Ladies, An eye for an eye?

[dyermaker]

Ghandi, who I have it on authority never worked in a St. Louis service station, once said "an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind".

 

I've seen a common thought process of some women on this forum. I say women, honestly, because this seems to be a female suggestion. That no matter what your man does to bother you, you should do it back. I find that sickening. Please, female population of LoveShack, reassure me that you don't all think that way. Please, male population of LoveShack, tell me how friggin right I am.

 

When your eight year old does something nominally greivous, you "create" consequences for him, so that he can understand his actions. For two reasons. One, you are his mother, so you have a responsibility to help him to maturity. Secondly, because an eight year old isn't capable of adult communication. If you try to convince an eight year old that his infraction is impactful, it goes in one ear and out the other. Is this some sort of maternal instinct, that a woman would even think of treating her man that way?

 

A man only needs one mother. Why is it so hard to communicate to your partner? You have to draw the line between adult and childhood arguments, you must, you have to, you need to, you've got to because dyermaker said so. The objective in an adult conflict is resolution. The objective in a child argument is winning. Resolution is open to understanding, compassion, compromise, respect, and communication. Resolution is conducive to love. Winning is pure and simple "Nya nya nya nya nya-nya." Winning is conducive to resentment. If you think an eight-year old boy is a sore loser, wait until you see him grown up.

 

Ladies, if your man [looks at porn]/[has female friends]/[works late]/[smells bad], try to resolve it, not win it. If this means becoming more understanding and accepting, which I'm not asking anyone to argue upon, so be it. Because I think that the female population, from some of the posts I've read, has that childhood concern for winning. Basically, it's, "He doesn't see it my way. How can I MAKE him see it my way????"--You want to win, you know that you are right, of course, so you need him to see that. That creates resentment, because no matter how just it may seem, you are treating him like a child.

 

If you think he deserves being treated like a child, than in no way can you be in a healthy, adult relationship with him, ever. Because it's unhealthy for you to be his mother, and you're delusional if you think he wants that relationship with any girl.

[Charley]

its so true.

 

 

 

and i'm a girl

[Charley]

i dont know why we do it. just nature i guess. might be because i never had any reason to trust the male species, being let down by all males since i was little. but thats not everyones case...??

[Samson]

AMEN

 

Dyermaker,

 

I hope you'll be nothing but flattered if I cut and paste your remarks into my "Angry Letter" that our marriage counselor has asked me to produce for our lovely session today?

[clia]

Ladies, if your man [looks at porn]/[has female friends]/[works late]/[smells bad], try to resolve it, not win it. If this means becoming more understanding and accepting, which I'm not asking anyone to argue upon, so be it. Because I think that the female population, from some of the posts I've read, has that childhood concern for winning. Basically, it's, "He doesn't see it my way. How can I MAKE him see it my way????"--You want to win, you know that you are right, of course, so you need him to see that. That creates resentment, because no matter how just it may seem, you are treating him like a child.

 

So you are basically saying "resolving" = ACCEPT (or REJECT.) "Winning" = trying to change him? If so, I completely agree. I can't believe how many women come on this board and complain about something their boyfriend/husband has been doing for years and wonder how can they get him to stop. People are who they are. You can't change people. You either accept what they are doing, or you move on and find someone who doesn't act that way and can fulfill their needs. If he looks at porn and you don't like porn, find a guy who doesn't look at porn. If he is a workaholic and you want a 9-5er, find a 9-5er. Etc...

[yes]

i think there has to be a balance - it's good to voice your displeasure and ask for a chance. if it's something the guy can let go of, for your sake, great. if not, it become a question of - does it bother your enough to leave and look for better pastures?

 

the point being... first talk... see if works ... then accept/reject.

 

-yes

[moimeme]

Oh, Dyer. PLEASE don't judge all womankind by the posts on LS. Not only that, but there can be more to the story than you realize. People in healthy relationships don't post here for the most part, for starters. LS is a place of dysfunction. Most people land here because they have problems and some stay when their problems are over but the majority of folks are not in good relationships for the moment so don't expect to see models of perfect relationships here.

 

I agree completely that people should get to know their mates extremely well, learn what their habits are, and decide for themselves whether those habits can be lived with or not. However, some habits are, as Dr. Phil calls it, 'changeworthy behaviour' and others are not. Again, the trick is to negotiate whether changes can be made before ending up married.

 

But there's other sides to any story. Sometimes the behaviour at issue is a new development. Sometimes, the fellow did a very good job of hiding whatever the behaviour is. It's not only women who are guilty of 'bait-and-switch'. Men can be extremely good at deceiving women and then, when the women are hooked, they find out they didn't get the fellow they thought they had.

 

Having said all that, I absolutely agree that revenge/retribution is not the way to solve problems. Understand, though, that men will often be completely oblivious to a problem, even when the woman tries to discuss it. I've seen, in person and in all the relationship literature, countless stories of women who, finding that their husbands have begun to be neglectful or who stop helping around the house, etc. etc. , try to discuss it - to ZERO avail.

 

Watch Dr. Phil sometimes. There will be a man doing something really boneheaded and not condusive to good relations with the spouse. The wife has asked, pleaded, cajoled, begged, and in dozens of other ways, TRIED mightily to discuss the situation - all to no avail. It's not until the guy's butt is on Dr. Phil's stage that he says "I never understood how much it bothered her" - to Dr. Phil's eye roll and the groans of the entire audience.

 

If you want to talk about 'mom' relationships, I think that one of the contributing causes to this is that men DO think of women as 'mom' - and therefore when 'mom' starts to say things which are the equivalent of 'please clean your room', men shut out and don't even hear the request - they learned to ignore mom and they ignore wife exactly the same way.

 

I'm sure someplace in 'Mars and Venus', John Grey accounts for this and describes how and why it happens, and his explanation may differ greatly from mine, but it happens and you need to understand that sometimes a woman will resort to maladaptive measures out of utter frustration because she has already tried many ways to get a situation resolved.

[dyermaker]

Sometimes resolving is ACCEPT/REJECT, sometimes it's compromise, sometimes it's understanding, sometimes it's counseling, sometimes it's something else--it depends on the role of both parties. It should never be vengeful, though, it should never be about winning, about forcing someone to see it your way.

 

Moimeme, I think it was clear that I wasn't judging womankind, but rather was directing my comments at the number of women who fall into my categorization.

 

I'm also not holding the man blameless, by any respect. I know that men are capable of neglecting, causing, and fostering problems in a relationship. However, even when the man is non-communicative, which is dysfunctional in itself, I would never condone the "revenge" behavior, it's disgusting. Even if she does get her way, at what cost?

[moimeme]

Oh for sure. You'll not see a counsellor or anyone else suggesting revenge. The person who wants to wreak revenge thinks that this will make the victim realize what they've done. It doesn't work - it just escalates the conflict. It's wrongheaded to think that the victim will think 'oh, gee, this must be how bad Z feels so I should change my ways'. Doesn't work like that.

[dyermaker]

Oh, so we agree. Carry on.

[jenny]

i think the confusion happens when women feel that they are powerless in the relationship to affect any change. it is one thing discussing a problem with someone reasonable like yourself; it's entirely a different kitten discussing something which hurts us with someone who has been trained to disregard women.

 

i am among those who thinks getting upset about porn is absurd. but i understand their collective frustration - i don't think that many men, nor that many women, have been taught to communicate well and without using blame. these women are scared, and are trying to take an active stance rather than a passive one, because talking about it has not worked.

 

if you have no socio-cultural/artistic frame to put porn in, of course it's scary. all those bits everywhere; it's like a low production value aliens film. i fully understand why these women are so frightened and disgusted by it. that doesn't excuse their privacy invasion, nor their revenge, but it does contextualize it.

 

so, i don't think it's ideal; it's not resolution. but it is a step away from victim-thinking about it - these two dimensional women are somehow inflated tenfold in these womens' imaginations, at least this is a cursory step somewhere.

 

i say hurray to women looking at their own porn - that's productive revenge, as opposed to threatening an emotional affair. if they learned to enjoy porn independently, they might understand how totally impersonal it is. they might realize that reading does not constitute cheating.

 

a porn for a porn makes the whole world less hysterical.

 

(it feels so good to paraphrase candida royale against the mahatma )

[moimeme]

But the case that got Dyer talking about this wasn't about 'porn for porn'. It was about the woman getting 'revenge' by going onto chat lines and exchanging nude photos with other men - and having cybersex, too, I think. Quite a different matter.

[jenny]

i see that, and i think it's a good point. i'm spinning it to take the thought in less dichotomous directions. i think revenge is ok here, it's just misdirected and not productive.

 

i'm notoriously off task from dyer's instructions, in any event.

[locogurl]

There's nothing to be gained in revenge, but it takes allot of maturity to see that and more to discover how you are exacting revenge. Sometimes we try to get revenge in very subtle ways that are just as bad as doing what our partners are up too. Sometimes we have to be a bitch/jerk once or twice to find out what a waste of time that is and how much more pain we heaped into our lives by that behavior.

 

As for porn - were do we draw the line of healthy and not healthy behavior. How many hours of the day is healthy use and what about underage stuff, animals, pedophilia, incest... What is healthy entertainment and what isn't?

[dyermaker]

While I would be disapointed to see my spiritual thread be hijacked into just another porn thread, I still don't approve of the revenge when it comes to pornography. If your man looks at porn, and you decide to look at porn because you enjoy pornography, that's not vengeful. But if you're doing it with delusions that he'll see the error of his ways and stop, or that he'll get jealous and stop, or that he'll get angry and stop--that's unhealthy. Change should come from communication or willingness, NOT from beguilement. I don't believe in "productive revenge", it still makes me sick.

[locogurl]

Sorry - dyermaker - Don't answer the porn part of my post, just think about it... or not...

[jenny]

it's not quite that. i may have mis-worded. when i feel judgemental about something, it's typically because i know very little about it. i think it can be realistically productive for a woman to take up porn as a defense mechanism against her non-responsive man, and learn what it is all about, and ergo feel less defensive. that is how i became less of a shrew about porn, and the way some of my female friends did as well.

 

it's liberating to look playboy in the er..eye and not flinch. sometimes the path there is not ideal, but so what? everyone is entitled to their own process towards enlightenment.

 

and, actually, i think this is semantics - what you are calling revenge, i am calling walking in the enemy's shoes until you understand he is not your enemy.

 

and o! lol! sorry to disobey the impetus of the thread!

[dyermaker]

Originally posted by jenny

i think it can be realistically productive for a woman to take up porn as a defense mechanism against her non-responsive man

If she's doing it to "Walk in the shoes of the enemy", as in, to understand--I applaud her, no matter what conclusion she comes to, she's making an ADULT effort to adress an issue. But if there are delusions that your vindictive behavior will CHANGE him, that's childish, and unhealthy.

 

As for the impetus of the thread, *shrugs*, There's only so many posts on an LS thread of mine before we diverge into porn.

[moimeme]

I dunno. Looks like a backpedal to me.

[jenny]

sure, why not? it's a backpedal. you win. i use the term revenge rather loosely; i use it aesthetically. to me it means regaining power; this is part of the jewish understanding of the term as well, i think in a christian ethic it means something quite different. if you look up the word, in the oldest sense it means to 'claim'. i like that, and i understand it.

 

i'm not afraid to backpedal, actually, if it means shared understanding. i have no need to win. i stand firm with: 'look at your own damn porn' as advice; i don't mind spinning it differently for different audiences.

[dyermaker]

Oldest I could find was from Latin vindicare, to avenge. Look at your own damn porn is only vindictive if you want it to be, and the usual desire of the women who bitch about porn is wanting to change him, not herself. But, that's only natural, I wouldn't criticize that train of thought, who wouldn't want everyone else to change for them?

[jenny]

yes, fair enough. i see your point; it's motive. i think i dont care as long as they come to the same change in themselves; but i agree that's not as likely if they venture into porn trying to get the goat of their SOs.

 

vindicate is from the latin vindicre, to claim.

[locogurl]

There is no better revenge than really forgiving. I wish I was better at that.

[HokeyReligions]

I've seen just as many women post on LS about what they can do to get their guy to love them. Sometimes it is so pathetic how much some women and girls debase themselves to "win their guy's love".

 

It works both ways.

[Thinkalot]

Originally posted by dyermaker

Resolution is open to understanding, compassion, compromise, respect, and communication. Resolution is conducive to love.

 

Dyermaker, you've given me some advice in the past, and I thought I would weigh into this thread will just a little bit of self-praise, if I may be permitted... I have in the past tried to "win" many arguments, as has my guy. But we have been to counselling together in the past and read books on communication, and now we both try hard to be fair, and compromise. I have certainly come a long way on the road to being a good partner, and so has he, and we both try so hard...as witnessed by what unfolded in my most recent thread in this section, which my guy sat and read WITH me. We've been dealing with some difficult issues, and we both still f--k up from time to time, but we certainly aren't out for an eye for an eye. Our anger at each other, when it comes up, is more a reaction than any attempt at revenge. We always try and work towards peace and love between us. Even if we don't always succeed immediately!

 

I too am distressed when I read about giving someone a taste of their own medicine!