Lose Yourself: Submission, Emotional Abuse and the Dorothea Effect

[I'm having a hard time writing this. I'm not sure if it's because my ideas haven't coalesced or because I keep seeing connections everywhere--in a way, I think in writing I figure out what I want to say--I start in in one place with one end in mind and then end up somewhere completely different.]

Holy Not Happy - An Unnecessary and Misleading Dichotomy

"What if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy?" asks the subtitle of Gary Thomas's book Sacred Marriage. 

It's a sobering thought. I suspect it's written as an anecdote to those Christians who divorce because "God wants me to be happy." 

However, both these conceptions of happiness seem suspiciously shallow. Surely there is more to happiness than the mere absence of physical, emotional or psychological pain. 

If God doesn't just want me to be happy, does that mean he wants me to suffer? So I can be more holy? If that's the case, the more marriage makes you suffer, the better. 

I'm taking it a little far, but I think the subtitle in question sets up an unnecessary opposition of holy versus happy, or being a person of character versus being happy (in a deeper sense) with your life.  

I also think that this opposition can be twisted into a justification for either perpetrating or enduring emotional abuse.  


The Problem with "Twilight" or  The Lure of False Submission

I was in an emotionally abusive relationship once, in a professional, not a romantic, context. And there's one thing that the other person would say to me that sticks out in memory: "I believe in you."

He meant to imply that as much as I failed to live up to my potential, if only I would give in to him and do what he said, I could be better. I could be more holy: "Let me control you and everything will work out."

As much as it stings my pride to admit it, there was something undeniably attractive about this offer. I knew I was flawed. That I screwed up. And here was someone honest enough to call me on my crap.

If only I could be better. If only I could stop failing. Maybe if I submitted my will to his, I would stop hurting people and actually become a better person.

It's the "this is for your own good" line of abuse--and there is something subtly alluring about letting go of responsibility for and control of your own life, your own dreams, your own being. I don't know how else to explain the success of "Twilight," which trumpets the kind of all-consuming love that demands the loss of self in the Other. I know only that self-immolation and self-abnegation are a temptation--particularly to those who feel less than whole to begin with.

The Dorothea Effect - It's About to Get Literary Y'all

Dorothea Brooke is a character in the novel "Middlemarch" by George Eliot. At base, she is a crusader without a crusade, a missionary without a mission field, a saint deprived of martyrdom. Being so, she makes her own martyrdom, choosing to marry a dourly pedantic and humorless man (Edward Casaubon) over twice her age, so that she might help him in his great, world-changing work, "The Key to All Mythologies" (as bad as it sounds--worse, actually).

Of course, if she were a man in nineteenth century England, her ambitions and ideals would find an easier outlet. As it is, she makes a disastrous marriage to the wrong man--dare I say because she desires holiness (to serve God by serving Casaubon) over happiness (in the sun is shining, birds are singing, isn't it a lovely day to be married to a hot young artist sense. *Spoiler alert* this happens later in the book).

Jane Eyre faces a similar temptation in the form of the handsome and deeply religious St. John Rivers. He asks Jane to marry him and follow him to the mission field as his help-meet. He does not love her, nor does he find her attractive. He simply sees that she is constitutionally and temperamentally suited for the rigors and challenges of missionary life. How romantic.

Adrienne Rich calls this the temptation of self-immolation--literally burning oneself alive.

Jane is tempted to a living death--sacrificing her life to St. John's missionary calling; denying her need to love and be loved by marrying a man for holiness and not happiness.

Dorothea falls into this temptation. Jane does not.

I would define "the Dorothea effect" as denying your own dreams/art/work/calling to serve the dreams/art/work/calling of another person.

In other words, find your own damn "Key to All Mythologies."

More to come on this later.





Inspirations:

1. This article about the end of a Christian marriage.
2. A talk at church (for women) about submitting to God's will.
3. Sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas (which I haven't read in full). 
4. Middlemarch by George Eliot
5. "The Temptations of a Motherless Woman" by Adrienne Rich.

Stalking v. Courtship: 10 Signs You Should Back the #&%* Off

I appreciate a persistent man. Heck, I love the thrill of (being) chased. But stalking is not courtship.* Harassment is not courtship, despite Christopher Hitchens' eliding of the two in his article about Herman Cain.

In the spirit of charity and good will, here's a handy list of 10 signs that you may be stalking or harassing your intended significant other and not, in fact, winning them over with your persistent 1am texts.

Your attention may be unwanted if...

1. You show up unannounced on his doorstep with a two-liter of Mountain Dew and a DVD.

2. After meeting her for the first time, you write her a lengthy email declaring that she is the love of your life--and you don't just mean in a sexual way.

3. You gift him a handmade ceramic sign with his name on it it "for his bedroom door."

4. You tell her, "Your boobs look amazing."

5. You take pictures of him surreptitiously during a party, then send a casual email with the pictures attached.

6. You grab her butt, then pretend nothing happened. 

7. You get slapped with a restraining order. 

8. You try to kiss her. She pulls away. You try again. 

9. He changes his phone number. Five times. 

10. She tells you to back the #&%* off.

*In a perfect world, here are some other things that would not be considered courtship: 

1. Liking someone's status on fb.

2. Texting "hey."

3. Saying, "You wanna come over and watch a movie?"

I like you but I hate your script

In high school, I had a boyfriend who dreamed of becoming a successful guitar player and singer. I can't speak to his guitar playing, but his singing--well, let's just say my mom once charitably compared him to Bob Dylan. We eventually broke up--not over his singing.

I like you. But your singing makes me cringe.

In college, a friend had me read her script. And I hated it. Perhaps "hate" is too strong of a word--not the word, for instance, that I used when describing how I felt about it to her face. But, well--it wasn't my cup of tea. It wasn't my cup of anything. I thought it was crass, poorly written and derivative. The spelling and grammar mistakes made me cringe. I really, really didn't like it.

I didn't tell her that, of course. I said encouraging things, like "Your descriptions are so vivid" and "I like the character progression in the second act." This seems like good politics generally: pick out the things you like and say something good about them. And I did that. Bullet dodged, or so I thought.

However these tentative words of encouragement had an unforeseen consequence. The writer, my friend, thought she really had something. She started talking about submitting it to agents and production companies. She emailed me, asking for proofreading help so she could prepare it for submission. And my slight, forgivable lie (really an omission of the truth) trapped me in a cycle of dishonesty. How could I tell my friend at this point that I loathed her script? And the more uneasy question, how did I show support for her dream while doubting deep down that she was a good writer?

I like you. But please don't make me read your script.

A friend and I joked about writing a translation guide for friend feedback:
"I liked the beginning and ending."
Translation: "I hated the middle."

It's the fine art of reading between the lines.

Flannery O'Connor famously said, "Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them." And yes, there are probably quite few people who fancy themselves writers who perhaps should not write.

Bad writing tends to get the worst of me--makes me rant and rave, at least internally--especially if other people don't seem to agree that it's bad.

I remember in college we had to write an essay about a poem. I thought the poem was poorly written, sentimental, and stilted, and when my classmate came into class and mentioned that she'd liked it, it set off a question bomb in me. (A question bomb is a question I feel like I have to ask or I'll explode.)

"Is it good?", I wanted to ask my professor. Is this poem good?" I have to know.

But why this drive to know whether something is "good" or not? Not "Do I like it?" but "Is it good?"

I do believe in an objective good and I do believe in good and bad art. But so what if someone disagrees with me about one poem?

The problem with "I like you but I hate your script" is that, as a friend pointed out, that's like saying "I like you, but I hate your soul." And what if that's true? Hypothetically, let's say that I meet a cute guy. And hypothetically, I read some of his poetry. And my reaction is "Dear God."

It's not so much that I could never date someone who writes bad poetry. I write horrible poetry. It's that I couldn't pretend that I thought it was great poetry.

If I'm honest, I think the question "Is it good?" can be traced back to the deeper question of "Am I good?" Or, "What if I'm not?" It's all mixed up with pride and an anxiety of value. I need to know that there's value not only to what I write, but to who I am.

But I am not the ultimate judge of good and bad--for me or anyone else. "Am I good?" If I can answer this question first, maybe I can let the rest rest.

And if I can do that, maybe I can just do the work.






*Distinctions:

In this post, I should make a distinction between critiquing the work of friends and critiquing the work of a significant other or potential significant other. These are different.

Also, there is a difference between judging a product (poem, short story, etc.) and judging the producer of that product.