Do you take more than you give in your relationship? Do you take more than you give in your relationship?
How do you know if you’re using your partner?
Asymmetrical relationships, according to a lot of people, pretty well define what it means to be with someone.
That is to say, many people believe that it’s natural for one person to care more for the other person in a coupling.
It’s not a principle I agree with, believing that partnerships are just that, but it’s interesting nonetheless; is it right that there exists an unequal distribution of affection? Is it healthy?
To discuss, I raise this dilemma:
“Am I using her?”
So read the subject line of a recent email from a reader who wishes to remain anonymous.
He went on to explain:
“We’ve been together for a while. I have a lot of affection for her I guess, but I wouldn’t say I’m in love. We have good sex. But it’s not the kind of sex I could see myself having for the rest of my life. Not that I don’t enjoy it – I do, we do – but I don’t think that I wouldn’t wonder if there was something better out there if we carried on down the path I think she thinks we’re heading down. I don’t think I could marry her is what I’m saying, I guess. But I don’t think I want to break-up with her just now, because, if I am honest, I’d prefer to be with her than without her ‘in the meantime’.
“Before you think I am a complete bastard, let me defend myself a bit. Let me say that I haven’t exactly told her she’s the one… I guess I haven’t exactly told her otherwise, exactly. But when I do or say things designed to keep her at some sort of distance – things I think I do to ‘protect’ her at some level – she reciprocates in a like fashion… though I can sorta tell she’s not really being honest. And I think she can sorta tell I’m not either, in the opposite direction.
“So, if she wants more from me, and I don’t want to give it, but she doesn’t really seem to mind, and I don’t mind enough to break it all up, is it really a problem? Is it ok for one person to want the other person more? Or does that make me a user.”
Most interesting, thought I.
No one likes to feel like they’ve been used. The pejorative expression for one who exploits, ‘user’ drives doubt into the core of being. A user undermines their prey’s sense of self, the ultimate act of betrayal.
But betrayal works on deceit. And if the user isn’t the only one being deceitful, are they wholly in the wrong?
In the scenario painted above, Dear Reader is concerned he’s using his girlfriend because he doesn’t care for her as much as she for him, or so it seems.
But I would question a few things, like:
Does she really care for him, or does she care more for being with him? If it’s him, not the relationship status, she cares for – if she genuinely believes he cannot be substituted – but is content to love him more, is that really his problem?
Were they to break-up, it would be easy for her to blame him - for her to feel self-righteous anger based on hurt feelings and used sense of self. Inasmuch, he could feel like a bastard worthy of the user tag. This would be encouraged by the kind of society that seeks to blame before taking responsibility, or makes accusations before finding the truth (would it be fair to say this is the nature of our mainstream, I wonder…).
But would that be right? Would that be healthy?
Ultimately, this whole dilemma rests on honesty – how honest each party is willing to be, first with themselves, then with each other.
In my opinion, asymmetrical relationships are fine if that’s what a couple honestly wants for themselves, therefore the lovee is not using the lover.
And, to extend the thinking, there’s validity to the argument that you can do things to please your partner, and so, please yourself.
Yet I’m still no fan of romantic imbalance… how about you?
Do you believe that love has to be symmetrical? Or is all fair in love and war?