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A good partner is one who puts the needs of their union above their own. One can't be a good husband or wife if choices and decisions are based on their own desires, wants, and preferences first and their partner is left to deal with the consequences come what may. The key to a good relationship is having two individuals with the same commitment to selflessness. A relationship can't work if one person is committed to the union and the other person is looking out for self. Once you are pair bonded, whether it be in marriage or not, you must stop living for yourself and live for the entity that has been created anew with your partner.
One should expect honesty from their partner, respect, concern, and a willingness to communicate. I don't think gender has anything to do with that. I think one is entitled to a partner who will not jeopardize one's safety or well-being for pleasure, greed, or narcissism. As far as traditional roles, I think they are dysfunctional and based on a sexist model that is only slightly better than the post-modern roles that reek of dysfunction and reign supreme today. A man is not entitled to sex or dinner on the table at a certain hour nor should he be allowed sexual transgressions in the name of "manhood." A woman is not entitled to money in exchange for her body nor to behave like some sassy stereotypical caricature where she can condemn, criticize, and nag simply because she has ovaries. Women should not be expected to be the primary care givers of children and men should not be expected to be the primary bread winners. Ideally, one's talents, abilities, and weaknesses should be weighed against the talents, abilities and weaknesses of one's partner and a mutual decision should be made as to how the roles and responsibilities should be divided. If my partner is the same gender as myself, then the same rules should apply. I personally think we've not seen a healthy model of Black relationships since before we were captured and enslaved. Adhering to "traditional" masculine and feminine roles is to assert that there is an inherent inequality to the sexes. The truly healthy model for relationships should be based on an equality of the sexes with a healthy reverence for the differences each gender brings to the table.
One should expect honesty from their partner, respect, concern, and a willingness to communicate. I don't think gender has anything to do with that. I think one is entitled to a partner who will not jeopardize one's safety or well-being for pleasure, greed, or narcissism. As far as traditional roles, I think they are dysfunctional and based on a sexist model that is only slightly better than the post-modern roles that reek of dysfunction and reign supreme today. A man is not entitled to sex or dinner on the table at a certain hour nor should he be allowed sexual transgressions in the name of "manhood." A woman is not entitled to money in exchange for her body nor to behave like some sassy stereotypical caricature where she can condemn, criticize, and nag simply because she has ovaries. Women should not be expected to be the primary care givers of children and men should not be expected to be the primary bread winners. Ideally, one's talents, abilities, and weaknesses should be weighed against the talents, abilities and weaknesses of one's partner and a mutual decision should be made as to how the roles and responsibilities should be divided. If my partner is the same gender as myself, then the same rules should apply. I personally think we've not seen a healthy model of Black relationships since before we were captured and enslaved. Adhering to "traditional" masculine and feminine roles is to assert that there is an inherent inequality to the sexes. The truly healthy model for relationships should be based on an equality of the sexes with a healthy reverence for the differences each gender brings to the table.
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Maryland
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Re: Redefining Black Relationships
Fri, January 30, 2009 - 6:45 PMYour analysis is accurate, but a little incomplete. I've been in a relationship for 29 years. That's long enough to have been tried and tested over and over and over and over again. That is part of the list of additional components of a successful relationship. You have to be able to get over things. Even if both of you are fully committed, there will still be occasions upon which the other person will make you want to either kill them or leave. But it passes if you let it. Unless you keep getting yourself angry all over again, whatever it is that made you angry in the first place will eventually fade from your awareness.
The other thing that you must master is balance and fairness. This is much harder to master than selflessness. It requires critical skill including observation, analysis, judgment, and above all else honesty. These skills are required to prevent you from becoming a martyr or a doormat. Selflessness when taken too far will result in these diminished roles. You develop a ridiculous amount of anger when you are being selfless over a long period of time and your partner doesn't know that you are making sacrifices for the relationship. You will keep waiting and waiting for them to see your sacrifice and match it, and when they never do you have an account filled with deposits of hurt and feelings of being discounted.
So you must keep the metric set at equal portions, be honest, and advocate for both of you. You must really be involved in what both of you are getting and ensure an equal distribution. Just before I wrote this post, I baked some cookies for my wife and myself. She's been home sick from her job for 2 days and I figured she needed something of a treat. So I made Toll House cookies. Our old oven heat unevenly so some of the cookies were over baked. I could have just split the cookies up 50/50 but that might have resulted in one of us getting more of the over baked cookies than the other. So I took the time to first divide the cookies into good and over baked and then divided each category evenly. I didn't think about this when I was doing it. I simply approached the process with care for both of us and a sense of the importance of doing what was right.
I'm not trying to portray myself as some paragon, but want to share the result of 29 years of successful living together. If you've done it right you develop conditioned responses that preserve the fairness which is the integral component of a lasting relationship. -
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moRe: Redefining Black Relationships
Wed, February 4, 2009 - 12:50 AMThank you for sharing this well-earned wisdom, Al.
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