"Would you fight for me?"
That
question pretty well summed up the difference between Faith's and
Derek's view of love and romance. She was so independent he was always
amazed to hear such expressions of need from her. Since their recent blowout
they had been hanging together by a thread. Derek wasn't sure what it
was that was keeping them together, but whatever it was he found both
comforting and disconcerting.
So when Faith posed that question
to him, as they were driving home from the veterinarian's, he was not
sure quite how to answer. Idiot that he was, he said "What do you mean?"
"Would you fight
for me? It's not a hard question. If you knew some other guy was after
me, would that stir you to do something, or would you just throw your
hands up and walk away? And blame me for encouraging him."
Derek
sighed. He knew there was no right answer. After twenty years living
with someone, he thought, you know when you're being set up.
"I've
never asked much from you," she continued. "All I ever expected was a
bit of attention and appreciation from time to time. You lavish more
time and attention on the puppies, and on that damn computer, than you
do on me."
"The puppies are needier than you", he replied. "At
least, I've always thought so. They can't do a lot of things for
themselves. You can. We do what we have to do. After spending most of
my life working at jobs that are meaningless and tedious, I'm not
interested in working harder than I have to anymore. Why should I have
to 'fight' for you to 'prove' I love you? Why should I have to 'prove'
I love you at all? I like my life with you. That's why I'm here."
"You
haven't been 'here' in years", she said, sharply. "Your physical
presence in the same room means nothing. I get more attention from the
people I work with than from you."
Derek glared at her. He tried to stop himself but he said it anyway: "Well, that explains the late evenings at 'work'."
He
just wanted the conversation to end. It was hopeless, he said to
himself. Round and round in circles. These talks always end up the
same, in anger and then sullen silence.
"Look at Hanna" she said, staring out the side window. "She has five lovers. They all give her lots of attention and appreciation. And don't tell me they're not competing for hers. Maybe that's the problem with most guys – monogamy is just too easy for you. There's no incentive for you to work a little at the relationship. To fight to make it work. It's always the woman who has to make the relationship work, no matter how much the personal cost."
"I don't know why it has to be work", he said, exasperated. I have
a job. Why should we have to work at a relationship as well? If it
works, it works. If it doesn't, well, we do what we must. It works just
fine for me. You're the one who's unhappy."
"So if I had five lovers like Hanna, you wouldn't care?"
Derek
scowled. Another set-up. "It's not a matter of caring or not caring. We
do what we must. If having five lovers is what you have to do, you're
going to do it. Our bodies, our instincts, tell us what to do. They
control our emotions, and they control us. We have no say in it. There
is no point in my trying to convince you, over and over, not to do what
you're going to do eventually anyway."
He wasn't sure he believed what he'd just said. It was so hard to put into words.
She pushed on: "So what would you do, if I had lovers?"
He knew, from all the recent telltale signs, that the question was not hypothetical. How do you answer a question, he asked himself, that is phrased as a hypothetical one when both parties know it isn't? The James Taylor song 'BSUR' was playing in his head:
First you make believe I believe the things that you make believe
And I'm bound to let you down.
Then it's I who have been deceiving, purposely misleading
And all along you believed in me.
So we circle around one another, playing a guessing game
Strangers at this masquerade, pretending to know each other.
We strain to catch a name, and never see the mistakes we must have made.
He was tired of the game. He decided to try to answer the question honestly:
"I probably wouldn't do anything. As I said, I'm happy here, the way things are. They're not perfect. The fact that you're so unhappy is a problem. But it really is your problem. I tried to do the things that would make you happy, and then a while ago I gave up trying. Nothing, at least nothing I could do, made you happy, or could
make you happy. Nothing was ever enough. The only way I could ever make
you happy was by being what I'm not, and I can't do that anymore. I won't do that anymore. I am who I am, and I can't be this other person you want me to be."
"You mean you won't.
You won't compromise. You won't put anything into the relationship.
It's all take and no give." There was a growing anger, a desperate
bitterness in her voice. She was still waiting for the 'right' answer
to her questions.
For a moment, they were both silent. The car idled a little unevenly at the red light. Even the car is tired, Derek thought. The puppies looked at them both forlornly.
"A
relationship is not a transaction", he said, finally, "something
measured by who gets and who gives what. We either get what we want out
of a relationship or we don't. I don't make demands of you. I get what
I want from our relationship because I'm content with you the way you
are. You don't have to cook or do laundry to make me love you". We don't even have to make love, he thought. Even that was now more trouble than it was worth. It was work. He was fed up with working for something that never seemed to have a reward, that just raised expectations. He went on:
"There's
no keeping score. I love you for who you are, as you are. But you want
me to be someone I'm not, someone better, more heroic, who gives up
everything, or at least a lot, just to have your love. To be worthy of
it. And it's charming, to see the guys in the romance movies sacrifice
and sweat and really work to seduce the woman of their dreams. I love those movies. But they're not real.
Seduction is just a game. When it's over, whether you win or lose, you
go home, to real life, where people love each other for who they really
are, or they don't."
Faith was crying now, infuriated and offended. "A woman is never
accepted for who she is", she said, her voice contorted. "She always
has to give up who she is to become who she's expected to be. So it's
not unreasonable for her to expect a little
sacrifice, a little extra give, a little heroism, a little romance in
return. It's really a question of whether you care enough to do that.
There are men, believe me, who do care that much. Your father, for one."
Derek winced. Always comparisons, he thought. Always me letting her down. Never good enough. Nothing was ever good enough. He was running out of steam, but he tried once more:
"It's not about
caring, or not caring. It's just who people are. It's chemistry, not
character. Some men, some people are content to sacrifice themselves,
for their country or their ideals or for someone else they love more
than their own life. Some people live vicariously instead of for
themselves. That's not natural,
to live with ever-lowered hopes, dreams, expectations. Maybe it's just
the only life they know, so they just keep on doing it their whole
lives because they don't have the imagination, or the courage, to
conceive of doing anything else. And thank God it's not
natural, or else we might all be content to live as slaves, or in
concentration camps, or in physically or sexually abusive
relationships."
He was depressed now, knowing all he was doing
was hurting her. He could see her point but he couldn't fathom anyone
actually believing it. He knew she couldn't see his.
"And you don't think living in a relationship with no attention, no appreciation, no affection, is abusive?" she said, quietly.
"I
don't know", he replied. "It is what it is. Things are the way they are
for a reason. There is no simple answer. We will both do what we must."
He pulled into the driveway, and the puppies, restless from the
drive, began to jump around in the back seat. Faith let them out and
called them to follow her into the back yard. Derek knew she would then
take them, and herself, for a long walk. He sat alone in the car for a
moment, and then climbed out. He wandered down to the pond and watched
the geese and ducks, listened to the birds chattering and chirping in
the trees. He lay down beside the willow, stared up through its leaves,
and closed his eyes.
We are all actors in the movie we create of our own lives, he thought. But who the hell is directing it? He
closed his eyes and thought about changing himself, trying harder.
Making an effort to be a better partner. But he knew himself better
than that. I may be writing my own script, but I've lost track of the plot, he thought. But
something keeps me here, in this movie. I keep expecting things will
get better. I can imagine a thousand happy endings. And I'm really
pretty content right now. Just hang in and see how it goes.
(Photo: Tom Hsiang, U. of Guelph Dept. of Environmental Biology) |
