Letters to the Editor
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Love is not about containing risks and remaining safe
These classes are about control, about risk avoidance. Do we think our chances of fulfillment in any other area of life are exclusively about avoiding pain? If not, why would a choice as important as whom we love come down to that?
No career advisor, to use the obvious "interviewing them like a job candidate" analog, would tell us that avoiding risk was the ultimate goal in a job search. That's not what life is about.
Sure, you don't behave recklessly -- but the moment when you let your defenses down has a whole lot more to do with love and the soul than anyone's list of screening questions.
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This approach ignores the two biggest relationship obstacles
Argh, yet another quickie prophylactic approach to self-improvement from our "spend $1000 on a seminar and change your life" culture. I won't even get into the absurdity of trying to remedy a lifetime of bad relationship judgment in a 10-day course, but these classes always ignore the two issues that are at the core of most troubled romantic lives:
1) People treat marriage as some sort of exalted state, where you somehow change after you say "I do" and everything is sunshine and roses, instead of seeing it for what it really is: a formal commitment that requires a lifetime of communication, honesty, adaptation and the discovery of new things to love about your spouse and your life, and...
2) The fact that until people value themselves highly enough to take care of their own needs first--until they are so comfortable in their own skin that they do not NEED anyone else, but are comfortable with WANTING someone else in their lives--they will never have a long-term relationship where someone is not dependent or feels trapped.
If these well-meaning people really wanted to improve marriages, they would teach their students how to love themselves, develop a sense of "enlightened selfishness," and take a hard, sometimes painful look at their reasons for wanting companionship. Only with honest self-awareness does a truly fulfilling relationship with another person become possible.
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There is no Magic Bullet...
The last thing Singles need is yet another tiresome "How To Get Married" class/book/lecture/article followed by the even more tiresome litany of incredibly smug "advice" - like "compared to my girlfriends....my desperate girlfriends...I've been married a thousand years..." and so on.
The qualities needed to make a marriage work (compatibilty, trust, respect, honesty, patience, financial sense, etc.) are the things that are needed to make ANY worthwhile relationship work. Duh. See, I didn't even need a "Singles Educator" to tell me that.
Again, there is no magic bullet advice. You make your choices and do the best you can.
Also, the LW who raised the "marriage as the end all" angle made good points.
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Sexual double standards suck
I haven't seen a post reflecting my main thought, which is this: If someone dumps me solely because he thinks I slept with him "too soon," then he isn't the kind of person I want to ultimately be with, anyway. Some people like sex, y'all. Some people even think it's fun, and doesn't always have to be this giant emotional bonding experience. I plan to marry one of those people. If you don't respect someone because s/he slept with you, then what does that say about you?? It takes two to tango. If a relationship ends, the "emotional upset" of the breakup is NOT necessarily worse if you had sex. Not if you keep the sex in perspective.
There, that's my two cents. Dating education in general seems like a good idea, but not if it just makes people more afraid of their own sexuality.
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Sounds like secularized bible teaching...
Jeez, at the end of the day, were all just animals. Go forth and mate! This is the 21st century you pitiful pseudo spiritual beings. Stop whining about "love", and "commitment" and all the junk that is empirically impossible to verify. If you can't verify it, it isn't real! What is most important is that you get what you want. The best way to get what you want is to make a lot of money. Then you can just buy friends, lovers, etc. If you would invest as much time making money as you do investing in so called relationships, you could easily buy what you want and avoid the whole "compromise" thing. It's a lot less messy, and since "love" is just a chemical reaction, there has to be an easier way to get it.
Get busy!
Poco
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Communication is not as important as compromise in a committed relationship
Being in a long-term relationship means learning how to let the other person have their way when you least feel like it. It means listening to them say, for the hundredth time, 'where are my keys' and just gritting your teeth instead of snapping at them "I never touch your keys! Geez!" It means that, when they interrupt you for the thousandth time, you just mentally roll your eyes because, though you've asked them not to interrupt you, have pointed out how annoying and disrespectful this is to you, they can't seem to help it and you can always bring it to their attention in a calmer moment rather than ranting gleefully about how the 'never' listen to you, how they 'always' interrupt.
Being in love means being willing to consider the other person's happiness at least as often as you consider your own. It means going to his family's for Thanksgiving because it really is more important to him and his mother than going to your own family's home for Thanksgiving is to you and your mother. It means finding a way to graciously let them have their way enough of the time that they feel respected and appreciated. It means finding a way to state what you need, and get what you need, without resorting to nagging, whining, accusing and other tactics involving brutal generalship.
Compromise is the essence of living well together. And while foregoing immediate sex might enable people to see one another more clearly, there are advantages to early sex as well - my SO and I had sex within 3 days of meeting, and our relationship has, for the last 3 1/2 years, been a steady escalation of that passion. And that passion, in turn, has been one of the things I value so much that I find it, if not always easy to compromise in our dealings, then certainly wortwhile. I'm not willing to lose him in a power struggle about money, how we vacation, families, housekeeping, etc. Our bond was immediately physical and immediately powerful - physical love is an important and unique way to express ourselves to one another - it shouldn't be devalued as mere lust. It's a way to build trust and intimacy, share yourself, expose your spirit. It's been one of the (not THE) foundations of our relationship, and the desire to protect it and enhance it has driven many of the decisions i've made regarding how to interact with him - - I've spent a lot of time working on my anger management, my desire to win a fight at all costs, my tendency to get my feelings hurt too easily, etc. In other words, being in love has made me want to be a better person in the relationship. While it might be more ideal to enter the relationship as a more perfect version of myself, that's not always possible - sometimes we need the friction of another person to show us which of our faults might turn into deal breakers, and which are just going to be the stuff of compromise.
Most people have some jerk-like qualities. Training yourself to spot these qualities seems like a futile endeavor unless you are willing ot turn the spotlight back on yourself, as well. You aren't going to find the perfect person - everyone has a flaw or three. Love is what makes you decide if you can ignore or find a way to live with their flaws, or want to take the time to fix your own.