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Saturday, Nov 7, 2009
Sandra M
Published Letters: 619 Editor's Choice: 139
Ms. Berry's position that women should feel free to cry at work is the kind of advice that will ensure women continue to toil in lower-paying "female' positions where praise for having empathy and other 'soft' skills is a smokescreen for keeping them out of the highly rewarded management jobs they're too emotional to handle.
Emotional outbursts - crying, yelling, name-calling, slamming things, stomping - are not appropriate at work regardless of gender. Maintaining self-control is essential to being professional. Remaining calm keeps the focus on the issue and off yourself. It is true one cannot always control the rise of emotion, but if you find yourself near tears in the workplace there is only one correct response - excuse yourself until you have regained self-control. A person in the grip of emotion is unable to think or act in a rational, logical or productive way. Forcing peple to deal with you in that state is not acting like a professional - it's acting like the princess Ms. Berry's father apparently cherised her as.
Crying is not just a female thing. As a woman executive I have had the unpleasant experience of seeing both male and female employees cry. At best they came across as immature or otherwise unable to handle the adult stresses of the job; at worst they came across as manipulative, trying to move the focus off the issue at hand and onto their feelings in a childish bid for comfort over taking responsibility.
I wish everyone would stop talking about the LW's courage and honest. She knew the situation when she was dating the man -- she knew she didn't like his kids then but obviously failed to come clean on that until she'd gotten him to marry her. I wonder how willing he would have been to share his life with her had she said upfront: I don't really want to share my life with your kids, I don't really have any use for them and I will always be counting the minutes until they leave us alone. This is dishonesty at it's worst.
Writing to an advice columnist does not constitute a serious effort to address the problem. She makes no mention of things she does with the kids, activiites she proposes, efforts she makes to get close. She clealry hasn't wanted to like them, and has made no effort to. The real problem here isn't the kids, and it isn't her marriage, it's her - what does she think she'll lose if she allows herself to get to know them and like them? She doesn't have to love them as she does her own daughter - but she has to treat them as equal members of them family, and right now she is not - she admits to harboring not-so-secret disgust of them. On what grounds? They were there first, after all. Her selfishness is grotesque.
I dated a man with a child for more than 2 years. I have no children of my own. I adored that little girl - I still do. My boyfriend (and his wife) raised a thoughtful, funny, independent and wonderful little person. She didn't just accept me - I had to work at it. I loved him so much I would have tried to woo Satan himself...but luckily the task wasn't that onerous. She responded to genuine warmth and attention - as most kids would, I suspect. She did not see me as a substitute mom and that was fine - she already has a mom. I had my own role in her life and I was happy with it. Perhaps this is the LW's real problem - if she can't be #1 with the kids, why bother?
Love might be automatic when you give birth - but it's fairly easily nurtured as well. You have to want to, and if you realize that you realy don't (despite making a marital vow that implies you do), then you either figure out how to change or you exit the marriage..and pray your next husband is more upfront about being a step than you were.
I agree with Cary, but would add the following:
1. First ask the prostitute to see him without pay. See if she goes for it.
2. Next, ask the prostitute to play Evil Dominatrix games where she hates him and hits him and verbally abuses him. Then remind himself, this too, is who she 'really' is. She is whatever he pays her to be.
3. Next, ask if he can pay to sit in while she services other guys, even listening in on their conversations, etc. See how many other 'friends' and 'confidante's she has. She may resist this - offer to pay double.
4. Next, tell her she has no role in his life othe than a cheap little roundheels whore.
5. Then ask her, on a scale of one to ten, how his lovemaking skills measure up to other guys, and if she is interested in remaining 'friends'. Provided, of course, she never comes near his saintly wife or perfect children.
6. Now see how much he loves her.
7. Now sit down with the wife and say, how do you feel about trying to inject a little adventure into our marriage? He can try joking around with her. He can ask her about her fantasies. He can try something - gasp - new with her. Maybe she's not as closed-minded as he hopes she is.
Because THAT is what is really the problem here. She's the mother of his kids, so she can't possibly like sex as much as some prostitute who gets paid for it. It would be far too difficult to find out what might be mutually more satisfying to him and his wife...far easier to just pay a prostitute to act as a receptacle for his needs. And he doesn't have to treat her like a real human being with her own complex needs - how great is that? I just don't get why he has to enoble his selfishness by calling it love.
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