Shared activities essential for love But single parents,
short of time, often rush headlong into doomed relationships
By: Peter Ehrlich
Last year my New Year's Eve was spent with a wonderful woman
whom I had known for only two weeks. We drank cold Californian
white wine, sideways as a matter of fact, and ate oysters.
It was a glorious evening with angels perched on each post
of the headboard. I even asked one to "please pass me
the water."
We also exchanged the words all of us spend our entire lives
wanting to say and hear – "I love you." Single
dad was deliriously happy on Dec. 31, 2006.
I wasn't so happy when we broke up four months later.
What happened?
Single dad (and the woman in this story, who is still a wonderful
woman) fell for the "love is a feeling" myth, as
Scott Peck described it in his landmark book, The Road Less
Traveled. His position is that real love is found in shared
activities.
This single dad had his own set of activities. "Wonderful
single woman" had hers, and never the twain did meet.
Is it enough to be attracted by someone physically and have
unlimited respect for their brain? Can you build a relationship
just on those attributes?
No we can't, because they are passive.
Our activities define our values. Without similar values,
single parent couples are doomed, both as singles and as single
parents. Singles need to share values, single parents more
so because children ultimately become involved in activities.
Single parents are prone to getting trapped by the "love
is a feeling" myth because we are sometimes a tad more
desperate than regular singles as a result of our time restraints.
(Young men who stalk yummy mummies know this.)
Often we rush things along as if our mating dance was in
constant fast-forward.
How important is it to undertake "doing things"
together to find out the truth about your relationship?
One couple I talked to, Scott and Julia said "We realized
we were in love after we took a 30-day trip to a Third World
country. We experienced hardship after hardship, threw up
together and shared the Maalox bottle instead of fine wine.
When we were still in love at the end of our journey through
hell, we knew it was real."
Single dads and moms often sacrifice the "activity"
as part of their courtship or search for common values for
the sake of not wanting to compromise quality time with their
children. This is a mistake.
Single parent guilt has turned too many of us into "single
parent wussies," not having the guts to hand off our
resilient kids in order to experience meaningful activity
with another adult.
If you're serious about finding out the truth about your
relationship with someone, drop your children off, sans guilt,
and join a range of activities that define your values. You'll
soon discover if you're a match.
If there's someone you're considering as a marriage partner,
book a ticket to a faraway destination that will challenge
you on the most basic levels. Better yet if you need to take
malaria pills. When you arrive back at Terminal 1, you will
know the truth.
If you don't care about the truth, that's fine.
Here's what I did on Dec. 31, 2007; I was alone, rented bad
movies and ate marshmallows.
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