Philosophical question about relationships: Is 100% mutuality required?

February 21, 2009 2:16 PM

Philosophical question about relationships: Is 100% mutuality required? By which I mean: Boy wants to be with girl. Girl isn't so sure s/he wants to be with boy. Shouldn't boy then not want to be with girl since she doesn't want to be with him, i.e. doesn't appreciate him for what he is, doesn't love him the way he deserves to be loved? (Gender irrelevant here.)

This obviously isn't how things happen in practice (except in hindsight though even then still rarely I think) but isn't it how they should, ideally, between two mature, healthy adults?

More generally, are imbalances in relationships ever tenable?

Apols if this is way too vague. (I just broke up with my boyfriend of 4 years because he was ready to marry, have kids, commit for life, and I wasn't, for reasons I'm not completely clear about. I just kept thinking that he shouldn't want to be with me if I'm not as committed as him.)

posted by goalie to human relations (26 comments total)

Love isn't rational. 3 year old kids love their teddy bear, without having big, important reasons.
posted by pwnguin at 2:22 PM on February 21 [4 favorites]

Statements like "All relationships $something" will be wrong. Relationships vary.

More generally, are imbalances in relationships ever tenable?

They can be, yes.
posted by pompomtom at 2:28 PM on February 21 [1 favorite]

I'd go so far as to say that most relationships are not equal in all things major. There's compromise and certain things you deal with. Perhaps your ex was willing to compromise on certain things because he loved you. And wanting to be with someone also involves dealing with all of them, good and bad, infuriating and attractive. He decided he wanted to be with you despite some disconnect, because maybe he felt it wasn't as large a gulf and that it could be overcome.

Maybe you just felt that gulf was too wide. That's respectable as well.

People don't always love each other with exactly the same ferocity but still love deeply, and things can still work. There are tons of variations on this old theme out there.
posted by cmgonzalez at 2:29 PM on February 21

Heck, I love my teddy bear, and I'm a 3^3 year old.

In actual human relationships, imbalances can and do change over time. Girl might not be that into boy right now, but boy can hope that she'll change her mind.

In your case, it's even tougher for the guy; you two were together a long time and it's very likely he is aware of how much you care for him. He's spent several years thinking this would go the marriage/kids/commitment direction, and it will take him time to readjust those expectations.

Especially because you're not completely clear on the situation, it's very easy for him to think "well she will figure this out and change her mind". As long as he allows himself to hope, he's going to want to be with you.

(Your duty, if you are a compassionate person, is to make it clear you aren't going to change your mind.)
posted by nat at 2:30 PM on February 21

(That doesn't mean the successful ones aren't equal on major aspects, but there may be a point of two that differ a bit but not significantly enough to call the whole thing off)
posted by cmgonzalez at 2:32 PM on February 21

I'm not talking about teddy bears people! I'm talking about lifelong commitment love.

People don't always love each other with exactly the same ferocity but still love deeply, and things can still work. There are tons of variations on this old theme out there.

Yes, I/we thought about whether it was just our different ways of loving, but in the end I decided that it wasn't...that it really was about being able to make, and be happy with, the decision and commitment to love and be with him for the rest of my life.

Thanks
posted by goalie at 2:39 PM on February 21

There's no hard and fast rule about this. Everybody has every right to call anything they want a dealbreaker. However, you should be honest with yourself. You can't break up with someone because they "should" want more of a mutual relationship. In a way, that's pinning the blame on the person who didn't want to break up. Instead, you broke up with him because it is what you wanted to do. You did not like him enough to want to continue. Maybe you feel better with more reciprocality, or maybe you just weren't that attracted to him. That's perfectly fine and acceptable.

Be ready for wanting him back really bad in three weeks.
posted by Ironmouth at 2:45 PM on February 21

In long-term relationships, there is an ebb and flow of attachment for both parties - the longer the term, the more this is true. At times you'll be more distant from one another, at times very close; at times one will feel more affectionate, at other times, the other.

It's not the fact that feelings weren't equally strong on one side or the other that seems to have broken up your relationship, but the fact that your personal timing and life goals didn't match up. It often happens that people who genuinely do feel love for one another can't make a relationship work because they aren't willing to subsume their own needs and goals in that relationship. That's a healthy thing, for the most part. People who do bury their needs to continue a relationship are unhappy in a different way. Ideally neither partner has to put a whole chunk of him- or herself aside to be with the other.

Intellect is the part that recognizes the disconnect. Intellect can't always control affect, or emotion, which is why you can still feel love for someone who, intellectually, you know can't be your partner in the long run without causing you to be uncomfortable in the relationship.

But expecting two individuals in a relationship to always feel 100% attraction for and love for one another in exactly equal measure all the time seems completely unrealistic. I don't think it happens. It's the lived commitment and what happens in the aggregate, over time, that makes the relationship work; that allows that natural ebb and flow to happen without being a negative thing.
posted by Miko at 2:46 PM on February 21 [10 favorites]

I just kept thinking that he shouldn't want to be with me if I'm not as committed as him.)

Also: maybe he won't want to be with you, after he has time to absorb the reality that you weren't as committed. It's likely he hoped you would be, or that you were open to his goals as potentially shared goals. You weren't, but there's often a delay for that other person in coming to terms with it. So in time, yeah, he probably will realize that what he wanted wasn't to be with you, but to be with an imagined version of you that wanted the same things he wants. He might still be in the process of letting go that imagined version.

Once he's settled down with someone whose life goals and timing matches his own, he'll very likely look back and be glad it didn't work out with you - but that's rarely clear to a person during the acute phase of a breakup, where he's wrestling with the reality that a future he hoped for is not going to be happening. He's got a phase of grieving for the loss of that future to get through - that's why he can't immediately make the intellectual leap to "well, I don't want her because she's not right for me, either, and this isn't mutual, so I must move on pronto." Grieving takes time and involves a lot of emotional steps.

But of course, eventually he'll arrive at the realization that it wasn't mutual in the ways that meant the most to him, and then he probably will see your lack of commitment for what it was, in the end, and cast a cooler eye on the whole thing.
posted by Miko at 2:53 PM on February 21 [2 favorites]

More generally, are imbalances in relationships ever tenable?

Not only are they tenable, they are unavoidable.

And of course he wants to be with you, he's given you four years of his life. Doesn't mean it's a good idea or a good fit, though. I think in general that you're overanalyzing this, which is normal. Shit didn't work, you guys want different things, you cut him loose (or vice versa), etc. What matters is whether it works or not, not how abstract comparisons of nebulous attributes play out. Forget about what you think should "ideally happen in practice."
posted by rhizome at 2:57 PM on February 21

It's really not, which you would probably understand intuitively if you were on the more-invested side of the relationship imbalance and not on the less-invested side of it.

People make excuses for each other all the time, particularly people they love: maybe your boyfriend was thinking something along the lines of "oh, if her relationship with her parents wasn't so messed up she'd be ready to tie the knot- once we get married, I know she'll be happy." While obviously wrong, this is totally natural. We all tend to make the people we're close to into the versions of themselves that we need or want them to be, and not the version that they necessarily are. This is especially easy to do with a love imbalance. It's deeply painful to admit to yourself that you love someone more than they love you, particularly when you're both "in love."

As to whether or not these relationships are successful, there's two ways to look at it:

1) All relationships are imbalanced one way or another. No two people feel the same exact way about anything, and love doesn't magically homogenize your personality. Two people necessarily mean completely different things when they say "I love you" to each other.

2) Still, equal partnerships are impossible unless both people are equally invested in the relationship. You might sacrifice differently, but both of you have to compromise on the big things as well as the little ones, which you obviously weren't willing to do.
posted by libertypie at 3:00 PM on February 21 [2 favorites]

Echoing everyone else's points of view, and also throwing this one out there:

WHEN IT COMES TO DOWN TO CHILDREN, MARRIAGE, "SETTLING DOWN" etc. - make sure you know exactly what you want going in and make this pointedly clear as early as you can.

Marriage, kids, and the white-picket fence trip are HUGE. They aren't "well, he doesn't keep the toothpaste lid on", or "the dishes are still in the sink and I don't want them there," type differences.

If these three things really strike you as bigger commitments than you can take on going forward, you were right to let your boyfriend know.

I am the veteran of a marriage that went down like the Hindenburg because neither of us were adequately stating what our positions were on these issues.
posted by Lipstick Thespian at 3:04 PM on February 21 [1 favorite]

I am the veteran of a marriage that went down like the Hindenburg because neither of us were adequately stating what our positions were on these issues.

Me too. And also realize that these positions can change without warning. It's a minefield, for sure.
posted by The Light Fantastic at 3:40 PM on February 21

A friend once told me that a healthy relationship is one in which the partners have 50% of their interests in common. I don't think it's a hard and fast rule, but the fact that you two are not peas in a pod is not in itself bad. It's more important that each of you is mature enough to accommodate your differences in interests and expectations.

With that aside, if your differences center around your expectations of each other, you do need to get coordinated or else suffer chronic disappointment.
posted by ardgedee at 3:47 PM on February 21

I think it's entirely possible for two people who love each other and want to be committed to each other for life to have a slight imbalance in terms of one partner being more... I don't know, passionate? about the other. I believe that because I believe that successfully being committed for life doesn't depend entirely on romance or gushy feelings, but instead depends on deep respect and shared goals (also love, but not entirely--and for some people the biggest, most dramatic and passionate love relationship of their life is not with the person they ultimately commit to). But when one person wants to commit for life and the other doesn't, that's an untenable situation. At the same time, though, even when it's untenable, of course the person who wants to commit still wants it to work, still hopes the other person will change his/her mind: love isn't rational, and it doesn't have an "off" switch for when the relationship ends.
posted by Meg_Murry at 4:01 PM on February 21 [3 favorites]

For some people, "the chase" and a person's distance and unavailability are part of the attraction. And if they're lucky, they find someone aloof who likes being catered to and put on a pedestal. (I haven't seen this dynamic be stable, but I could imagine it happening.)

That's not you, fine. But judging that dynamic is like judging a couple's sexual likes and dislikes: you can do it, but why bother? Just don't participate if you're not into it.
posted by salvia at 4:10 PM on February 21

That ebb and flow of who's more into whom can change from month to month.

Wanting or not wanting marriage isn't about how much you love your partner. It's about wanting marriage or kids or a new car every three years. Either you're on the same page or you aren't. If you know for sure that this isn't something you want, tell him, clearly. People hang on to dreams, even when they know they aren't at all likely.to become reality.
posted by Grrlscout at 4:44 PM on February 21

I just kept thinking that he shouldn't want to be with me if I'm not as committed as him.

Assuming you're not just upset and using your question to vent, I get confused when I take you literally (as I'm prone to do). Here are a few interpretations:

1. Why is the universe so unjust as to allow this imbalance?

This is a vaguely-religious interpretation, in which the universe is backed by an intelligent force that is being unfair. As an atheist, I can't share in this interpretation. To me, the universe isn't fair or unfair. It's indifferent. Sometimes we draw bad cards.

2. Why WOULD someone love someone who didn't love him back?

This assumes that the main reason we love someone is because they love us. My guess is it IS the main reason why some people love. But not all people. I fell in love with my wife before she loved me. I loved her because of the way she acted, looked, thought, spoke, etc.

2. Why would someone CHOOSE to love someone who didn't love him back?

For many of us, it's not a choice. It's like asking why we choose to like candy when we know it's bad for us. We don't choose. We my choose to EAT candy, but even if we abstain, we still crave it.

I think it's reasonable to ask why your boyfriend would choose to stay in a relationship with someone that didn't love him. But that's different from why he'd love someone who didn't love him. As Woody Allen said, "The heart wants what it wants."
posted by grumblebee at 4:47 PM on February 21 [1 favorite]

Anecdotal experience: My last relationship before I met DH (about 8 years ago) was like you described…..he was way into me; I wasn’t so sure. He gave me an ultimatum about marriage, I thought about it, but it just didn’t feel right so I left. He honestly thought that I would realize what a stupid mistake I made and come running back to him. (And after a few weeks I did have those fleeting thoughts.) But then soon-to-be DH entered the picture, and we both had that 100% mutability (though since then it ebbs and flows but for the most part lands back at 100%).
posted by texas_blissful at 5:00 PM on February 21

goalie: Philosophical question about relationships: Is 100% mutuality required? By which I mean: Boy wants to be with girl. Girl isn't so sure s/he wants to be with boy. Shouldn't boy then not want to be with girl since she doesn't want to be with him, i.e. doesn't appreciate him for what he is, doesn't love him the way he deserves to be loved? ... I just kept thinking that he shouldn't want to be with me if I'm not as committed as him... I'm not talking about teddy bears people! I'm talking about lifelong commitment love.

A had a whole bunch of stuff written out about Stendhal and The Charterhouse of Parma (a great book about what you're talking about, please read it) but I'm scratching it to be a bit more direct:

You're being silly. Love just isn't like that. Yes, life-lasting passionate love - it's not like that. To quote Stendhal, who is the highest authority on love that I can find:

You forget that in love possession is nothing, only enjoyment matters.

It's a very petty and small person who doesn't love someone unless they're loved back.
posted by koeselitz at 6:53 PM on February 21 [2 favorites]

(And by none of this, mind you, do I mean "you should go back to him!" or "you made a huge mistake!" By all means, follow your heart and your desires. But don't feel as though you need to justify yourself by discounting his love and his hopes.)
posted by koeselitz at 7:10 PM on February 21

Shouldn't boy then not want to be with girl since she doesn't want to be with him, i.e. doesn't appreciate him for what he is, doesn't love him the way he deserves to be loved?

I'm with koeselitz, that sounds silly- think about the question in reverse, "Shouldn't boy want to be with girl since she wants to be him?" Uh, no. There are two people in a relationship- two people, two minds, two hearts. Why should one of those minds and hearts get to decide how the other should think/feel?
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 8:19 PM on February 21 [2 favorites]

Any one who has had their heart broken or experienced unrequited knows that love has no age limits.

Oh and it doesn't have to be balanced, each person just has to meet the other one's needs.
posted by magikker at 9:22 PM on February 21

There's actually a common proverb that says "In love, there is always one who kisses and one who offers the cheek." Balzac said something to the respect that "In love, there is one of them who always suffers and another who is bored" (En amour, il y en a toujours un qui souffre et l'autre qui s'ennuie). Regardless of how non-ideal it is it is certainly a commonplace phenomenon.

Love isn't rational which is why it doesn't necessarily just go away just because it is unrequited (or marginally requited). Love is so not rational that its object being unattainable can make it more acute. And there hope, you know, I have seen people sustain some amazingly unbelievable (from the outside perspective) hopes for unworkable relationships.

All this being said, I think a certain parity of attraction, affection, intention whatever is mostly necessary for a good and healthy relationship. "100% mutuality," you know, how are you supposed to even measure that, but it's obviously the side of the spectrum you want to be on as opposed to "obvious disparity."

I just kept thinking that he shouldn't want to be with me if I'm not as committed as him.

Nope, that doesn't follow at all, but it sure would have been more convenient for you if it had, so this one might chalk up to wishful thinking. The heart is blind. And also dumb as a post.
posted by nanojath at 10:40 PM on February 21 [5 favorites]

Shorter and possibly more relevant answer, I think it really boils down to what you consider to be "tenable." I think a lot of relationships persist with serious imbalances in the sort of heartfelt commitment of either partner. These relationships may be sustainable, I don't know that I would call them ideal, but I also don't feel like I could judge anyone else's relationship: if it works for them, you know? Not what I'd want though, on either side of it.
posted by nanojath at 10:48 PM on February 21 [1 favorite]

When my husband and I divorced, the most gut-wrenching part of the whole thing was that he didn't want to be with me anymore and I was still desperately in love with him.

It can take a long, long time to let go of that. Love doesn't follow any laws of reason.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 10:52 AM on February 22 [1 favorite]