When life becomes stressful most of us think we need a holiday. The holiday: the solution to all of life's problems. Most of us imagine ourselves laying on white sands, feeling the warm embrace of the sun with crystal clear blue waters lapping at our feet.
Why is it then, that whilst indulging in a day dream such as this on a particularly depressing Tuesday afternoon, do you fail to allow yourself to think about what the reality would actually be?
In reality that 'warm embrace' of the sun would have left you with a terrible headache and the disappointment of not being able to wear most of the clothes you had packed, as there is a very limited range of colours that happen to go with Brit Abroad Lobster Pink.
The clear blue waters would most probably have washed up a particularly deadly breed of sea creature your way and the white sand would most likely be stuck in every crevice in your body.
The harsh reality of the idyllic day dream is this: if you're boarding the plane at Heathrow as anything less than blissfully happy, you cannot expect to have the perfect holiday you dreamt of.
I use this image as a metaphor for what I think most people believe relationships to be.
Most people imagine relationships to be the elixir to their problems. We seem to think that they will magically transform us into the person we have always dreamed of. Together. Happy. Secure. However if they are not qualities which you already posses on your own, how can you expect or rely on another person to make you feel them? If you are unhappy relationships are not the solution, they are simply another added problem.
The real challenge is to be the person you've always wanted to be by yourself. If you can achieve this, then when you do find yourself in a relationship, it will be far more likely to be one that will work.
I'm aware that the tone of this particular blog may be somewhat preachy and maybe it it, but I'd like to consider it more as written words that are trying to impart what I fear to be the only piece of wisdom I have learnt in my so far short lived life.
Up until fairly recently I was the girl that I am writing about. Slightly dysfunctional (we all are, I just have no qualms in being honest about it) and therefore, subsequently usually in a dysfunctional relationship. On a never ending ride of dizzying highs and lows. Ultimately never really feeling in control. If you're not in control of your emotions then what is to stop anyone from playing with them or taking them from you? Emotional Russian roulette. Sometimes I'd feel like I was winning, but mostly I would feel like I was losing. It wasn't good enough. I am not someone who does well in feeling like a victim. I am a feisty girl at heart, I have strong opinions and have no problems voicing them and debating them with my friends, so I really couldn't understand why I would turn into such a submissive person when in a relationship.
Maybe it was because I usually got involved with men either a decent amount older than me or who were far far older? The power balance seemed to be off and I seemed naturally to assume the role of submissive.
I believe it to be a myth that the older men get the more secure they feel. I believe it to be far more likely that the older they have got, the more baggage they have aqquired (this, my opinion based on experience); and coming from a nation where talking about problems is frowned upon, it is also more likely that they will have never dealt with the issues they have had since they were little boys and their parents sent them off to boarding school. It's what seems to separate us (the 'younger generation') from our parents and our grandparents: we are, on the whole encouraged to talk about our problems and to face up to them. Something that ultimately may mean we are equipped to be better parents than those before us ever could be. No one wants to pass on the fuckery of what their parents have passed on to them.
This Be The Verse
They fuck you up, your mum and dad
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.
Philip Larkin
Most would acknowledge it a truth common known that the things we find easy are usually the things we grow most bored of. You know where this is leading -"Life was never meant to be easy". It may be a cliche but it's true none the less. There will always be goals to reach, questions to ask, sights to be seen, memories to be had, challenges to enter, love to be made, love to be lost, and many more obstacles that will be placed in your way to ensure you never ever become bored.
It's funny, I was at a girlfriends last night. We were sat in her garden drinking (red wine for her, vodka for me, and later a very questionable liqueur we discovered in her fridge...) and discussing marriage. This particular girlfriend and I have known one another for ten years. In some ways we are very similar and in others we couldn't be more different if we tried. But I usually consider us to share the same fundamental views on the things that really matter.
Last night we were talking about marriage. The topic came up after we started to discuss ex boyfriends and our families. Her parents divorced when she was relatively young, and both have since re married and are very happy with their partners. My parents have been married the best part of thirty years, and I oftwn think they would be far happier apart.
After a painful and long break up, she has changed her views on marriage - she no longer believes in it and thinks it is completely unrealistic to think that any relationship will last for ever.
"You can't say that" I told her.
Her father has recently re married nearing the age of sixty.
"If I'm ever going to get married, then I would want to do it at my Dads age" she said
"Yes but do you only believe your Dads marriage will work because he has less time to live, and therefore less time for it to fuck up?!"
"Yes! If I think about it, I guess so!" she replied.
We sat there for some time talking about it. I am a strong believer in marriage. Strange as I don't have the best role models for one. Perhaps that is why? Who knows. She asked me why I wanted to get married and why I believed in it. It was odd. I found it hard to articulate my reasons for it.
Here is what I could muster.
1. I want to stand up in front of everyone I know, and make a vow to commit to someone for the rest of my life.
2. I want my children to take their Fathers name, and for them to come from a strong family unit.
3. I want to take on my husbands name.
4. I want to be a partnership with someone.
5. I want to be a 'proper' family.
6. I believe in marriage.
As I said, I couldn't articulate it particularly well. In fact my answers were somewhat pathetic, when you consider each point didn't really make any sense. In fact most of my points could be achieved even if you weren't in a marriage.
I don't know why I believe so strongly in marriage. It's just not something I have ever not wanted.
When doing a relationship MOT a few months ago, I started to notice that the men I had been attracted to have all been men who have either believed strongly in marriage or have already been married and had children.
If I am most like any character in Sex and the City, I would most definitely be Carrie Bradshaw. I'm aware that most girls say that I know, but for me it is true. I've had the Mr. Big (the love of your life who is in and out of your of it like a yo-yo), I have old fashioned values and am a firm believer in love and don't want to settle for anything less than butterflies. However, when it comes to the subject of marriage and children, I am most definitely Charlotte York-Goldenblatt.
In recent months I have connected with her character on a different level - quite annoying really as there are now episodes that I feel I cannot watch. Really annoying, as most of the episodes are in season six and were favourite episodes before things changed. Ah well. Anyway, I digress. Charlotte? Similarities?...yes....
I've always been the idiot who believes that I will make my marriage work. Naive? Maybe.
I read a recent interview with Salman Rushdie where he was talking about marriage. He said he believed it to be far more romantic not to be married to someone, as you are then with that person purely out of choice. Both knows the other could walk away anytime they wanted to, but they choose not to. Goldie Hawn made the same comment when being interviewed by Jonathan Ross about her choice to never marry her partner, Kurt Russel.
My friend jumped for joy when I made this point, " That's exactly how I feel. I don't want someone to feel obliged to stay with me......I want them to choose to be with me..." she said.
I feel the same in that respect. I don't want some poor bastard to feel he has to stay with me because of financial commitments, but I also don't like the idea of someone being able to walk away when the going gets tough.
Who knows, never say never. Maybe I'll come to change my views on the subject in the years to come. I can't see it though.
The way I see it is: I've had my heart broken, and will most definitely either break someone else's, or have mine broken again in the future, but there will come a point where I will find someone who I will want to spend the rest of my life with (with any luck he'll feel the same way.....) the rest of my life being his wife, and him being my husband.
That's as clearly as I can articulate it for now.
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