Two natures: many ways

Men and women relationships have always been a burning issue to discuss and if s obvious for me that its rather rampant nowadays. Each day thousands of men and women try to mate for life. But the development of a healthy relationship is a “day-to-day work”, a challenging endeavor. And before the partners reach the marriage stage, they have to pass several over stages: to learn each other's domestic side, to meet each other's parents, to learn each other's take on the child-rearing and many other things. Some people get married and some couples are not ready even to spend an evening with each other.

Man-woman relationships are a work of two hearts that beat as one. And as many other men in childhood I have heard numerous stories about princes and princesses who fell in love and spent the rest of their lives with each other. But what has happened to these fairy tales in reality? Is “fairy tale life” attainable or not? And if it is attainable, what are the major problems that totally spoil the relationship?

In my essay I will to try to explain these major problems using Bernard MacLaverty's novel Grace Notes and an outstanding example of a relationship between a man and a woman portrayed in this novel as the basis for study.

The first remarkable problem arises under Catherine's ignorance of her self-worth. She had a fling with a guy from a bar. I'm absolutely sure that such a pretty and educated woman deserves more than that. Catherine simply didn't know her value: she thought that she's “not enough”, and that she wouldn't be loved by other men. That's why she caged herself into “a black imprisonment” [p.235] with Dave's “bad company” [p.235]. He treated her irreverently, for example, saying “fuck off’ a number of times [p.184; p.242], The truth is that no man can really respect a woman who will allow him to treat her so shabbily.

It's dawned upon me that the second problem is that Catherine and Dave had few things in common. Catherine was a musician who worked on Radio Three [p.64]. She was a book-wise and calm woman. And her partner, Dave, “dived for scallops and sold them to the fish factory” [p.142]. He was a drunkard, who often had hangovers [p.143]. That's a surprise for me that they had been together for more than a year. Any relationship where the only thing they have in common is what they have for breakfast in the morning will definitely end and probably badly.

The third problem is that Catherine didn't accept Dave as he was, she tried to change him. There is no doubt that she loved him and felt bad about his coldness towards her (“Day crow. Dave was gone” [p.141]). But soon Catherine realized that Dave was “a man with problems” and “needed a goal” [p.237] so she decided to give birth to a baby to make Dave “pull himself round” [p.237]. That was completely wrong. Women are caretakers by nature but frankly speaking, each of us wants to be seen, heard and appreciated for who we are. As a result, at best, our unrequested suggestions and actions are usually unwelcome. And at worst, they’re emasculating.

The fourth urgent problem is that Catherine tried to tie Dave down. One ordinary night after a bar made her give birth to a baby and want Dave to be a father for her daughter [p.237], a breadwinner [p.243]. But her man was simply not ready for such responsibility. The key was in timing. She should have given her man a chance to pursue her and had a honeymoon phase in their relationship.

Another problem of Catherine was that she didn't understand that her man didn't rate feelings as highly in his mind as she. It stuck to my memory when Catherine was in depression before leaving Dave and made a mountain out of a simple question “Are you all right?” [p.231]. The fact is women are far more complex and men are fairly simple creatures who understand the world via logic and reason. That’s why masculine energy quickly tires of the drama that arises when femininity gets caught up in emotion and upset.

In conclusion, I would like to summarize everything up. For years I have been wondering: "What is that one thing that blocking me from finding my soulmate?”. And now I finally understood that it was me and stereotypes in my mind. As you see, problems between men and women usually arise under miscommunication, misunderstanding or even under ambiguous expectations for each other's behaviour. And it's up to the couple to deal with those problems or not. But personally, I want to stress that we should fight for our feeling if we want our relationship to work out. Of course, we shouldn't analyze each our step, we need to just be happy, enjoying moments spent together with our partner. The only thing really important to fight for and improve ourselves for is love. So we should do.