My dear Jack, I’m not sure this relationship will work. You have differing philosophies of life. You’re extremely conservative, she’s liberal. Your outlooks are not the same. You’ll never have the same view. Because your outlooks are not the same your expectations will clash in the marriage. You seem to want a domesticated entity who’ll adhere to very traditional notions of marriage. She’s avant-garde, has a liberationist worldview. She believes in the emancipated woman. Your marriage will become a literary and debating society. There’ll be constant issues. Your worldviews are at polar extremities and contradict each other. How is it going to work? Something as basic as domestic chores will bring fights and disagreements. Expectations are crossed. When expectations are crossed in marriage there’s going to be a bazaar of issues. The market will never close. At some point she’s going to pack up and go. You’re stultifying her, even suffocating her. Your very conservative outlook on the other hand ensures you’ll brand her “rebellious.” And she’s already spelling out her expectations. She’s giving you warnings. You’ll regret ignoring those warnings if you plunge ahead with the marriage. I see you becoming bitter, feeling like she ruined your dreams and brought you pain and sorrow. When it comes to divorce PR those worldviews of hers will be translated as values – a lack of it. At the end of the day you’ll still go out and look for the girl who fits your conservative expectations. That would be after the marriage has broken down.
So why not seek to marry someone whose worldview matches yours now? If you want to buy a car you don’t go for a Toyota believing it will perform like a Lamborghini. That’s a false expectation. If you want a Toyota why don’t you just go to a Toyota dealership? Why go to a Lamborghini showroom? And why would you want to convert a Lamborghini to a Toyota? What moral right would you have accusing a Toyota of not performing like a Lamborghini when Toyota never advertised so? That’s exactly what you’re doing. This lady is Lamborghini but you want a Toyota – safe, conservative styling, not edgy. But she’s not like that. She’s the exact opposite of what you really want. And being a conservative person you’ll soon start accusing her of being profligate with money judging by her disposition. She shouldn’t have dated you either. You’re not who or what she wants. But sometimes pragmatism overrules the obvious when it comes to choosing a marriage partner. You hear things like, “I have no feelings for him but he’s a responsible man, has a good job.” What such a lady is obviously looking for is economic stability not that particular man. And everyone soon begins to suffer because that economic stability can’t satisfy her emotional needs. It’s then she begins to compare the guy to another bloke who excites her. In which case an affair is around the corner, or deep longings for an affair. It’s better to go for what you want in the first place rather than seeking to convert someone into it.
Humans are not like garments you buy in a clothing store. You can’t amend a human the way you do cloth. You can try! And you may even succeed in amending someone. But the result will be another thing entirely. You’ll not get the human you wanted. And there may be deserved resistance. Even with the most pliable. You don’t tear a human apart like a garment, snip off pieces and hope to get a wholesome result. Humans are too complex for deconstructivism. A cloth is a material, a human is a complex of spirit, soul and body. As I often ask those with very conservative worldviews… “If you want to marry a teacher why go for a corporative exec hoping to convert her into a teacher?” Your desires are conflicted. You want the best of both worlds but life is not like some serving of ice cream. Life is not a scoop of vanilla topped with chocolate, dribbling with toffee. People tend to be either vanilla or chocolate, or whatever, even when they have toppings of flavours. People tend to be homogenous in constitution despite the colourful caps we all sometimes wear. The funny thing is, the very thing that attracts such a man to a corporate exec is the very thing he’ll want to kill off. And the very thing that attracted you to this independent minded woman is now the thing you want to kill in her. And that’s because you want control. You’re looking for means to control the lady. You want to be in charge of the marriage and so you convert your conservatism to a tool of control. It’s why her liberal tendencies consternate you. But truth is, you’re cut from different cloths. Now, if you notice I’ve avoided judging yours or her worldview. It’s a waste of jurisprudential resources.
The critical thing is that both of you are incompatible. And incompatible people shouldn’t seek to marry each other. It’s a disaster in the making no matter the exigencies. Go and look for the woman who is what you want. Stop seeking to amend people. You’re going to have project failure. You need to sort out your desires. Desires have their own logic. Sometimes we have desires but don’t want the consequences of those desires. It’s like wanting to marry a very pretty woman whose beauty no one must admire. That’s a contradiction. I’m sure there are women out there you won’t need to seek to amend. They’re just like you, have your background. But if you insist on being Sura the Tailor, seeking to make amendments to people, then I wish you luck!
Your mentor, LA
© Leke Alder | talk2me@lekealder.com