Chapter I

The Fundamentalisms of Love

The First Five Fundies

 

A good lifelong love is one of the greatest gifts of human existence. It often greatly increases joie-de-vivre, self-

esteem, and health while substantially decreasing loneliness, financial hardship and nihilism. It can change your life from quiet desperation to jubilant elation, sometimes overnight — or grow slowly and lushly like an immense love tree. 

However, love may also cause devastating, life- threatening suffering. That humiliating, jealous, empty

feeling that often erupts if you’ve lost love can cause some of the worst and most sustained pain humanity can experience. 

        

The sexual revolution of the 1960s included hope of  lessening the pain. But for many it merely propelled them

into a world with no romantic guideposts, a world where even more heartbreaking disillusionment was an all too frequent outcome. 

 

For instance, since the 1960s, people are divorcing at rates much higher than previous decades and centuries. And

the resultant suffering leads to such extreme emotions. At one moment you love a person more than anyone you’ve ever loved. At the next moment you may hate them more than anyone you’ve ever hated. 

 

Multiplied tens of millions of times, the negative  effect these extreme emotions have on our communities is enormous.

 

Can we decrease the suffering? Is there something left to salvage from the bold experiments of the 1960s? 

 

We believe so. We believe that it’s a matter of looking at romantic love much more objectively. It’s a matter of applying courageous freethinking to expose barriers that are camouflaged by the wondrous passions of romance and the horrendous sufferings of broken hearts.    

 

One way to maximize freethinking, is to be able to see where fundamentalisms — thought prisons — prevent it. The word “fundamentalist” is usually applied to someone whose freethinking is constrained by religion, but fundamentalisms occur in many other areas. 

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The phrase “romantic fundamentalisms,” for our purposes, means attitudes that may prevent love from blooming. We’ve discovered sixteen such fundamentalisms — fundies for short — though there are probably more. The fundies sometimes reveal transformations that have already occurred in much of society, but they have not become common enough, not developed strength enough, or not been expressed precisely enough to impact modern relationships to their full potential.   

But to get at most of them, we need to identify the first fundy, the gateway fundamentalism, the one that sometimes hides those wondrous, silky veils of ardor:

 

1. The fundamentalism that it is useless, dangerous, or immoral to try to analyze romantic love.

The Analysis Paralysis: 

 

There are many reasons this fundy still has power, and they often intermingle. The first reason is the assumption that all we need to know about love has already been discovered or revealed. This includes the belief that the first romantic handbook for Western Civilization is the Bible. In the King James Version of First Corinthians 7:9, St. Paul writes: “I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, it is good for them if they abide even as I [celibate and single]. But if they cannot contain [their lust], let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn.” 

 

That is, if you have to have sex, you better have it while monogamously married or else — or you’ll burn eternally in Hell. That’s all you need know about love.

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Meaning, traditional forms of love should not be  questioned. If you do live in some untraditional variation, personal tragedy is almost certain, eternal damnation a given, and you might even cause the fiery destruction of your city à la Sodom and Gomorrah.

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In addition to religious dictates, romantic love is often viewed as a secular yet magical elixir. For instance, according to bookadreport.com, the romance/erotica category made the most money of any book genre in 2019, almost twice that of the next best-selling genre, the crime/mystery genre.1 From our experience, rarely do these romance books delve into the science of relationships. They mainly tell of the awe, comedy or horror of romance in breathless tones of heaving bosoms and relentless passions instead of trying to figure out how to maximize the power of love for human happiness. Which is fine, but not what this book is about. 

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The same goes for the movie genres of rom-coms, romantic dramas, or the two Hallmark Channels’ endless happy-ever-after movies. They may question love for a while, but almost always end up heartwarmingly, with a traditional wedding.

 

Which is also fine. We all want to live happily ever after. Many people do! But we believe many more could be much happier if they studied love rather than only dramatized or laughed at it.  

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Others fear that investigating love may turn up evolutionary or animal mating strategies that might strip love of its enchantment. The prehistoric caricature is the Cro-Magnon man with a club dragging an unconscious woman back to his cave. 

 

Evolutionary psychologist David Buss wrote the comprehensive book, The Evolution of Desire, in which he brilliantly summarizes many of the evolutionary pressures on modern mating. He observes: “Ultimately the disturbing side of human mating must be confronted if its harsh consequences are ever to be ameliorated.”2 We believe love is strong enough to withstand any amount of evolutionary analysis, and its sometimes harsh consequences will be substantially lessened if it’s thoroughly analyzed. 

 

The usual conclusions from these and other sources is that love is something you know about inherently, or that life, parents or religion teach you all you need to or can know. Any new-fangled approach will only be New Age poppycock or immoral claptrap and will lead to old-age bitterness.  Here’s a musical version of that attitude:

 

Some enchanted evening,

you will find a stranger, 

you will find a stranger,

across a crowded room

And somehow you know,  

You know even then  

That somewhere you’ll see her again and again…  

 

Who can explain it?  

Who can tell you why?  

Fools give you reasons,  

Wise men never try.3

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Thus, the very essence of ignorance to even try to understand love.  

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Then there’s the argument that — given the decreasing power of traditional religion in America and the resulting conclusion that religion may not “save” you — the next best thing in the “saving” department is finding true, longlasting love. That’s one reason the Hallmark movies are so mesmerizing … you get to get saved in the end.  

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The saving accomplished by romantic love is the new secular version of the saving of religion. Thus it’s a fusion of

the religious and secular prohibitions against studying love. Its origins may be from the same “God-shaped hole in the soul” that Existentialist John-Paul Sartre maintained “caused” religion.4 A longing for all our troubles, uncertainties and confusions to disappear — and endless happiness to manifest. And thusly, people don’t want the mystery, the transcendence of love’s saving to be debased by it being explained away.

 

Or they do want Dostoyevsky’s idea of “miracle, mystery and authority.” Which pretty well sums up Western Civilization’s attitude towards sex until the 1960s. 

 

There is plenty of basis for this fear. But we also believe that love is as old as the first Homo sapiens, or the first Cro-Magnons, or mammals, or even the first sexual reproduction between two multi-celled organisms — that is, hundreds-of thousands to billions of years old. This makes it so powerful, and so intricately woven and haphazardly entangled with humanity, that it can easily resist any destruction of its transcendence by a little investigation.  At least that’s the assumption we’re working with in  this book: Love’s mystery is much stronger than the ability of analysis to explain it away. And even if science does completely explain love, it will still have transcendent power because it is such a basic attribute of human life.  

 

Love is so powerful that it gets otherwise squeamish humans to take off their clothes and do an incredibly wild, animal thing — to have unbridled intercourse. And almost everyone does it. Even those who you’d think were the least likely to do it, say squeaky-clean Republican Mitt Romney and super-serious Democrat John Kerry.  

 

So no, we don’t think a little investigation is going to harm one of the most robust instincts driving humanity. And if investigating yields only modest results, at least we’ll have a better understanding of love than that provided by many of the current love-advice sources — bodice-busting fantasy books, romantic movies, celibate or pedophilic Catholic priests, Biblically-limited Protestant preachers, randy musicians, the love folkways that have often randomly evolved in Western Civilization, etc. Not that some of these don’t often provide very good information. Thus, we shall tap these traditional resources whenever needed. But they may not be unquestionable fonts of enlightenment either. 

 

Another factor is that we’ve been through some of the  most revolutionary relationship changes in thousands of

years of history in the last 50+ years. Before the 1960s most relationship roles were clear, divorce was rare, and courting rules well defined. You wooed, married, had sex and babies, and were separated only by death.  But since then, women’s rights, birth control, abortion, changing moralities, the #Metoo movement, etc. have created a vastly different set of possible mating conditions. Instead of following well-defined scripts, you now may have to make your own decisions about the myriad of variables involved in courting and mating — as well as discover your lovers’ views about these variables.

 

Now, as relationship expert Esther Perel states in her podcast The New Ritual of Commitment, instead of clear rules to follow there are often negotiations to be had.5 So it’s understandable if you’re greatly confused about how to get into a relationship, how to behave in a relationship, or how to act during a relationship transition.  

 

But these well-defined, pre-1960s roles were not as innocent as they might appear. Western Civilization had, until very recently, been highly restrictive about the way love could be expressed. For several thousand years the culture brutally stipulated that the only permissible way to have a sexual relationship was by adhering to a Heterosexual Missionary-Position Life-Long Monogamy. All other possibilities were dangerously taboo. Now, since the 1960s, this HMLLM is no longer the inviolate monarch. Other types of relationships join with traditional monogamy to form the variations that are now acceptable in many communities including LBGTQ+, serial monogamy, polyamory, open, swinging, monogamish, relationship anarchy, polyandry, polygyny, etc.6 

 

But this book will not go extensively into these immense, new sexual jungles. It will however examine the engines that motivate all these types of love, and the assumptions that may limit their happiness. 

 

And before we go further, let us assure our profound  respect and dedication to the basic, monogamous structure of Western Civilization love. That is, let us say that a good, lifelong monogamy could be as good as love gets. And that can be pretty darn good. And this applies to whether it’s a monogamy that’s heterosexual or LGBTQ+. However, this is not to denigrate serial monogamy, polyamory, open relationships, etc. But if you have a good lifelong monogamy, congratulations and, as Sade pleads:

 

In Heaven’s name why are you walking away?  

Hang on to your love.  

In Heaven’s name why do you play these games?  

Hang on to your love… It’s so precious.

 

So if you want it to get stronger you’d better not let go.  

You’ve got to hold on longer if you want your love to grow.  

Got to stick together, hand in glove.  

Hold on tight, don’t fight.  

Hang on to your love.7

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One of the following fundamentalisms we challenge we call “The Grass-is-Greener Misdemeanor”: The often fallacious view that some other love would be better than the love you now have. 

 

And that is another major reason not to study love: it may make you dissatisfied with your present love. If it feels

good enough, don’t analyze it, just appreciate and try to ignore social pressures motivating you to try for someone new. It’s a dating jungle out there. One that’s sometimes dangerous, often painful and frequently, extremely lonely.   

But for those who are not in such a relationship, who’ve had several lovers in their lifetimes, are now single, or who

are in a spirit-killing relationship: “Cast a cold [yet still very affectionate] eye on love,”8 — to paraphrase Yeats’ tombstone epitaph.  

 

The coldest eye might be something like: How do we maximize the energies provided by romantic love? Or, to humanize that logical goal: How do we maximize love energy while minimizing the pain love can cause to us and others? Or: How can humanity better use the power of Eros for its own happiness and for a more peaceful, joyous world?

 

Is it possible to see if there’s a fundamentalist love ocean in which we’re swimming which is so pervasive that we can’t see it, but that is causing unnecessary pain? 

 

And just “Why do fools fall in love?” asked Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers. Almost everyone thought it rhetorical then. But now? As noted, the first step to finding out the “why” is to name fundamentalisms that prevent us from seeing the why. These sixteen will be presented in smaller groups of four or five so as not to cause excessive glazing over of the eyes.

 

If you want to see them altogether go to Appendix I on page 305. 

The first fundamentalism, which allows the discovery of  all the others, has already been mentioned:

 

1. It’s useless, dangerous, or immoral to try to analyze romantic love, The Analysis Paralysis. It should be changed to: 

 

1a.  Study love as much as possible because it’s one of the most important factors in making your life happy and productive, and in making human society peaceful, joyous and compassionate.  

And though our investigation may shed more heat in our romantic soul than light in our scientifically-driven mind, we’re at least going to have the courage (recklessness?) to study love. This courage and recklessness leads to the discovery of the other fundies: 

 

2. The fundamentalism that your relationship is a failure if it doesn’t last forever. The Failure-if-Not-Forever Fallacy.

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Or, to put it a different way, the only mentally healthy  and morally acceptable sexual relationship is one that lasts forever. 

If this is still true, then about half of the people who’ve fallen in love since the 1960s are failures, immoral, or unhealthy given the almost 50% divorce rate of marriages — and the possible 85% breakup rate of married and nonmarried relationships according to The Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.9 

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3. The fundamentalism that you should be enemies with your ex if they “dump” you, or you should cease feeling any responsibility for your ex if you “dump” them. The Wreck-the-Ex Hex.

 

The new fundy possibility is that not only should you  want to remain friends with the person with whom you

shared so much — you might form a relationship with them again. Unless of course they were terrible people, or were terribly abusive or addicted.  

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4. The fundamentalism that relationship discussions must be knock-down-drag-out confrontations with everything from yelling, tears, broken furniture, physical abuse … all the way to suicide and murder. The Soap Opera Cop-Out. 

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Have courage and be compassionate in relationship discussions. The great breakup rate means these discussions are happening with much greater frequency than when lifelong marriage was almost the law. Rehearse them using peaceful exchanges and outcomes rather than Hollywood’s maximum destructive drama.  

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5. The relatively new fundamentalism which contends that if you’re having a good, romantic time with someone you should want to — or almost have to — go to bed with them. The Excess-Sex-Industrial Complex.

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Don’t let society or evolution kick your relationship  around! Make it what you want it to be, not what Hollywood, society or evolution wants it to be. If this includes sex, great. If not, fabulous.  

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6. The awful pressure caused by the fundamentalism which makes you feel you have to concentrate exclusively on finding another one-and-only after you’ve lost your original one-and-only. The Replacement-Debasement Debacle.

 

This fundy forces every conversation with an attractive person to become partly an interview to find out whether the person is going to be your new mate. Every date has this mandate hanging in the conversational air. Instead, you might make your new goal the finding of opposite-sex friends who may or may not develop into another one-and-only. 

Now let’s take each fundamentalism one at a leisurely time: 

 

The Failure-if-Not-Forever Fallacy

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2. The fundamentalism that your relationship is a failure if it doesn’t last forever. 

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Until about the last seventy years it was assumed that if you didn’t stay married until one of the spouses died, your marriage was a horrible failure. Now this same attitude sometimes includes nonmarried relationships that don’t last forever. 

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Not only were such loves a failure, but there was probably something terribly wrong with you or your ex that

made it so you or they couldn’t fully commit — or some other grotesque relationship pathology. This attitude is nowhere as strong as it once was, but it’s still strong enough to make millions not appreciate the good years they’ve had with their lover.

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No less than the queen of anthropology, Margaret Meade, wrote: “It’s idiotic to assume that because a marriage ends it’s a failure. I have married three times and not one of them was a failure … The first relationship was for sex; the second was for children; the third for companionship.”10

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Of course, many conceive of Meade as an overly strange  character messing around in the feral sex lives of Samoans, Arapesh and other non-Western societies. However, the fact of the great divorce/breakup rate means that at least half of Americans are sometimes in the same capsizing boat as Ms. Meade. (See Appendix II for divorce rate statistics discussion.) 

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This breakup rate should make a dramatic change in  how people perceive the end of a relationship. Yet many still believe the Failure-if-Not-Forever fundamentalism, and also believe that their entire lives are a failure if their relationship didn’t last forever. This causes the unhappiness that results from their breaking up to be increased by their opinion that the relationship is a failure because they broke up. “I’ve ruined my life,” people cry out. “You’ve ruined my life,” they say to their ex. Often it’s true. Sometimes though it’s not, but people act as if it is anyway.

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And again, let us reiterate: the best relationship is one  that is good and lasts forever. However …

The belief that a relatively short-term relationship is,  by definition, a failure is immensely destructive to whatever length of relationship you do have, to any prospects of having a relatively civil breakup, to any chance of having a friendship with your ex, and to any possibility that you get together again in the future.

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Possible proof that this fundamentalism may be  changing is a 2017 Match.com poll which found that 50% of men and 42% of women stay friends with their exes.11 If applicable to all of American society, this stat may mean that many people are less inclined to view an abbreviated relationship as a failure, or themselves and their exes as immoral losers. So they can stay friends. Or it may just mean what it says: They want to remain friends with their ex, and this has no implications about whether they view the relationship as a failure or not.

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Or, as Carol King explains:

 

There’ll be good times again for me and you,  

But we just can’t stay together; don’t you feel it too?  

Still I’m glad for what we had and how I once loved you.

And it’s too late, baby now, it’s too late,

Though we really did try to make it.  

Somethin’ inside has died, and I can’t hide,

And I just can’t fake it,

oh, no, no, no, no, no, no.12

 

Then there’s the fact that all states now have a no-fault divorce option, showing to some extent that states no longer

look at divorce as the almost criminal activity that it was considered before.13

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The aforementioned David Buss puts it this way:

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Discord and dissolution in mating relationships are typically seen as signs of failure. Regarded as distortions or perversions of the natural state of mating life, they are thought to signal personal inadequacy, immaturity, neurosis, failure of will, or simply poor judgment in the choice of mate. This view is radically wrong … We need to reconcile the profound love that humans seek with the conflict that permeates our most cherished relationships. We need to square our dreams with reality. 14

 

Buss has an entire chapter called Sexual Conflict which pinpoints evolutionary sources of strife that may occur even

in the best relationships. We’re not ready to investigate these sources this early in the book ballgame, in part because many people believe evolution has little effect on human mating. 

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That belief will be investigated later.   

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Instead, we appeal to the common-sense experience of most readers to admit that there are inherent sources of conflict between women and men. It need not be surprising that these conflicts often lead to divorce or breakup. Of course, how badly or well the conflicts are handled depends on the couple.

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If this fundamentalism is challenged successfully, then the next question may be: How long must a relationship last

before it is considered successful — or at least acceptable? How many years must it last to be considered as having given it a good try? Fifty, forty, thirty years? A score of years? A Decade? Five? One? Six months?

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Certainly, more than a couple of years at least. Though five years to a decade sounds a lot better. In that time, you

can accomplish many financial and other goals. If your relationship lasts five years and it’s been good enough over that span of time, you might consider that it wasn’t a complete failure and that you or your partner were not disingenuously involved in some way. Nor do you conclude that your ex was romantically sick, a pervert, a player, or inherently unable to commit. 

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What length of time is considered a worthwhile  involvement is a personal decision. And remember, this is

not a relationship that involves having children. The minimum of a good child-bearing relationship would theoretically be at least about twenty years. Enough time to rear one or two kids in a harmonious home. You might even consider the responsibility to the kids is more important than the responsibility to your own relationship happiness. Or, if you can break up without devastating trauma experienced by the children, that option may be possible. Again, this book is not about this, but about relationships in which having children, or raising children, is not an issue.

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Hence the new fundamentalism might read:

 

2a. If your relationship was good, but didn’t last forever, it’s probably not a failure. 

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Paul Simon ties this fundy up nicely with his fabulous  song about heartbreak and forgiveness from the album of the

same name as the song:

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And she said, “losing love  

Is like a window in your heart  

Everybody sees you’re blown apart  

Everybody sees the wind blow…”

[But]

I may be obliged to defend  

Every love, every ending  

Or maybe there’s no obligations now  

Maybe I’ve a reason to believe  

We all will be received In Graceland15

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This fundy also dovetails nicely into the next fundy: 

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The Wreck-the-Ex Hex

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3. You should be enemies with your ex if they “dump” you, or you should cease feeling any responsibility for your ex if you “dump” them.  

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This fundamentalism reveals a major goal of this book  and our society. We’re trying to make a new type of family. One that harnesses the energy of evolution and modern sexuality in perhaps a more rational way. And also, one that compensates for what is often the geographic breakup of the traditional extended family, the 85% breakup rate, and the isolation of people in general. As someone said: “Friends are the family you choose.” (Anon). And to ditch someone with whom you’ve been so intimate is a denial of potential extended family. And families are hard to come by.   This idea will be discussed extensively later. But for now, realize that the fact that many people do stay friends with their exes suggests that this fundamentalism has less power than it once did. 

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The harder side of this equation of course is for the dumpee to stay friends with the dumper. The person who

wanted to stay in the relationship is usually much more wounded than the person who didn’t. They could be angrier at their ex than they’ve been with anyone else in their lives.  

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However, this anger has greater consequences these days of great breakup rates. The possibility that you may get back

together in the future is the most practical aspect of this. If you let your anger burn every bridge to your ex, then that possibility is nipped in the breakup bud. 

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Then there’s the possibility that it may be society who dictates how you feel about the breakup more than your own

feelings. It’s very embarrassing to be dumped and society often drools in hopes of seeing your anger on vivid, destructive display. Certainly, it’s one of Hollywood’s biggest plot lines. Dangerous Liaisons anyone? Or Kramer v Kramer or Marriage Story or The War of the Roses etc. etc. etc.

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This leads to the curious situation that being dumped gives one license to be endlessly cruel to the person you loved the most. 

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And since we’re trying to objectively analyze this experience, let’s change the terms from that of the pejorative “dumper” to someone trying to get some distance in the relationship, the “distancer.” As well as change the designation of the person getting dumped but hoping to avoid it. Call them the “preserver.” These terms have the danger of dumbing down the reality of the pain of breakup, of trying to gild the inherent excrement of it. But hopefully dear reader you will realize the limits of language, and perhaps agree that the old terms prevented investigation by their brutal harshness.  

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Now consider the psychology of the dumper/distancer for a brief moment. In many circles such a consideration is about as bad as trying to consider the psychology of a child molester. But in keeping with our practice of exploring every taboo corner of love …

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Most of the time the distancer doesn’t want to hurt the preserver. In fact, many a potential distancer doesn’t create distance because of this fear. But for some, the feeling of being imprisoned and of not having any joy in life becomes so strong that they must take the horrible distancing plunge. Then when the preserver becomes incredibly hurt, the distancer often feels that hurt to their bones. But they may still see the breakup as necessary in order for them to cling to a happy enough life versus continuing towards emotional death. Or see it as a case where the preserver deserves better than the emotionally-dead mate the distancer has become. Though the distancer’s pain is usually not nearly as great as that of the preserver. 

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There may or may not be another love involved. It may or may not involve the urge to get totally away from the preserver. But all these subtleties are often ignored in the preserver’s abandonment rage of the moment.  Again, this will be discussed extensively later. It’s too controversial of a concept to delve into it during the initial presentation of the fundamentalisms. Nor do we want it to be construed that we’re on the side of the distancers. And we will soon discuss the “Grass-is-Greener Misdemeanor” fundamentalism that should make this qualified allegiance to preservers clear. 

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And of course, you do have the right to be angry if someone dumps you. Especially if you’ve had a wedding pledging lifelong monogamy, had kids together, counted on each other for financial viability, created a large web of friendships together, etc. But if you’re on your second or third marriage and are not having kids together, then the anger is maybe less? And regardless, you knew of the great breakup rate to begin with.

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Again, as noted, this fundamentalism appears to be changing quite a bit, though remnants of its power still rule.

in many ways. What a horrible thing to hate the most the one you loved the most. How horrible for society that these hatreds radiate their poison throughout the community.

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And vice versa, if you are the one who broke off the relationship, maybe you should feel responsibility for the person whose life you shattered? And not hide behind the “all is fair in love and war” declaration?  

 

It’s true that sometimes you may need immediate and complete distance from your ex. You may need freedom to pursue other love possibilities, and freedom from the emotional vortex that was draining your life forces. Your ex may be dragging you both down into hells of addiction, abuse, and neurosis/psychosis. 

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But if you’re breaking up with the person you most loved just because they don’t give your life that ole zing anymore, you may want to remain friends with them, or be there to help them through the transition. Or if you’ve found someone else whom you think does give your life sufficient joy, does that mean you have to totally abandon the person who used to give you joy, but who no longer provides that? 

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See appendix III for some practical qualifications of  this abstract ideal of remaining friends with an ex. It’s a

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Psychology Today article stating 6 Reasons You Shouldn’t Still Be Friends — with our qualifications or explication in parenthesis. They include the abusive ex, not being friends in the first place, a lack of mutual respect, and one of the ex’s being extremely jealous. 

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This fundamentalism will be explored more thoroughly in the chapter called Dumped but the revised fundy might read:

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3a.  If possible, stay friends with your ex, regardless of whether you were the preserver or distancer, unless you have compelling reasons not too.  

 

And despite all the possible problems, most people still make a contract in which they legally promise to be monogamous for the rest of their lives. That is, most people marry. Sixty-eight percent of Americans over 15 have been married according to the US Census Bureau stats of 2018. While there were 8.5 million unmarried opposite-sex couples living together.16 

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There is extensive literature exploring the consequences of the nearly 50% divorce rate and we will consider some of it later. Suffice it to say that if contracting parties in business had to rely on a 50% performance rate, the economic engines of the world would slow way down — if go at all. But lately American society has put this 50% pressure on the contract of marriage. Yet it’s still one of the most popular contracts. Thus, we may sometimes need to change the contract, or create a new contract for relationships that occur after you’ve divorced once, or several times. Or at least when there aren’t kids involved.

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The new contract might include something like: “You’ll stay married as long as it’s nourishing to both parties. If one party wants out, you’re going to be as compassionate to each other as possible and stay friends if that is emotionally and reasonably sensible.”  

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But of course, the goal is still to hope that your good monogamy will last forever despite the many forces trying to

rip it apart. As the Rascals so beautifully sang:

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How can I be sure,   

In a world that’s constantly changin’? 

How can I be sure, 

Where I stand with you?  

 

Sorry Rascals. You can’t be sure. But you can try to be as sure as you can get given the inherent freedom in today’s no-fault divorce world, and to strive for less trauma should your relationship not last forever.  

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***

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Related to the Failure-if-Not-Forever Fallacy is how rarely people stay together after one of them says: “I think I need a little distance, a little time to think this over.” When this is announced, a standard view is that what the distancer really wants is to break up. That is, asking for distance is mainly in order to make the breaking up process less painful.  It is purely camouflage for the ultimate goal of breakup. 

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It’s true that such a distancing proposal is often tantamount to a breakup. But not always?

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If the preserver did not believe in the Failure-if-Not-Forever Fallacy, then maybe the idea of distance could become more legitimate. They might conclude that they’ve had a good relationship in which they were fully respected. And though they are against changing, they can see how their lover might want some change. The change may only involve less time spent together — not a total split. And excessive rancor in creating the distance may doom the possibility of still spending a lot, but less time together. And they also know that they may again get closer together in the future. 

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Same goes for the partner asking for distance. They actually may be asking for less time spent together — but still want to spend some time. Or they are not aware of the possibility of just getting distance, of not completely breaking up. Or if they decide they need a total split for a while, they realize they may want to get back together in the future. Or get back into an arrangement that involves less time. But right now, distance is their need. People change. Situations change. 

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Another aspect of distancing is discussed by Professor Eli Finkel in his book The All-or-Nothing Marriage. Finkel contends that many are dissatisfied with their relationship because they want too much out of them.  Looked at from a Maslow’s hierarchy, before the 18th century, marriages were mostly survival partnerships, about physiological and safety needs. That is, how to procure enough food and shelter to survive. Then, as the industrial revolution moved millions of people somewhat away from direct survival efforts, relationships became responsible for love and belonging. And finally, starting with the 1960s, society added that relationships should also lead to self-fulfillment, to self-actualization. 

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Reaching for Maslow’s highest rungs of existence, in addition to all the other more basic rungs, is an enormous

amount of pressure to put on one relationship. Finkel concluded that perhaps we were putting on too much pressure. So that if you want to save the love, instead of asking more, learn how to ask less. That is, admit that your lover and you can only do so much for each other, that you and they have only so many tools with which to help each other. Admit that you may need distance to preserve the relationship.  

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In areas where this is so, you may need to seek sustenance elsewhere, maybe in other relationships — either in same-sex relationships or in opposite-sex ones. To do this is not a failure of any kind, it’s just admitting that you each have only so much to give. Paradoxically, these missing tools may be part of the reason you love your partner. However, you may still need those qualities. 

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Say you and your lover are like that famous political- pundit couple, Republican Mary Matalin and Democrat James Carville. To gain support for their political views they have to have outside friends — yet they maintain enough respect for each other to stay married. According to a 2016 survey, 17 percent of Republicans and Democrats who are either married or living with their partner said their lover belonged to a different political party.17 You may say that there’s no reason to need sexual attraction to discuss politics. And that is a good point. But there is something nurturing and exciting about discovering a new attractive friend who is politically simpatico. With whom you can soar into political oratory not allowed with your core monogamy.18 

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Another difference may be religion. Many couples lead separate religious lives, or one may be more intense about religion than the other. Maybe one member is religious and the other not. You can agree to disagree about this and seek religious support elsewhere. Unless of course your religion is intolerant. Or conversely, you are so intolerant of religion that you think only a nincompoop could believe in it. 

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And if political pontificating can be exciting with someone of the opposite sex, how much more so can spiritual soaring? This can be done without having interactions that are anywhere near intercourse. 

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Then comes a plethora of smaller differences … one person likes order, the other can live with chaos. Another wants high-class, the other doesn’t care what class. One is a golfer, one a tennis player. One is a slow sophisticated vegetarian foodie, the other is happy with fast meat and greasy fried potatoes. Etc. 

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But all of these are less controversial than the next difference: How much sexual energy you’re gaining from the relationship. Many relationships sexually cool as time goes by. Often this is compensated by an increasing stimulation in other areas, say in intellectual interests, in ability to communicate love. Etc. But some might conclude they need that sexual energy and so they begin to flirt. 

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In today’s workplace where women are everywhere, flirtation is somewhat inevitable. And being thrown together for extended periods of time with someone your attracted to is a great possibility. You can feel guilty about the sexual energy you get from these co-workers. Or you can accept it and even encourage it. It need not destroy your monogamy and may even enhance it if you are able to experience sexual energy without pursuing it to intercourse. More on that later.

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Finkel even suggests that some couples should consider having most of their sex-life outside of the marriage. Or even

have open marriages. 

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Regardless, Finkel labels all the above, what he calls heterogeny, and as having a “diverse social portfolio.” He contends that it sometimes leads to happier people: 

 

There’s no shame at all in thinking of ways that you  can ask less. That’s not settling, and that’s not making the marriage worse. It’s saying, look, “These are things I’ve been asking of the marriage that have been a little bit disappointing to me. These are things that I’m going to be able to get from the marriage but frankly, given what I understand about my partner, myself, and the way the two of us relate, it’s just going to be a lot of work to be able to achieve those things through the marriage.19  

 

Regardless of these permutations, the Failure-if-Not-Forever Fallacy should be consigned to the dustbins of history. Traditional marriage advocates will know that in so consigning, some of the pressure for staying married is released. But it mostly has already been released with the no-fault divorce reality and changing views on the morality of divorce.

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The breakup rate may be a permanent fact. It has been that for over sixty years, since the 1960s. (Again, see Appendix II for divorce rate stats and discussion.) It’s possible that the absolute sanctity of marriage may be restored back to the 2% divorce rate, the rate before divorce rates started rising. But unlikely, we think. Women’s liberation is probably irreversible, birth control is probably irreversible, as well as other factors leading to greater divorce and breakups. 

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A caveat: Time.com has an article stating The Divorce Rate is Dropping, That May Not Actually Be Good News. It notes that divorce rates for Millennials [those born between 1980 and 1994] have dropped as much as 18%. You have only a 39% chance of having a divorce in that age cohort, whereas Baby Boomers and Generation Xers divorce rates still hover around 50%.

   

However, the average age for marriage of the Millennial has risen to 28 for women and 30 for men. According to the article, that means many Millennials have probably had one or more sexual relationships before 28 or 30, and they often involved breakups. Others involved having sex before marriage, and then marrying when finances became available or conditions right. Another factor is that marriage is so delayed for Millennials that those doing the marrying are more serious about it. Some of course (happily!) just delay the marriage to their first true love. 

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Thus, actual breakup rates, as opposed to just divorce rates, may be the same for Millennials, X-ennials, Gen-Zers and Baby Boomers.All we know is that breakups involving divorce are down for Millennials. 

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Another reason Millennial divorce rates may be down is  that generation may know better how to pick a mate because of their breakup experience. Which leads to fundamentalism XI: The fundy that sex is basically evil and a sin outside of marriage: The Abstinence Imbalance. This fundamentalism is now much less true for Millennials and Generation X and Zers (1995 to 2012), depending of course to what extent one buys into Biblical commands about having sex before marriage. As psychologist Esther Perel stated: “For most of history we married and we had sex for the first time. Today we marry and we stop having sex with others.”20

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We could adjust our attitudes to make the breakup facts tell a more humane story. Or, we can forever believe we live

in sick society careening towards a Sodom and Gomorrah ending unless we return to the 2% divorce rates of the pre1950s.

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But let’s hasten to resoundingly remind again: If you have a good relationship, hold on to it fervently. It could be as good as life gets and if you try to improve on it, you’ll probably fail. Breaking up is still an incredibly rough thing to go through no matter what attitudes the lovers have about breaking up.  

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On the other hand, divorce can be considered a sign of success, according to an NPR interview with journalist Lyz Lenz. She contends that divorce (and breakup) can be seen as working to find something better. If done with consciousness and compassion, it can provide an example to offspring of exes still being good friends.21 So there’s that breakup attitude too.  

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As noted, attitudes about breakups and how to deal with an ex will be covered much more extensively later. We’re just peeking at the heretical information here, challenging fundamentalisms ever so delicately, or rudely, depending on your view.  

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The next fundamentalism is tightly tied to those above:      

 

The Soap Opera Cop-Out  

  

 4. The fundamentalism that relationship discussions must be knock-down-drag-out confrontations with everything from yelling, tears, broken furniture, physical abuse … all the way to suicide and murder.

 

This fundamentalism is immensely bolstered by the media and personal history. That is, by watching movies, soap operas, and rom-coms, or by watching your parents and friends interact during relationship discussions. In fact, it is generally agreed that if there is a time to act like a soap opera, relationship discussions are it. 

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And this may have been fine during the much smaller  breakup rate of the 1950s and before, because you rarely had to discuss threats to your relationship. Now these discussions occur much more frequently. You need to get good at them. And part of this ability will involve the understanding that it’s possible to remain friends with your potential ex. 

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To avoid today’s breakup pressures, you need to develop  strategies of what relationship expert Beatty Cohen calls “conflict resolution” in her book For Better, For Worse, Forever: Discover the Path to Lasting Love. You need to have the courage and skill to be able to negotiate these differences relatively peacefully. These skills involve the ability to (with our take below each point):

 

1. State your need. Express whatever may be upsetting you as simply and clearly as you can:  I feel bad when … I am angry because …  I feel sad when you … I disagree with that (what you said, not who you are). Attack the problem not the person.

 

Discuss the problem openly and honestly. Clarify what’s at stake. Is it just what you need to do on a Wednesday night? Or is it what you need for the entire relationship? Or somewhere in between? Have the courage to present it with some control, not as an invitation for a yelling, throwing or worse match.

 

2. Listen respectfully to your partner’s response without interrupting. The idea is to preserve the relationship, not win the argument.  

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Be sure you both understand each other. It can help to ask your partner to restate in their own words what they think the problem is. Be open to your partner’s views even though they may be different from yours. If necessary, openly agree to disagree.

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3, Be prepared to compromise. Suggest options. If you settle on one, how will that make you both feel?22

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There are many hidden psychological barriers that complicate the above rational sounding approach. Ms. Cohen goes into those and I’d advise buying her book if you want to explore them. But above all, don’t imitate what you see in Hollywood or on TV or in bodice-busting novels. Except for the rare story, those mediums are trying to maximize drama and to minimize conflict resolution skills. 

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But what is the underlying volcano that makes a relationship discussion so difficult? It is the fact that such

discussions may lead to the end of the relationship. These days you need to be able to live with the fact that your relationship, as it is now, could end — and be willing to live with that. That sounds impossible but given the fact that the odds are against you, this should be a goal. By facing this, you can discuss the relationship relatively rationally. Though of course still with great fear.

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And of course, this is an all too rational view for something so inherently emotional. The extreme of a relationship discussion might go something like this:

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One partner: “Are you breaking up with me?”

The Other: “No. I’m just trying to make our love work better.”

One: “Good, because if you were, I’d probably kill you.”

Other: “Never ever would I suggest that darling.”

One: “Good.”

Other: “Glad that’s solved.”

Or the other extreme is provided by comedian Dave Ber- ry in his funny book Marriage and/or Sex:

You: “Listen, I, em, I, uhh…”

Your Lover: “Yes? Is there something you wish to tell me?” You: “Um.”

Your Lover: “Are you trying to tell me that, although you care for me deeply, and you will cherish always the times we’ve had together, you really feel that we both need more space to grow and enrich our lives as separate individuals? For my sake as well as yours?”

You: “Well.”

Your Lover: “Then perhaps it would be best if we broke up, with no harsh feelings on either side.” You: “Okay by me.”23 

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Nope. It’s possible, but probably ain’t gonna happen like that. But it could happen somewhere in the middle where

each of you expresses compassion and dedication to one another, but also a willingness for the relationship to change if that is the requirement.

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Another reason that relationship discussions are so difficult is that they may lead to greater commitment. Making that decision requires courage also. If one person is putting on the pressure in hopes of the relationship becoming more committed, the other may be feeling pressure to make decisions they aren’t yet ready to make. This can cause extreme dissonance. You don’t want to lose the relationship, but you also don’t want to lie about it.

If this is happening, maybe call time out. Then schedule a relationship discussion sometime during the next few days. The partner insisting on making the decision should at least be able to wait till then … when hopefully you’ve more fully thought out your position.

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The Hollywood version of this quandary might sound something like this: 

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One: “If you have to think about it, you don’t love me.”

 The other: “Of course I love you, we just haven’t yet decided how permanent we want our love to be.”

 One: “It’s that attractive coworker of yours isn’t it? You don’t want to give them up.”

 The other: “No. It’s that our romance has been so whirlwind that I’ve been simply enjoying it and not thinking what to do about it.”

 One: “Are we going anywhere, or is this just a sordid affair?”

 The other: “It’s too early to tell. It certainly feels like it’s going to be a lifelong love. But I’ll think deeply about it and we’ll talk about it over the weekend.” One: “That’s way too rational. You obviously don’t love me enough. You’re a player. Go play and leave me alone.” 

 

But Hollywood almost always goes for maximum drama, with the above discussion probably involving buckets of tears, a broken lamp or two, and maybe a gun. But it’s reasonable to request time to consider what you want. It requires great courage to commit to a lifelong, or just a long, relationship. You are giving up the world of possibilities. You do not want to be steamrolled into it.

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Yet, as the above example shows, it’s possible that by trying to buy enough time to think about it, you may lose the relationship. If that’s the case, maybe losing it is the right decision. The person who’s doing the steamrolling must be hiding something that causes them to be so insecure that they feel the need to steamroll. On the other hand, if you’re not prepared to lose a lover over scheduling, then take a deep breath and plunge into the talk. 

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And if your lover agrees to discuss the issue in the near  future, you should give them the respect of making that decision by the day that they request. Courage, courage and more courage. 

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Or you can make a definite decision that you don’t want  to decide yet. This answer may also lose your loved one, but

if it’s the truth, then so be it. Either the one needing clarity will go elsewhere, or they will be willing to live with the indefiniteness. 

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From our observation and to some extent, experience, many relationships slouch along in an indefinite state and eventually evolve into long-lasting loves. Many couples who’ve been problematic are still problematic now — but doing well enough. Such is the precarious nature of mating these days for many. Whatever it takes! 

Again, again! All this of course is way easier said than done. Regardless, if you’ve really faced modern realities, then you’ll always be prepared for your relationship to change.  

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Or you can have faith that the breakup rate doesn’t apply to you. That’s what it often feels like when falling truly

madly deeply. It will last forever and always. That has in essence been the traditional attitude of love and it’s a magnificent one. An unnecessary one, but sublimely fine. The revised fundamentalism?:

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4a. Be prepared to have relationships discussions. Rehearse them with role-playing exercises so you’ll have some experience when conflict resolution is actually needed. Know that if you can do this, you’ll have a chance of being friends with significant support-system benefits should the discussion lead to a breakup or transition. And maybe have a chance of getting back together again.

 

The next fundamentalism:

 

The Excess-Sex-Industrial Complex

      

5. The relatively new fundamentalism which contends that if you’re having a good, romantic time with someone you should want to — or almost have to — go to bed with them. 

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You don’t. 

 

This fundamentalism got a big reinforcement from the make-love-not-war sixties, birth control, and changing attitudes about sex before marriage, between marriages — and even while married. Then there’s evolution trying to hound you into having sex with every reproductively healthy-looking person. 

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The sixties were an important time for sexual experimentation. Yet the fact that feminism was in its infancy put women in an oppressed, objectified position. Joni Mitchell noted: 

 

Don’t interrupt the sorrow Darn right  

In flames our prophet witches  

Be polite  

A room full of glasses  

He says “Your notches, liberation doll”  

And he chains me with that serpent  

To that Ethiopian wall   

 

Anima rising  

Queen of Queens  

Wash my guilt of Eden  

Wash and balance me Anima rising  

Uprising in me tonight  

She’s a vengeful little goddess  

With an ancient crown to fight  

  

Truth goes up in vapors Steeples lean  

Winds of change patriarchs  

Snug in your bible-belt dreams God goes up the chimney  

Like childhood Santa Claus  

The good slaves love the good book  

A rebel loves a cause24

   

What went up the chimney with God was enjoyment of relatively Platonic flirting, and what came down the chimney was pressure on women to have sex. Why not? Birth control transformed sex into a relatively consequence-free act, syphilis and other STIs (sexually-transmitted infections) could be easily cured or were a relatively minor inconvenience, and the sex act meant only what the participants said it meant.

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But just because you may love someone, why do you have to express it by inserting your penis in their vagina? Or surrounding their penis with your vagina, or the equivalent physical expression of an LGBTQ+? 

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Yes, it’s a splendid thing to do under the right circumstances. But often the circumstances aren’t right because you already have a lover, or the other person does, or it would be too complicated, or there’s not enough intellectual affinity for it to be more than a few nights stand. Aren’t there many other ways to share love besides risking STIs, babies, and all the other emotions that kick in with intercourse love?

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Yes, intercourse love will always be an option lingering longingly in the air between two people attracted to each other. But it’s only one of what are an enormous number of other options, options that elevate erotic energy, and all the eloquence, warmth, nurturing etc. that can be augmented by erotic energy.    

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All these other emotions add up to sexually-transmitted emotions, STEs. Such that when you have sex you must be extremely aware of both STIs and STEs. However, STEs can be transmitted by something as little as a glance, a talk, a dinner, or intercourse. 

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Some people can minimize STEs by letting their brain or their will negate them. Think intentional one-night stands. But this is partly due to liberation from thousands of years of Puritanism. Puritanism said no sex until married, and then lifelong monogamy. The `60s said sex whenever. The result is that today’s “loose” sex can be seen as an understandable overreaction to Puritanism, one we are correcting as the post`60s decades begin to sort out the audacious experimentation of that revolutionary time.

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STEs and STIs are why sex with anyone that you like fairly well should be a carefully thought-out endeavor if at all possible. They are also why heavy petting and all other types of sexual interaction — from eye contact to conversation, from hand holding to upright kissing to in-the-bed groping — they and other variations should be treasured again as ends in themselves. 

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Don’t let these interactions and other forces railroad you. Only have intercourse sex if you really want to, and if you’ve carefully considered STEs and STIs. Or not. You may get lucky. Or you may have a one-night stand with no consequences or hurt feelings. It happens … occasionally. 

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How does extra-relationship foreplay affect your core relationship? At some point in a Platonic romance, before smooching say, STEs start to become so powerful that they may threaten one’s core monogamy. That point is probably different for different people and will be discussed more extensively in the chapter on flirting. For some people, the only issue is that their mate is there when they need them. For others, to imagine significant STEs being exchanged with someone else is a relationship breaker. 

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Suffice it to say that just because evolutionary and social pressures send us in the direction of sex does not mean we have to go there. 

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And you can get significant STEs this side of all-the-way sex. So, your new friend is as hot as Paul Newman or as sizzling as Lauren Bacall. Bed still doesn’t need to be your goal. Just being in their presence can provide significant sexual energy boosts. As do all the other interactions this side of sex. 

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Thus the new replacement fundamentalism is: 

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5a. Just because you’re attracted to someone doesn’t mean you have to go to bed with them. There’s plenty of sexual energy to be had this side of bed. 

 

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