Working Hard at Love

Jake chose Vienna. Prior to that revelation, he had to send Tenley on her way to what lies ahead for her life. She wanted to know why, why, why … because she loves him so much and would do anything for him. Therein lies the problem Jake could not put his finger on. He knew that he loved Tenley, but there was something, that little niggling thought in the back of his brain that something didn’t fit. As Jake explained his decision, he said that there is just something about Vienna that completes him, that encourages him just to be who he is and makes him feel alive – an absence that he felt with Tenley, all the while knowing that she should have been perfect for him, a war between his head and his heart.

Love is the absence of doing anything for another person; it is, however, the joy of doing it with him/her. When one person in a relationship will do anything for the other person, it becomes a tally sheet: I did this, this, and this, while you? Well, you didn’t do as much as I did, so you must not love me … enough. Once that mindset exists in a relationship, there is nothing that the perceived slacker can ever do to balance the “how much” scale because it will never be enough. The relationship has been defined in terms of deeds, rather than thoughts and feelings.

Business relationships must be defined in terms of what employees do, how hard an individual works to earn the salary that goes along with the job. Seldom is it true that the harder one works, the more salary one earns, but it is usually true that if it is perceived that an employee is not working hard enough by someone who shares the space, that perception becomes the workplace reality, often a perception created by a casual comment here and there, water-cooler chatter, girls’ room gossip. When it comes time to find a scapegoat or downsize a position, the one who is labeled with the perception of inequality is let go, while the one who may be simply protecting his/her own failure to have confidence in the ability to perform well for a sustained period of time remains on the job.

The problem with this dynamic, with this personal ethics system, is that the good worker is now gone, so the person who equates how hard s/he works as a reason to be retained, rather than how well, has to find another target in order to continue to guard the secret that s/he may not be the best worker, but the best manipulator.

In a marriage, this unevenness tears apart the seams of the relationship because there is always a competition to see who deserves to stay married based on how hard each partner works to keep the relationship alive. With this kind of performance pressure, a marriage partner can only survive for so long. Marriage should be effortless, a balance that allows each individual to thrive, not just strive. It doesn’t take too many years together before each partner realizes that no matter how hard one of the two works, it will never be enough. The spouse who unknowingly signs a performance contract, instead of a marriage license, soon realizes that the relationship is doomed and goes looking for something to replace it.

In real life, it is not how hard anyone works to get the job done, but the product that results from the hard work. Working hard is simply nailing one foot to the floor, leaving the other foot to expend energy in endless circles. At the end of the day, there may have been a lot of motion, but no real movement. In a marriage, the constant motion becomes a subterfuge for real feelings. Anyone who has ever been in a relationship knows that it’s the feelings that matter, feelings that occur naturally, effortlessly, and with complete freedom to be whatever they are. It isn’t hard work to love someone, it’s the absence of hard work, and if anyone ever has to work hard to convince another person to “pick me,” the relationship is doomed.