Martyrdom (no...this has nothing to do with it being Easter Weekend)
I recently had a conversation about sacrifice in a relationship. It seems common knowledge that some sacrifice is required for a successful relationship to flourish, right? Seems like we all have to sacrifice something in order to make the other partner happy, or that’s the conventional wisdom. Screw that. I don’t buy it.
This conversation revolved around my buddy making the off-hand comment that he feels like it’s necessary to sacrifice his dreams and aspirations in order to make his wife happy and save his marriage. He made that dumb-ass comment and I lost it. Really lost it.
It just frustrates me when anyone I care about talks about having to sacrifice themselves to make someone else happy. I call bullshit.
First off, I don't believe anyone can ever make anyone else happy. It is just not possible. No one can *make* me happy because it's really my own perception of life and the things that happen in it that will determine whether or not I am happy. It’s about *my* outlook, and frankly, no one else can ever be responsible for that chemical compound that occurs inside my head/body that helps frame my either pessimistic or optimistic outlook. No one. It is often the case when someone does something they think will make me happy but because of how I see the world and have experienced it, my reaction to their actions is anything but happy. A lame example, but it does serve to illustrate one of my points.
Secondly, I don't actually value the actions of someone who insists on debasing themselves in an attempt to "control" or "manipulate" my feelings - even if it‘s an attempt to brighten my day. It's almost as though I recognize that they don't value themselves enough for their own wants/desires/needs to be important, and so I don't think of them or their needs as important. If they want to sacrifice their lives for someone else, fine, let 'em, but to me that means that their life really wasn't important enough for them to even value it that they had to give it away to mean anything.
Of course I'm over-looking notions like compassion, caring, truly wanting the best for someone else because you love them, etc. I'm simply talking about the virtue of valuing self and *really* being conscious of when one chooses to undertake an action that might compromise the value of their own life because they see a better good in giving that part to someone else.
Listen, I don't know bupkus about how this friend and his wife operate in their relationship, and I’d be an ass to presume that I could have told him anything about how things “really” were in their relationship, let alone be arrogant enough to offer advice about it. So I didn’t. Instead, I offered this one last little toss-it-away tid-bit:
“If you ever find yourself continually playing the martyr in the relationship because it makes things "easier" for you in terms of tension, then perhaps you're not being honest with yourself about how much you really value yourself.”
Martyrdom is for those who fear the responsibility of living fully for themselves.
This conversation revolved around my buddy making the off-hand comment that he feels like it’s necessary to sacrifice his dreams and aspirations in order to make his wife happy and save his marriage. He made that dumb-ass comment and I lost it. Really lost it.
It just frustrates me when anyone I care about talks about having to sacrifice themselves to make someone else happy. I call bullshit.
First off, I don't believe anyone can ever make anyone else happy. It is just not possible. No one can *make* me happy because it's really my own perception of life and the things that happen in it that will determine whether or not I am happy. It’s about *my* outlook, and frankly, no one else can ever be responsible for that chemical compound that occurs inside my head/body that helps frame my either pessimistic or optimistic outlook. No one. It is often the case when someone does something they think will make me happy but because of how I see the world and have experienced it, my reaction to their actions is anything but happy. A lame example, but it does serve to illustrate one of my points.
Secondly, I don't actually value the actions of someone who insists on debasing themselves in an attempt to "control" or "manipulate" my feelings - even if it‘s an attempt to brighten my day. It's almost as though I recognize that they don't value themselves enough for their own wants/desires/needs to be important, and so I don't think of them or their needs as important. If they want to sacrifice their lives for someone else, fine, let 'em, but to me that means that their life really wasn't important enough for them to even value it that they had to give it away to mean anything.
Of course I'm over-looking notions like compassion, caring, truly wanting the best for someone else because you love them, etc. I'm simply talking about the virtue of valuing self and *really* being conscious of when one chooses to undertake an action that might compromise the value of their own life because they see a better good in giving that part to someone else.
Listen, I don't know bupkus about how this friend and his wife operate in their relationship, and I’d be an ass to presume that I could have told him anything about how things “really” were in their relationship, let alone be arrogant enough to offer advice about it. So I didn’t. Instead, I offered this one last little toss-it-away tid-bit:
“If you ever find yourself continually playing the martyr in the relationship because it makes things "easier" for you in terms of tension, then perhaps you're not being honest with yourself about how much you really value yourself.”
Martyrdom is for those who fear the responsibility of living fully for themselves.
posted by annaghela at 5:51 PM
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