To Love, Or To Possess?

“It’s all yours”, she used to say. Over and over, every time she’d volunteer that tidbit about how every little thing I liked about her was all mine. Until one day, it wasn’t. Of course by then I’d digressed in my love to see and believe her to be mine, as if I was somehow her owner and she mine. Looking back, I can only surmise how misguided or uninformed I truly was in my blissfully unaware state of “love”. Or maybe not? Some time ago I sat down to argue the finer points with a woman I had been involved with for give or take 3 months. It boiled down to my feeling stifled at her seeming wanton desire, whether intended or unbeknownst, to plan or control every little detail and my unyielding and overreaching aim to let things lie where they fall and not get obsessed with the specifics. As she argued the necessity of having and following a plan, I found it all too familiar. I tried to explain: I had decided months prior to ever meeting her to stop my incorrigible trend of over-planning well everything and take the time to step back from my plans and actually experience and enjoy them, taking things as they come. That’s when I heard it from her, “Well, that’s just not what I like or want with MY man. I want to take care of MY man and I feel more comfortable sticking to MY plan.” That summed up the control issue, the fight, and the relationship. She wanted me as her possession and not as my own person. Not literally of course, but it is how I felt then. So I sufficiently wrapped things up and left her with my newfound truism: why is it that we often seek to possess what we love? How often have we each done it? We see something, we fall in love, and we have to make it ours. A man, a woman, a house, a car, a dress…well you get the idea. It’s in our thoughts, in our language, and in our actions; we just don’t always notice it. More than a few times I’ve discussed with my female friends how a man of interest is good overall, but will need a few “tweaks.” On occasion I even get to play devil’s advocate when they decide to take on a project and try to educate and shape their man. I agree everyone needs work, but I point out the thin line of treating people we care about as our own with an air of ownership and entitlement and allowing for that person’s change to come about of their own volition. Men are guilty as well. Look at the double standard we have in our society with regard to number of partners. Often men prefer women with lower numbers because then we know she’s much more ours than someone else’s. This way we know her mileage, her history, and can sit safe at night knowing with some assurances that our ownership stake in her will be worth our while. To love should not be to possess. It’s not about how that person is ours, or some competitive angle that we know or deserve them more than another person because of our past together. We should accept that we cannot and should not possess over the people we love. We should let them go, allow them to be free to make the decisions they feel will bring them the most happiness. After all, doesn’t happiness matter more in life than possession? Isn’t that what we truly seek and hope for? It’s true they may not choose us, and it sucks when that happens, God do I know that. But in the end, it’s healthier for us because it enables us to love more freely. I think fear inhibits us from doing this. Fear of losing something and someone that we never really owned to begin with. Of course we want to protect those we love, but at the cost of their happiness and ultimately ours just so we can feel the security that comes from this false sense of ownership? *Originally posted on Lovemionline.com on September 7, 2009.

http://www.lovemionline.com/index.php/Men-Speak/control.html