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| Happily Married for efficiency advantages. |
Over on Datingwise, Anna made a suggestion that I took umbrage with. She said that the trait you should seek in a spouse is conscientiousness, because according to a study it is the trait most broadly associated with marital satisfaction.
Conscientiousness to me means attention to detail, doing the little things you’re supposed to do and doing them reliably. In short, it means being good at fulfilling duties.
It’s a nice trait to have for sure, but I got umbraged out for (as best as I can tell) two main reasons:
(1) The suggestion makes relationships seem job-like, as if fulfilling duties is the primary responsibility of a spouse. I recognize that there are certain duties and expectations that go along with marriage, but if those duties and expectations are treated as the primary value you bring to the relationship, then I want out. I want my wife to be my best friend, and only very secondarily or tertiarily a “business” partner. If you’re primarily looking for a good duty-fulfiller, then what are you getting married for, the efficient allocation of dish washing?
That was my rational and some might even say romantic explanation. Here’s my realer explanation:
(2) I perceive myself to be weak in the conscientiousness department. I do all right if it’s something I care about and am interested in, but if I am operating merely out of a sense of duty, then my attention to detail is sometimes sorely lacking. If conscientiousness is important in a husband with regard to things like picking out the right can of beans from the grocery store, then I’m in trouble. In short, I don’t want to believe conscientiousness is important because I don’t want to believe I’d be a bad husband.
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Anna added an interesting twist this afternoon in a post called “Conscientiousness is not enough”:
A romance starts with the spark of passion that can lead to marriage or die out after a brief blaze. Granted, it may not last forever and it certainly should not be the only quality taken into account when deciding to make a lifetime commitment. But if a marriage isn’t sparked by that quality the marriage may be very dry indeed.
Wow, so he’s got to be conscientious *and* you’ve got to be madly in love with him? And even that’s “not enough”? Sheesh, Anna, are you telling us that you want a shirtless guy on horseback with a day-planner in his back pocket? I’ll look around for you but I’ve gotta be honest, I’m not feeling optimistic about this.
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Okay, it’s easy for me to argue and poke fun, but if I’m going to be a good sport I’ve got to make my own case for what’s important to look for in a spouse.
Back in May I posted these rules of thumb.
(1) Where does my mind tend to go when I’m not concentrating on anything in particular? The best way I know to understand what I want from the Universe / what the Universe wants from me – and this applies to more than just romantic relationships – is to notice trends in my mental driftage.
(2) Do I see things in her that other people fail to notice? Like what?
(3) What is it that I admire most about her? Is it her boobies? Is it her miraculous intelligence? In either case, I’m probably being deceived—I’m attracted to some show of fertility or competence. If I am, that’s fine – that’s good – but the ideal spouse probably requires more than that. If this is The One (at the moment), then I will probably find myself swooning over things as mundane and ordinary as her sneeze.
(4) How does thinking about her make me feel? Does it bring me a warm glow? Does it bring me a profound sense of longing? A sort of lustful curiosity? If it’s any one particular feeling, then it’s probably not love, because love is far more complicated than that. Love is probably best thought of as a combination of seemingly conflicting emotions.
I think these are nice ways of identifying whether you are in love, but what I’m less sure about is whether and to what extent being in love is important for long-term marital satisfaction. I’m not even sure that being in love pushes long-term marital satisfaction in the positive direction, because the drug-like hypnosis of being in love doesn’t last, so you’re at risk of a majorly rude awakening. This much I feel pretty sure about: It’d be unwise to get engaged/married while you are still thickly in the “in love” state, because you’ve got to know what it’s like when you come down from that.
I think probably a better (and maybe even the most important) quality to look for in a romantic partner is how well you get along, which is based on calmer feelings like how well you like, respect, and appreciate the person, rather than how passionately in love with them you are. It’s necessary that you be physically attracted to them, but it’s not necessary (I don’t think) that you swoon over their sneezes.
I had to stop myself from advocating experiments just now. I was going to suggest that you take a vacation and see how well you do in each other’s faces for days on end, or that you try to put the two of you in a miserable situation, like, I don’t know, the DMV, but I don’t want to experiment and I don’t want to be experimented with. If we’re going to turn dating into an interview process, then we might as well throw in some reference checks and some multiple choice tests as well. The bottom line is that I really find it distasteful – almost disgusting – every time we get too close to suggesting that relationships are like jobs.
Fortunately, multiple choice tests needn’t be given, because if you spend enough time with a person you’re likely to get a good sense of how well you get along, how deeply you like, respect, and appreciate them.
Then if you can just get that person to carry a day-planner on horseback, you’re golden.
