October 19th, 2008
Rat Bastards and Lying Bitches
Yesterday I enjoyed a chat with a friend who recently endured the “big D” (divorce for those currently enjoying relationship bliss), and we resolved that all men are rat bastards, and all women are lying bitches.
Of course, we were being tongue-in-cheek. There are two or three men in this world who are a rung up the evolutionary ladder from rats, and I’m fairly certain there’s enough women who don’t chronically lie to count on two hands; maybe three.
But it did get me thinking last night about how perceptions change after a fundamental rock in (or all-out sinking of) the relationship boat. And is it any irony that Mindy McCready’s “Guys Do It” song just started on iTunes “party shuffle” as I’m typing this?
I’m a fundamentally trusting person. Some would call me gullible, but I think there’s a distinction; I simply assume that most people are acting in good faith most of the time. I’m also an intense thinker and will play a scenario in my mind until the proverbial needle has worn the groove out completely. This gives me the benefit of having played out many different scenarios before I make whatever judgment I’m going to make … and it also means I’ll go down a lot of “rat holes” in the process.
Going through a painful separation after 8 relatively happy years of marriage changes that. You realize that people can be a lot better at hiding things than you thought, and you start to realize that the best intentions aren’t the common motivators you thought they were.
Not that long ago I had a conversation with a different friend about some relationship problems she was having. I realized – quickly – that as “honest” as the conversation seemed, I was still only hearing about 30% of what was actually going on, and that some issues were being neatly sidestepped. The conversation was still productive, but I’m fairly certain that she bore a lot more culpability than I was being led to understand.
And so we end up in the infinitely deep, complex abyss of human unpredictability and impetuousness. With that realization, I look at the dissolution of my own marriage and wonder how we even survived 8 years. Sure, we’re fundamentally good people, but we each had our own complex currents and tides that ebbed and flowed with deceptive innocence.
And the stark realization from this? That we were both liars. We kept more in than we shared, and what we shared was largely motivated by what we thought the other person would want to hear to maintain domestic tranquility.
I’m happy to report that my ex and I weren’t unique. The more I look around, the more I realize that virtually every relationship has some of this going on.
Which gives me pause to wonder: what will my next relationship look like? How will I change my own behavior to lower the chances of this happening again? How will I help my future partner be more honest about her own complexities, and how will we bridge those?
And, ultimately, will I be able to climb a rung up from rat bastard?