A year ago I posted a story about my friend Carissa and her on-again off-again boyfriend Nate. They were struggling to get on the same page in their relationship, and had broken up and then reunited when he promised he was ready at last to be with her, to make plans for the future, and to talk about marriage and children — things Carissa wanted badly and was ready for after three years of dating Nate, but which Nate still felt were in his far off distant future.
You can read the in-depth version here.
If They Wanted To, They Would
If they know your standards and don’t meet them, it’s because they don’t want to.
It’s been a full year since I wrote that and I’m sorry (for Carissa’s sake) that their relationship has been fraught with starts and stops.
She had wanted to pick up again where the relationship had left off — as if the stopwatch that was clocking their relationship had merely been paused, rather than reset to zero, or wound backward — so she had set getting engaged as a condition of him moving back into her house last December. He promised he was on the same page, so she welcomed him back with open arms.
(For the record, I don’t believe ultimatums ever work out the way you want them to, and it’s far better to set your boundaries and then respond accordingly.)
By April, Carissa was frustrated that Nate hadn’t yet proposed, so she cautiously approached him one evening while dinner was in the oven and Nate was on the couch, scrolling Instagram.
“Hey Hun?” She said. He looked up briefly and then went back to flicking the photos up, one after another. She tried again.
“Babe? I know we said last year that we were going to start talking about and planning for our future together when you moved in again, and I don’t want to put pressure on you or ruin a surprise if one is in the works, but I just want to make sure that we are still on the same page? I’d really like to start trying for a baby soon — while it’s still possible — and I definitely want to be married first.”
Nate looked up at her, staring glassy-eyed, and sighed. “It will happen. I told you. I just don’t really want a big fussy wedding.”
Carissa’s heart started racing. They were finally talking about their future wedding!
“I’m okay doing something small, or eloping, or even just going to the Justice of the Peace,” she offered. “After all, it’s being married to you that I’m after; not a puffy dress and expensive party.”
Nate murmured “Okay, good,” and went back to Instagram. Conversation over. Carissa stood there a few moments longer to see if he was going to re-engage with her. (Heh. Re-engage. I do adore a dad joke.) He did not. Eventually, the timer on the oven chimed and Carissa shuffled morosely into the kitchen to put the finishing touches on their chicken dinner.
(Here is where I’d like to acknowledge that she has realistic views that it is the marriage — the relationship between them — that is important and not the focus on a lavish, expensive party. I also want to point out that based on what she told me about the interaction, he seemed wholly uninterested in what she wanted.)
Nate similarly shut down her next few attempts to revisit the conversation, instead preferring to dissociate with screen time.
After fielding another phone call from her where her frustration was palpable, I shared with her my fear about her current and future happiness if she stayed with him, and suggested we meet for hot chocolate.
“Ris — are you sure you want to spend the rest of your life pushing him to get where you want him to go? Wouldn’t you rather have a partner who is just as invested in your future as you are, and who loves with reciprocal energy and velocity?” I asked. “Don’t you want someone who is just as invested in your happiness — and shows it through his actions — as you are in his?”
Her lower lip started quivering and her eyes brimmed with tears. I pushed aside my drink and put a hand on hers.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“We started couples counseling” she said, wiping her eyes. “And he is so resistant to opening up that he feels like the therapist is picking on him and giving both of us all sorts of homework, but much, much, more to him.”
“Isn’t that a good thing though?” I asked. “You haven’t been able to communicate well with one another lately and this might help, right?”
She shrugged and started picking at the paper hot cup holder, and then looked up at me. “What if he’s not willing to do the work? Or worse, what if he is for a few weeks…and then stops? What if it’s not consistent? What if I just wasted 3 and a half years on a guy who doesn’t value me enough to try?”
“Oh hunny,” I said, moving my chair so I could throw my arms around her in a hug. She gave a few shuddering sobs. “Those are all valid fears. And I’ll say it again; If he wants to, he will. And if he doesn’t? Well, even if that’s not the realization you want, that can be an enlightening moment of clarity for you too. Spending three years with someone who doesn’t value you enough to try is far better than spending an entire lifetime with that person, right?”
As far as pep talks go, this was not my best, but I think I had shifted into tough-love (with kindness.) I wanted to tell her that she was beautiful, and musical and talented, and loyal and smart and kind, and that this was not her only chance at love, but those were all things I had said before. She was determined to have Nate. Even if it meant sacrificing how she felt in a relationship with Nate.
They continued to go to their counseling appointments, and though Nate struggled with the homework, he made an effort to complete it, which gave Carissa hope. Nate revealed that he had trouble being vulnerable in part because of how he grew up (as the baby of the family, surrounded by women who thought he was tough enough to take whatever teasing and verbal abuse they could inflict) and that he escaped into screen time as a way to cope.
Carissa thanked him for sharing and let him know that it gave her perspective and increased understanding about where he was coming from, and for a while it seemed all was going well. Carissa said she felt an increased connection with Nate, increased satisfaction with the trajectory of the relationship, and an increased sense of hope for their future. They started doing more activities together — resuming playing tennis now that the weather was nice, working in the backyard, and going back to their dance socials together.
In June, the pair had a lesson with one of their dance instructors and filmed the lesson so that they could revisit the recording and work on techniques taught during the lesson. What the instructor knew and Carissa didn’t was that Nate was planning to propose at the end of the lesson and catch that on video as well. Carissa was over the moon, immediately saying yes and throwing her arms around his neck.
Two weeks later, they went to the Justice of the Peace and made it official and Carissa truly thought everything was going to calm down and sail smoothly from that point on. Afterall, now that she had what she wanted, she could relax into the safety of the relationship a little and not push so hard.
But as you might have guessed, that’s not what happened. Their early marriage was marked by fertility trials, and Nate began expressing reluctance to enter fatherhood at so young an age (36, if you’re counting).
Carissa was frustrated and felt like she’d been misled, and, instead of sharing her fears with him in an open and vulnerable way, she instead began taking her frustrations out on Nate. As you might guess, instead of connecting them and letting them work through things, this caused him to shut down emotionally. For awhile they kept going to the social dances together where they sometimes danced together and sometimes with other people (this is a common feature of social dancing and means that you tend to improve faster when you dance with a variety of people.) This could have been a great point of connection for the two of them, but Carissa’s frustration led her to resist going out and interacting with other people — or watching Nate having fun dancing with other women when he didn’t especially seem to have fun spending time with her. At the same time, Nate started feeling better about himself and more confident in his dance technique and decided he wanted to soar through the levels and be serious about competing in dance.
At one point he told Carissa that that was the reason he’d married her; he wanted to be a serious competitor and wanted to be married to a fellow dancer. It wasn’t about her big heart, or her savvy financial decisions, or her sense of humor, or her passion for teaching kids. It was that they shared a particular hobby that he wanted to be an ace in.
I don’t yet know how this will shape up. I do know that they have a long road ahead of them to figure out if they are in the same chapter and can get on the same page or, heck, even if they are reading the same book. And my heart goes out to them both.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. If they want to, they will. People put forth effort equivalent to how much they value you (taking into account their capacity); someone wholly in love will do everything they can to make sure their partner feels taken care of. Someone who is ambivalent…will treat you accordingly. And someone who is both ambivalent and emotionally shut down has a long way to go before they can be a reciprocal loving partner for someone with a big heart.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
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Photo credit: Giorgio Grani on Unsplash
