This week I finally got round to watching “The Wedding Date” an
enjoyable -if slight - romantic comedy.
The plot, for anyone not familiar with it, has reluctant
singleton Debra Messing attending her step-sister’s wedding with
a male “escort”, Dermot Mulroney, who combines perfect eye-candy
looks with gentlemanly charms and a comprehensive fee per
service policy.
The Messing character needs to have Mulroney in tow because her
ex, who inexplicably dumped her, is the best man.
The action is simple and predictable: girl meets boy, girl and
boy connect at some profound yet unclear level, they fall into
bed together, argue, break up and then end up back together, all
smiles and tears while we the audience buy into the idea of them
toddling off into the sunset of Happily Ever After.
This is indeed the stuff of “rom com” and romance, according to
The Oxford English Reference dictionary, is about “an atmosphere
or tendency characterized by a sense of remoteness from or
idealization of everyday life”. Quite. Except that we don’t
entirely suspend disbelief even when we are watching romantic
comedies.
At some point, every one of us has longed for that fuzzy
ultimate feel-good sense of being regarded as the perfect
inhabitant of a perfect world by our perfect partner.
Whatever the problem is, love is the answer. Love is all you
need, after all. So Mulroney is a male sex worker. Not a
problem. He gets all the best lines, from the philosophical:
“You get the relationships you want”, to ” I think I’d miss you
even if we’d never met” and this line that would sit well in the
mouth of any abuser: “I’d rather fight with you than make love
with anyone else.”
Aaah! And yuk! Aaah because both leads are so good looking (and
toned and well dressed) that they’re just bound to be happy
together ever. Yuk because flimsy love stories still impact on
our psyche at the subliminal level, teaching us that you can
build strong relationships on hopelessly inadequate foundations.
Sooner or later, we all try it, are amazed when it doesn’t work
and punish ourselves. Often before repeating the same process
with the self-same outcome.
Michael Gerber’s “The E-Myth Revisited” - Why Most Small
Businesses Don’t Work And What To Do About It” urges business
owners to develop strong visions for their companies.
How does that translate to women (and men) who have survived
abusive relationships? Surprisingly well. Since we are all,
first and last, flawed human beings, our design flaws in any one
area of life are likely to impact on other areas also. And so it
is that Gerber’s comments about replacing assumptions (and
aspirations and dreams) with clear-sighted strategies relate to
our emotional world also.
Gerber writes:
“Most of us have had the experience of being disappointed by
someone in whom we have put our trust… trust alone can only
take us so far. Trust alone can set us up to repeat those
same disappointing experiences. (my italics)
Because true trust comes from knowing, not from blind faith.
And to know, one must understand.
And to understand, one must have an intimate awareness of what
conditions are truly present. What people know and what they
don’t. What people do and what they don’t. What people want and
what they don’t. How people do what they do and how people
don’t. Who people are and who they aren’t.”
It becomes possible to develop ‘an intimate awareness of what
conditions are truly present’ when you are prepared to leave on
hold the romantic justification: “Love is all you need” for as
long as it takes to work through the various stages of
relationship building - which Gerber defines as ‘Infancy’,
‘Adolescence’, ‘Beyond the Comfort Zone’ and ‘Maturity’.
“And how am I supposed to manage that, Clever Clogs?” you might
be wondering. Once again, Gerber has a useful answer - if you
are prepared to replace the term “relationship” with “business”.
Gerber talks at length about working on the business rather than
in the business - a fascinating concept for anyone who has ever
spent time trying to pick up the broken pieces of a relationship
in the wake of a partner’s abusive outburst.
Gerber says: “Simply put, your job is to prepare yourself and
your business for growth. To educate yourself sufficiently so
that, as your business grows, the business’s foundation and
structures can carry the additional weight. And as awesome a
responsibility as that may seem to you, you have no other choice
- if your business is to thrive, that is.” (my italics)
Having spoken with hundreds of abused women over the years, I
can say with confidence that abusive men do not change their
spots. They may use concealer when you first meet and fall for
them, and their spots may proliferate over time, but still those
spots are there from the start.
The Love-is-all-you-need approach will blind you to the spots.
Working from the outset at establishing a foundation of
reciprocal care, respect and equality will quickly enable you to
see the face behind the concealer.
I’ve yet to encounter an abuser who can manage selflessness for
longer than it takes to earn a few vital brownie points. And
even then they don’t just do it, they make a 10 course banquet
of it.
Nor do abusers do solid foundations. Love is all they need. What
they term love - over time increasingly a justification for all
manner of bad behaviour - is most unlikely to be all you need.
That said, would I turn down the chance to parade Dermot
Mulroney at a family function? No way. He would add a whole new
dimension to a forthcoming bash at a Kosher Chinese restaurant
in suburban London (truly!).
But I’d like to think that if he came out with a killer line
like: “I’d rather fight with you etc.etc.”, I’d do the
honourable thing and drag the sole of my hobnail boot along his
shin. Hard. Because I’m not too sure where that would fit with
my compelling long-term vision of a possible relationship.
(C) 2005 Annie Kaszina
To contact Annie, email: annie@joyfulcoaching.com To subscribe
to Annie’s bi-monthly ezine, or order her eBook “The Woman You
Want To Be” go to www.joyfulcoaching.co
Baby Bash feat. 3rd Wish - Obsesion
also known as Graveyard during development