Paul Jacobson

I have just spent about a day reading through all the archived posts of Memoirs of a Married Man Man and it has been quite a read. I am not too sure what compelled me to read every post (going back to October 2003) but I did. For those of you who have not visited the site and have not read some of the posts, the author, OrdinaryJoe, is married with a little girl. Aside from the posts about the recent US elections and a couple jokes, OrdinaryJoe focusses on his marriage, the woman he had the hots for and his daughter. There is also a fair amount of stuff about his fantasies about various people.

What his blog is, is an unfortunate tale about a relationship gone bad and an unhappy participant in that relationship. I felt taken in by the energy of the posts and I indentified with much of what he wrote because I was there a couple years ago when I was married. I empathise with the need to be loved and cared for and his efforts to entice the woman he was attracted to. At the same time I saw, with the benefit of my own experiences, a fair amount of what has been going on. It is sad when a relationship comes to an end. It is sad when two people who came together in love begin to forget that love and live their lives in fear and anger. It isn’t that relationships end because relationships are like everything else, impermanent. They change and often that change means they end. It is more that the end the way they do. Couples start fighting and lose themselves in the fog of the constant fighting and animosity. If only people could realise that the relationship is changing and either change their expectations to keep up or recognise the end and go their separate ways. Both are ways to avoid the pain and suffering that ordinarily ensues.

Sadly, this is rare and people end up locked in this painful and fear-based relationship that endures while each person becomes diminished in the process.