or bad depends in
large part on where you look. College may not be the best
place.
While some undergraduates do form healthy, lasting
relationships, others (like myself while in college) appear to have
little clue about what makes such relationships possible.
Life doesn’t end after college, and it’s counterproductive to be
so disillusioned when still so young. There are plenty of good
single people in the world, and just because they haven’t shown up
in your recent romantic past is no reason to assume that they’re in
the minority.
Chung also believes that relationships inevitably follow the
"arc of a love affair." Love affairs may follow an arc, but deeper
relationships need not. To believe that they do is to feel doomed
to break up, or at least to come a fearfully awaited decline.
In high school and even college, people often equate
relationships with the feelings of early romance; as soon as those
feelings diminish, the relationship ends. Until we understand and
reject this short-term outlook, our prospects for a long-term
relationship are poor.
Our expectations about people and relationships can easily color
our perceptions and lead to self-fulfilling prophecies. It is true
that the giddy passion of early romance changes after a time, but
to say that it must change for the worse is totally false.
In my opinion, the ever-deepening intimacy of a lasting
relationship is an improvement. And romance only dies if you let
it.
I also disagree with Chung’s notion that the ideal relationship
involves "total freedom of thought, action, movement and growth;
total commitment; companionship without obligation; and great sex."
This 100 percent selfish attitude toward relationships is doomed to
failure.
People ideally get married because they care deeply about each
other and believe that their relationship makes both of them more
complete. Clearly a balance has to be struck between the extremes
of selfishness and selflessness; total selflessness based on fear
and insecurity often does lead to unhealthy relationships.
Chung also says that "commitment as something to strive for or
work on in order to maintain is bogus and artificial … it should
be a by-product, not a cause or motivating factor." I disagree.
Commitment is the basis for trust, and without trust,
relationships die (or perhaps should die). Committing to another
person involves risk and substantial personal investment. If you’re
looking for marriage, you should look at the early stages of a
relationship for what may be a new way.
Early romantic relationships usually reach a transition point
where they either deepen or end. As this point approaches, you need
to find out enough about the other person to make an informed
decision about whether they’re worth the risk and investment.
This may sound really cold and calculating, but when you’re
making one of the biggest decisions of your life  you ought
to use more than just a good feeling. An excellent book on this
subject is "Why Love is Not Enough" (Sol Gordon, 1990).
Lastly, I disagree with her belief that "the marriage ceremony
and contract is b.s." Getting married is a life cycle event, which
can connect us to our past, our family and our future (possibly
including children). Religious aspects of the marriage ceremony can
be be particularly meaningful if they emphasize this
connection.
Other "trappings" of marriage can be similarly meaningful
(rings, contract), and need not be just an artificial impediment to
a half-expected future divorce.
So don’t give up on relationships so early, and don’t believe
that cynicism is just being "realistic." Though some people have
bad relationships, lots of us have good ones.
Don’t be surprised that you don’t see relationships where the
partners are "totally, completely free beings, together because of
true love of each other," because that’s not what successful
marriages are based on.
And don’t knock commitment; it’s a tough call to make, but you
can do it.
Williams is a fifth-year graduate student in developmental
psychology.