The Problem with "Failed" Relationships

Kerry: Returning to Tsing Loh, for a sec, I want to second your point: It is odd to describe a 20-year-old relationship that produced two kids and a lot of domestic support as a "failure" just because it doesn’t last until death do us part and all that. Like you, I find it troubling that we routinely describe marriages and relationships that end with this evaluative language. “They had a failed marriage,” we say; or, “He had a failed relationship with a ballet dancer.”

But some—maybe even many—of these relationships are not “failed” at all. They are relationships that worked well for a period of time, until, say, one partner changed, or needed something new (passion, in Tsing Loh's case). You may leave such a relationship with warm memories, nostalgia, feelings of love, and, sure, regrets. Yet this rhetoric of failure, it seems to me, has the funny effect of robbing us of the experience of our own lives, because in America we tend to think of failures as something to hide, reject, put behind us.

By contrast, consider this startling (or actually, utterly predictable) statistic from a new survey by AOL Living and Women’s Day about women and marriage: 72 percent of women surveyed say they have considered leaving their husbands. Does that mean everyone who stayed with hubby in the end is in a “successful” marriage? Hardly. That’s why this rhetoric is absurd; we'd be better off thinking about love more holistically as something that evolves, changes us, teaches us about our selves, and may or may not last "forever."

Tags: divorce, sandra tsing loh, the atlantic

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Meghan O'Rourke is a founding editor of Double X and the author of Halflife, a book of poems.

Comments

Failing and Flying

By: Teresa | Thu, 06/18/2009 - 19:05

I agree with the idea that this rhetoric of failure robs us of the experience of our own lives.

This reminds me of the Jack Gilbert poem, "Failing and Flying" that starts with "Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew."
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16872

Defining failure

By: me too | Thu, 06/18/2009 - 16:43

I was so happy to see not one, but two, posts in this conversation that took on the idea of the definition of success and failure in marriage. I completely agree that the definition of success should be altered, and radically. Having recently met a woman whose brother would not even introduce her to his newborn daughter after her divorce, I became more convinced than ever that it is our attitudes toward divorce that lie at the root of the problem. This woman had to well-adjusted teenage children, but was visibly shocked when I suggested that perhaps her marriage had not been a failure. what struck me most forcefully was the shame with which she told me about her divorce, despite the fact that the marriage that proceeded it had been emotionally abusive. Perhaps when we begin to celebrate relationships that produce wonderful outcomes--children, personal growth, or whatever other metric a person wants to use--we will be able to move past the idea of divorce as a shameful failure.

divorce, Loh

By: meri | Thu, 06/18/2009 - 15:15

Loh had an affair. She chose to have an affair and then she chose to leave her husband. Then she set up a construct declaring marriage an entenable, sexless compromise. I stay married to my husband because I like him. For Loh, life is a series of jobs: work, kids, household, husband. No wonder her marriage didn't make it. Not to be pollyanna-ish about this whole thing, but I don't spend most of my time "working" at parenting or being a doctor or a wife. Being those things define me in the same way having coffee wth my girlfrends does. One is not prison and the other freedom. I read the blog and the comments and no one has written my truth -- I don't have to turn from marriage to find love. I have never considered divorce. When my husband enters a room, I'm almost always glad. And, I'm not a simpering doormat either. Like Loh, I've made a choice. Loh writes like I'm the anomoly, but I wonder.

Did Loh just come out?

By: sw1020 | Thu, 06/18/2009 - 14:42

I think we may be missing something. From the LA Times yesterday:

An epiphany came last year when she camped out in Sacramento to protest school budget cuts and realized how much she enjoyed being in the company of other women. "It was one of the high points of my life," she told me. "I felt I was on to something." (In the essay, she writes: "I don't generally even enjoy men.")

Is it that she doesn't believe in marriage OR could it be that she just discovered she's gay?

Wouldn't

By: Shelley | Thu, 06/18/2009 - 13:10

A relationship be successful, whether "death do us part" is reached or "we'd be happier apart," as long as one or both parties walks away from the relationship understanding themselves better and having grown from the experience?

I would see a failed relationship as one where one or both involved walk away feeling only bitter and regret. The failure in this is either are too consumed with the negatives that they can't alight on the positives. And positives can fall anywhere from "we loved each other and had amazing times and I grew as an individual" to "perhaps this didn't work out but I have a better understanding of what I want from life" to "it was tough, but in the end I am stronger for it."

Failed would be not learning to grow. Not learning that blame can fall on all shoulders, not learning how to better yourself, regardless of the experience.

Would I love to make my current relationship work? Yes. Would I love for us to fulfill that dream of (semi) happily ever after? Well, yeah, who wouldn't. However, I can easily say, regardless of where this will lead, I have grown as an individual from the relationship and I know what I want out of a relationship. I am more aware of areas I need to better myself, and for the first time, I consider myself a catch and an asset to a partnership. So regardless of where this takes myself and my significant other, I would say, yes, my relationship is a success. Death or not.

Success is subjective.

By: Meredyth | Thu, 06/18/2009 - 13:02

I completely agree. Success is subjective. In my profession, a job at a white shoe firm making millions is often considered to be the height of success. But what if that's not for you? What if public interest law is your thing? And what if you're extremely proficient, but make "only" $50,000 a year? Are you unsuccessful? I guess to some, you are, but do we measure our professional successes by someone else's standards? Why should relationships be any different? If lifelong monogamy is not for you, awesome. I guess what bothers me with Tsing Loh is that shesapparently determined that marriage is not for her and her set, therefore, it doesn't work ... for anybody. Like I said, success is subjective.

like the idea that we will never die

By: artemis | Thu, 06/18/2009 - 10:16

I completely agree. There is a bittersweet feeling to the idea that things change and things end. A good marriage that lasts a lifetime is a wonderful thing, but it seems problematic that staying together until death is considered a "success"--irrespective of the quality of the relationship. The idea in our culture that a good marriage will and must last forever seems akin to the idea that we will never die.