Marriage is compromises, but how many times have we heard such a large generalization -- Marriage is compromises -- agree totally & yet never really understood what that means. Compromises. Of course I get my way sometimes & she gets her way sometimes.
No, that is not compromises. Let me give you one of many examples I hope to compile of how difficult it is to compromise.
My wife and I have decided to add a sort of out-door-indoor large back room -- and the question is how large should the room be. There are certain considerations. One, the larger the room the less garden there will be left to use as a garden.
If my wife were writing this column she would give you the exact foot by foot specifics: how much garden, how much room. She would be very very specific. Why we need one foot more off, or two foot more of. She is full of specifics. A half dozen good, well reasoned thoughts about how on the one hand if we did XYZ (see how not specific this writer, Henry is)...yet on the other hand if we added one foot to the dance room, rather than two feet, and if we parked the car at the very edge of the plot line, angled in at just this angle. She thinks out loud on both sides of the case. She’s got the numbers.
Me? I just got gut feelings. I don’t think in specifics. I want a larger dance room, and yes, we are going to use the back room as dance room for us & our friends. I don’t much care for gardens: I’m a city boy. I figure let’s build the damn thing and if I turn out to be wrong I may be sorry, but I don’t want to think too much about such things.
We need to compromise. To see exactly where the other is coming from. I must be patient & listen to her well reasoned presentation of the six or so alternatives we need to consider. She doesn’t yet know which alternative is best. She is thinking out loud, needs help to arrive at an intelligent decision, based on the numbers in each equation. Each equation is being presented, out loud, to me, who should listen, give intelligent input, based on the numbers we are considering.
She is an engineer by training, precise, measures the alternatives, I’m an English major, a believer in emotions. Don’t ask us Arts majors -- Musicians, writers, readers, people bound up in emotions, to count, reason, measure, build a bridge for you. We go with our emotions and we are ready to be very sorry if we got it wrong.
I have often realized afterwards that because I did not reason, measure, think it out, I made a major mistake. But I tend to go with my guts, not my brains.
We need to compromise, an inch here, an inch there. I need to let her talk it out -- for her sake, for the sake of success of our project. She needs to realize that I get impatient. Get on with it, the little boy in me says. These numbers are driving me crazy. I’ve made an emotional choice. You keep bouncing back & forth and presenting the numbers, the reasons....
Human beings are different in many small ways, but these are often deep seated ways, ways that are woven into their fabric. Learning to compromise in many little ways, is very difficult.
Copyright © 2004 Henry Morgenstein