Mating in Captivity Read Online Free PDF

us. We are invested in having him or her conform to an image that is often a creation of our own imagination, based on our own set of needs. “One thing about him is that he’s never anxious. He’s like a rock. I’m so neurotic.” “He’s too much of a wimp to leave me.” “She doesn’t put up with any of my shit.” “We’re both very traditional. Even though she has a PhD, she really likes staying home with the kids.” We see what we want to see, what we can tolerate seeing, and our partner does the same. Neutralizing each other’s complexity affords us a kind of manageable otherness. We narrow down our partner, ignoring or rejecting essential parts when they threaten the established order of our coupledom. We also reduce ourselves, jettisoning large chunks of our personalities in the name of love.
    Yet when we peg ourselves and our partners to fixed entities, we needn’t be surprised that passion goes out the window. And I’m sorry to say that the loss is on both sides. Not only have you squeezed out the passion, but you haven’t really gained safety, either.The fragility of this manufactured equilibrium becomes obvious when one partner breaks the rules of the contrivance and insists on bringing more authentic parts of himself into the relationship.
    This is what happened to Charles and Rose. Married for almost four decades, they’ve had a lot of time to define one another. Charles is mercurial, a provocateur, and a playful seducer. He is a passionate man in need of a container, someone to help him channel the unbridled energies that distract him. “If it weren’t for Rose, I don’t think I would have the career and family I have today,” he says. Rose is strong, independent, and clearheaded. She possesses a kind of natural equanimity that calibrates his intemperateness. As they describe it, she is the solid; he, the fluid. The few times Rose ventured into passionate territory before meeting Charles, she found it overwhelming. It left her depleted and unhappy. What he represents for her is passion that she doesn’t have to own. What scares Rose is the loss of control and what scares Charles is that he enjoys the loss of control too much. The complementarity of their relationship allows them to flourish within a bounded space.
    This fertile arrangement worked reasonably well until the day it didn’t. As so often happens, there is a moment when we recognize that what we’re doing is no longer working. Often it follows significant events that make us review the meaning and the structure of our lives. Suddenly, the compromises that worked so well yesterday become sacrifices we no longer want to brook today. For Charles, a succession of losses—the death of his mother, the death of a close friend, and a scare regarding his own health—have made him keenly aware of his own mortality. He wants to charge at life, to ply his vitality, to reconnect with the exuberance that he’s kept in check in order to be with Rose. He can no longer bear to keep that part of himself tucked away, even in exchange for the solid ground Rose offers. But every time he tries to talk about this hunger, Rosefeels threatened and dismisses him. “You’re having another midlife crisis? What are you going to do, buy a red Trans-Am?”
    Rose and Charles have both had their nonmonogamous interludes over the years. The facts were known, the details were not; and they put these episodes behind them. Or at least Rose did. “I thought we were past our turbulent years. We’re in our sixties, for God’s sake,” she moans.
    “And that precludes what?” I ask her.
    “Hurting me! Risking our marriage! I’ve come to accept the terms of our relationship. Why can’t he?”
    “And those terms are?”
    “When we married, we loved each other very much. We still do. But, shall we say, we had both known stronger passions. Charles came out of it disillusioned—the high intensity was always short-lived, and he was left with women he