Commitment and Divorce

I wrote this piece two years ago, and dug it out recently because I was in a reflective mood after reading Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I have only just finished reading the book, so I will save my review for another time. Meanwhile, here is the piece I had written....

The rise of divorce and failed relationships in almost all developed societies today should give us pause. Are today’s couples just bad at sustaining relationships? What is different today than it was yesterday? Have you looked at your grandparents or parents marriage, and wondered why theirs have worked and yours is in dire straits?

Through the years, I have observed a trend, and I have come to a conclusion. The more traditional-minded one is, the more likely it is the marriage or relationship will last despite encountering problems. The more liberal-minded one is, the more likely it is that when the relationship encounters problems, it ends in termination of the relationship.

Of course, I am using the terms traditional and liberal in a generalized non-political fashion, and only to highlight the difference in attitudes towards relationships. On average, the trend above holds true for most people I have observed, whether they are from the West or the East.

The difference between traditional-minded and liberal-minded individuals in regards to relationships lies in their attitude towards commitment. When traditional-minded individuals enter a relationship, they do so with the intention and the vow to stay together no matter how bad their lives are going. They make a promise to remain committed to each other and help each other overcome difficulties. The fear that one or the other will bail out of the relationship does not exist, and that frees up one’s emotional resources to focus on the real issues. Tumultuous external events, like money issues, managing children or career, will not shatter their relationship. The center of their relationship is the commitment to each other.

Contrast this with the liberal-minded individuals. The center of their relationship is on clearly defined goals (earthly desires) like making money, running a business, raising successful children, or simply the pursuit of mutual happiness. When the goal is not met, or they encounter problems, the relationship suffers because their commitment was to the goal, and not to each other. And when the goal is met, they have nowhere left to go. Either they formulate a new goal, or they fall out. Even when the goal is pursuit of happiness, and when there is a period of unhappiness in their relationship, it becomes easy to end the relationship because the foundation was based on happiness and not unhappiness.

Liberal-minded people do not consciously choose to commit themselves to a goal rather than to the relationship itself. But it happens anyway because our society is geared towards achievement, and that attitude gets translated into our love lives. The liberal minded person is of the attitude that if the relationship is not helping one achieve something, then there must be something wrong with it or something wrong with the partner, and hence it must be time to move on to a better relationship, or a better partner.

This is one crucial reason why relationships of the liberal-minded often result in bitter conflict or divorce. The basic level of trust between them has been diminished by the attitude that if one is not living up to the other’s expectation (or goal), then that person is disposable. The lack of trust creates an environment that is not conducive to a healthy relationship. One or both in the relationship will be always on guard of being abandoned. The fear results in defensive behavior; at a harsh tone of voice, an angry face, or a condescending look, one shuts down emotionally, hide away or return fire in bitterness and resentment. Why is it that the people who are the closest to you say and do the things that hurt the most? What is the cost of the damage when you return fire? Are you training or conditioning your loved ones to hide from you? Compound all of such defensive behavior with lack of communication or periods of long absence from each other, it is little surprise that relationships centered on goals often fail.

So which type would you rather be?

I think it is time for people to make a conscious effort to commit to each other rather than to goals. Let us ask ourselves when our relationships began, was it a goal that us together, or was a something as simple as the joy of being together? If couples can work to commit themselves to each other, recall the simple joys, and build on trust, the goals would become only easier to achieve, and we’d be happier for it.

Toxic People

Sometimes you will encounter people in your life who seem to have been put in your life's path just to torment you. They will bring you down, and then take perverse delight in making you feel like the stupidest person in this world, the most ugliest, the most unwanted and the most depressed. They will be the ones to see doom and gloom all over the place, lurking at every corner, and so thwart your attempts to be happy. They are the ones who will be obstacles to the very things you want from your life. Yet you may blame your bad luck in meeting such people, but not do a single thing to change the situation, to rid such toxic people from your life. The worse thing you can do is to tolerate toxic people in the hopes that they will become less toxic because they never will. And sooner or later you might start believing them - that you are indeed worthless.

Too many people end up in such situations, caught up in toxic friendships and relationships, believing the worst of themselves. Horror of horrors, if the person who is most toxic to you is also the person who is supposed to be your best friend, or your partner. For that person, knowing all of your weaknesses, would have the best ammunition available to cut you down. If the said person does that constantly, then he or she is nothing more than a devil.

How to know when you're entering a toxic relationship with someone? This is what I have concluded from my own experience: It begins when nasty words are exchanged constantly. For example, when you are spending money and making the effort to place a long distance call just to hear someone's voice, and he snaps at you like a bull dog (hmm, how about this "what do you want me to eat, rocks, stupid?". Or when someone asserts that you are the sole reason for the lack of direction in a certain person's life. Or that they have been short changed by surrounding themselves with people intellectually inferior to themselves. These are the stuff that poisons the minds of all involved, making it difficult for there to be trust and support. When one can't trust or ask for support from their friends or partners, then it signals a huge problem. And you're better off alone, or with someone else.

Life is much too short to live in toxicity. And I've accepted that I've wasted many good years already.

The Problem of Hoping and Waiting

You know the popular saying that says each day is a new beginning? I used to have a poster with that very saying emblazoned on it. I have probably lost the poster in one of my many moves. But I do think I live my life in such a fashion - telling myself that each day will herald a new beginning to a better, happier and more successful life. And when things are particularly bad, I may rant and rave during the day, but I still go to sleep hoping that the next day will better.


Frankly, the next day is never any better. I still wake up to confront the same old issues that I faced the night before, the weeks, months and even the years before. Slowly, the hope that the next day will be better diminshes. And I am left with an inner void because the voice that motivates me to hope is now muted.

But I cannot shut it out all the time. I do hear the voice occasionally, but I mostly choose avoid it because acknowledging the voice is painful. It is painful because the hopes the voice speaks of only serve to remind me what I am not, it reminds me of what I have not done, but mostly it reminds me that I am what and where I am because of myself.

I have come to realise that my hopes have been worth nothing actually because I never truly believed in them. And therein lies my problem. If I had believed in my hopes, I would have acted to achieve them. Not wait around hoping that it would happen spontaneously through no effort of my own.

As Alice Koller wrote in her book, An Unknown Woman, "I've arrived at this outermost edge of my life by my own actions. Where I am is thoroughly unacceptable. Therefore, I must stop doing what I've been doing".

I know I should not continue to wait for something to happen when I do not believe it ever will. Instead, I should work on the objectives and things that I actually believe and have faith in, the things I can control, affect and succeed in through my own efforts. And abandon those objectives and things I never will.

I am reading Alice Koller's autobiographical novel, An Unknown Woman. When she wrote it, she was a thirty something woman, who felt the urgent need to reassess her life. She secluded herself in a house in Nantucket with her dog as her sole companion. In her solitude, she wrote the book about her journey to discover who she was and who she wanted to be.

It is a remarkable book. Mabye because I am at a similar place as she was - that is, trying to find oneself.

Certain sections of the book stand out for their profound insights:

"Even when I choose some future good toward which these present minutes point, I won't let there be hours that I only tolerate. I won't ever again put up with unthinking habit or being bored, or ugliness in things or persons. I have nothing important to do, but I have no time to waste marking time. Each thing I touch or see or smell or taste or hear during my day must give me the sense of something good in the doing.

Nor are there things to wait for, except things that I myself set in motion now. Waiting? Why, the stupendous thing I used to wait for was something that was going to be done to me, or for me: to be initiated by someone else, independently of my choice. But there isn't a someone else to make things hapen to me: I'm the only person who can do what I decide needs to be done. And besides, there is no reason for anyone else to do anything at all for me, particularly something as glorious as that thing I expected.

So on two counts waiting is irrelevant. Nothing to wait for, because I'll initiate what happens to me. Nothing to wait for, because these minutes now passing are my life. They are the minutes in which my living is to be done. Whatever I do, I'll do in my own time, and I will do it."

No more waiting.

Time to move on.

Love and Will

"When inward life dries up, when feeling decreases and apathy increases, when one cannot affect or even genuinely touch another person, violence flares up as a daimonic necessity for contact, a mad drive forcing touch in the most direct way possible".

Rollo May, Love and Will

Being in Control

I think it is really easy to lose one's control of self, if one only allowed it. There are too many circumstances in this life that could make one fuming mad, hysterically desperate or hopelessly loony. It could be your colleague, your best girl friend, your spouse, your family, or even your beloved cat. A word uttered, a look thrown or a gesture revealed. Any one of these things could be a trigger point to a mini explosion. I only know it too well. I am a recovering rage-a-holic. So I am particularly alert to the little hot pulsing signals in my chest that are usually a prelude to something bigger.

I was a temperamental young person, or so I was told. I rarely lost control in front of or at my friends, but I did show my temper (and moodiness) to those closest around me, like my family. I think it was a condition that worsened with an increase in my abilities of articulation and boldness. In my twenties, I was at my worst. I was Miss-Put-to-Right-Wrongs. I insulted salesgirls for inefficiency, berated co-workers for tardiness, regimented younger siblings into productive activities for their benefit when I caught them lazing around. But I never saw my behavior as a problem I had to deal with until one day.

Our family was on a road trip. I was seated in the back seat with my two younger siblings. An argument erupted between myself and another sibling. The youngest was caught in the word fight (literally he separated us warring two by being seated in between us) . It got so heated that my father had to stop the car. But somewhere in the midst of all ruckus, I caught a glimpse of my youngest sibling's face. It was one of pure devastation and fear. I had never seen my youngest sibling look at me in that manner. It made me stop, but it did not make me stop wanting to be right.

It took me a while further to acknowledge that I had a rage problem. But eventually the image of my younger sibling's face made a delayed reaction - it hit home what I was doing to the people around me, to myself, and to how contrary a response I obtained to what I wanted instead.

Today, I almost had a relapse. I was angry, I was upset. It would have been easy to lash out at the wrong, trying hard to put it right and whole, right then and there. But I think maybe I have learned to bide my time. So I sat down and thought it through, and planned my reaction (to be executed at a more appropriate time, I imagined) in a cool and dispassionate manner.

Then hours later, I decided that I no longer desired to react at all. And I realized that I've been this way for ages now - decidedly cool, seemingly level-headed and strangely impenetrable.

Now, I am not sure if I have lost some part of myself, in my quest to tame the fire within.