Making the Right Relationship Work (should you want to)
You’re probably wondering what on earth I can say about making the right relationship work, since, let’s face it, I have never managed to do so. Truth is, having spent so many IWAB and IHAB years, I have dwelled in many wrong relationships. I have let myself create a fake attraction to men who were attracted to me, as I was grateful for their attraction and then became attracted to their attraction. This will never work, but when you are as IWAB as I was, you try to fit pretty much any game contender into the boyfriend-shaped hole you perceive your life to have.
I have lingered in relationships with dispiriting, uptight men for far too long, wanting to maintain IHAB. Wanting to make it work so I could say I had a boyfriend, although in my heart of hearts, I knew he didn’t really make me happy.
I have met lovely slipper men, with whom I’ve hoped an attraction would grow and it hasn’t. I hope you’re not feeling sad for me. Truth is, my dancing slipper life seems happiest without a man in it. I think if I truly wanted the companionship of a man, then there would be a lovely slipper in my life. But I don’t. Irma Kurtz, in her book Then Again describes herself as a ‘gregarious loner’. This I feel is me too; outgoing and very social, but ultimately happy to close the front door at night and sleep alone, and very well, in an unshared bed.
I like it. I love it. All single women must learn to like it, but if you do still want the addition of a lovely slipper man in your life, that is fine of course. But how do you make a relationship which works, when so many seem to crumble?
I won’t spend long in this as first and foremost, this little book is about being a happy single. And as we have said, my credentials for doling out relationship advice are pretty shaky. Yet I think I have learned a few things from my mistakes, so here goes.
Assuming this relationship is two happy, single people who aren’t uptight and mean, and haven’t made the rookie errors of red roses and triangular toast; what now? How do two lives already happy and full accommodate each other?
Well, it comes down (again) to an appreciation of the life and needs that each of you have. If one of your key fantastic goals is to have a child, and he absolutely does not want that, then heart-breaking as it may be, this relationship will not work. Maybe you have children already, and want a man who will, in good time, welcome some involvement with them. If you’ve been dating a long time and he really doesn’t want to, then clearly his view of your relationship is different from yours and it will be hard to make it work.
Glaringly obvious as these examples are, mistakes like these are made often and in many areas; religious beliefs, location, life style, life goals. Some things can be compromised and some things can’t. As we get older, compromise is harder, which is why I suggest that perhaps the most workable relationship option could be a half board one.
Now don’t get fed up with all these metaphors; you know they help. A live-in, full board relationship means his wet towels on the bed to you, and your cushions seeming to breed across the living room to him. With a full board live-in relationship, it’s harder to deal with small incompatibilities, and depressingly easy for you both to fall into uptight behaviour.
Living out is easier. Easier if he dislikes your cat. Easier if either of you has kids. Easier in very many ways. Of course, relationships are the subject of another book altogether and certainly not one ever to be written by me; but I will just say this. In these times, more and more and more people live alone. And there is no reason that a happy, workable relationship has to be full board. Half board may well let your life, your fantastics, your whole garden as well as the relationship, thrive better.
And if you don’t want full board or half board, but you do want some nookie, well there’s always ‘room only’ for one night. Like I said before, just use something if you want to do the one night only thing.