"Entitlement is not a FEELING"
July 10, 2006
We've had a string of murder-suicides here lately... the kind where the
wife (or girlfriend) has left or is leaving, and the guy decides to kill
her and himself (and sometimes the kids too). Sometimes I'm convinced
that the 4 most dangerous words a woman can say are, "But I love him". Unfortunately,
statistics show that an abused woman is most in
danger when she tries to leave the relationship, so the way out can be damned scary and dangerous, and in these cases, fatal.
As tragic as these murders were, I found it even more galling to hear people quoted in the paper saying what a "loving" husband or father or partner the murderer was.
I refuse to accept that "love" or anything like it is at the heart of
these kinds of behaviors. A "loving father" does not shoot all his
children in cold blood while they scream in terror. A "loving partner" does not bludgeon his
soon-to-be ex-girlfriend to death. We aren't talking about mercy killings here - where a loved one is in terminal pain or desperately ill - we're talking about killing because the person couldn't have what he wanted.
Hurting or killing someone else
because you can't have them isn't Love or anything close to it.
I believe that it is not just that these men ceased to see their "object of desire" as a person, it's that they had a warped and deeply twisted sense of entitlement. They believed these women owed them something; that they deserved something from these women and if they couldn't have it, then the women didn't deserve to live.
People say it all the time - "I deserve" this or that - I "earned" it. Sure, you earn a paycheque, but what about love? Do you deserve love? Can you "earn" love?
Yes, you deserve love. We all do. But when we hear new age gurus and
psychologists saying that every person "deserves" love, what it means is
that each individual is inherently worthy of love. You are inherently
lovable. It doesn't mean you have a right to obtain love from whomever
is the object of your desire. It doesn't mean you have a right to demand
it. Nor does it mean that you will ever receive love from anyone but
yourself.
The danger here is that when
people believe they are entitled to something - like they are
owed something for the efforts they put in, and they don't get
it, they inevitably see themselves as victims. And as Cynthia Heimel
said, "There is nothing more dangerous than someone who thinks of
himself as a victim. Victims feel it's within their rights to fuck over
everyone."
But love isn't a transaction like purchasing a car. Sure, all human
relationships (even love relationships) have a transactional component
to them. They have by their very nature, "expectations" and there is
often a tacit or even explicit agreement (i.e. a marriage). Like a
business contract, the parties can decide the arrangement isn't working,
and they have to find a way to settle it. Sometimes it is worked out
amicably, and sometimes it's in the courts. Usually, though, with those
kinds of things, the entitlement is regarding the assets accumulated
during the relationship - these are tangible items. But what about the
intangibles? Can you hold someone to a contract of "loving" you? Can you
*make* them trust and care about you? I think we all know that the short answer is "No".
(And on the subject of trust,
I am reminded of a quote from "The Way of the Gun" - "I'd never ask you
to trust me. It's the cry of a guilty soul.")
Somewhere along the line too
many people get lead astray into thinking that if they invest in a
relationship, the other person should be like a bank and pay them back,
with interest. But people aren't banks, and they don't always act the
way we think they should. (And even if people were like
banks, I'd hazard that many people who believed they "invested" so much
were also making hefty withdrawals and leaving the account in deficit -
They just didn't see the damage their own behavior was inflicting on the
relationship.)
It's bad enough, when people get
this way as the result of a failed relationship agreement, but what
about when there was never an agreement in the first place? There are
those people who are envious or jealous of others who have
relationships, and whine and complain that everyone else has someone
to love them, I should too!" . They make themselves miserable comparing
their lives to others - whether it is love, or money or a car, and
believe they have been cheated out of what is rightfully theirs - As if
life itself owed them these things. Some of these people move beyond
whining, and start stalking those that they envy or desire, or cheating
others to get what they have convinced themselves they are entitled to.
Then there are the people that
have been fed a line of bullshit that they are entitled to, and have a
RIGHT to be loved (by others), "for themselves" as in, "as they are,
with no changes required". They refuse to acknowledge the things they do
that drive love out of their lives - some don't take care of themselves
or even bathe, yet somewhere in the pop-psychology world, this whole
idea of being loved for "who you are" got misconstrued to be "how you
choose to behave". As if having bad hygiene, or complaining incessantly,
or sitting around the house watching TV, or having no other interest but
video games is somehow inherently a part of a person's genetic makeup.
THESE ARE CHOICES and BEHAVIORS and nothing more. They aren't "who" a
person is. (And ironically, it is usually these same "accept me as I am" people who desire in a
partner the very qualities that they themselves lack or haven't developed.)
But here's the thing, you DO
deserve to be loved, by YOU. Because unless you truly, honestly, and
meaningfully love yourself, you cannot truly love someone else, or truly
accept and integrate another's love. Yes, I've heard dozens of
rationalizations as to why or how someone believes they can really love
someone else but not themselves, and I say it's self-delusional
bullshit - you don't understand what
real love is. You can obsess over someone; you can desire them; you can need or
want them; you can be infatuated by them; but you can't really love them
in the deepest most meaningful sense of the word if you don't love yourself. I'll even go out on a
limb here and state that I believe that parents who don't truly love
themselves, can't truly love their own children and damage their kids in
the process.
Those guys who killed their ex-wives and girlfriends and children - they
didn't love them. Real love of a person is wanting what is best for that
person, whether or not that means you continue to be a part of their
life.
But what about feelings? Aren't we told that our feelings are valid no
matter what? I mean, nobody has a right to tell you how you should and
shouldn't feel, right? So isn't it ok to feel righteous indignation at
the fact that you aren't getting what you want? If feelings are valid,
and you feel entitled to something, doesn't that mean you are entitled
to it?
It is exactly that kind of sophistry that gets people in so much trouble.
Yes, your feelings are
valid. And you do have a right to "have" them. But entitlement isn't a
feeling - it's a chosen reaction to a feeling - it's a belief, a
judgment, and often an inappropriate one at that. Anger, hurt, sadness,
grief - those are feelings. And while you have every right to
have and experience those very legitimate feelings, you
don't have an inalienable right to express them any way
you want, anywhere you want. Young children do that - it's
called a tantrum and it too generally involves an unfulfilled want or
desire. It's not acceptable behavior for a child to tantrum in public,
and it's not only inappropriate for an adult, it can be downright
dangerous - especially when the feeling involved is one of anger. Yes,
as adults we can have times and places in our lives where we go through
VERY intense feelings - and that's where either a minister or a
psychologist or a counsellor or a therapy group comes in. The average
person isn't trained to handle an adult having a melt-down, and
shouldn't HAVE to cope with the intensity and potential danger of
someone going through very intense emotions.
Unfortunately, what seems to have gotten lost in this era of "self help", with all the messages about validity and
the right to "having your feelings", is that your REACTION to your feelings absolutely
CAN be appropriate or inappropriate, valid or invalid, acceptable or unacceptable. Yes, you have a right to
your feelings, but you do NOT have a right to hurt or abuse others as a
result of those feelings. (and withholding and sulking can be just as abusive as raging and screaming).
What most people fail to realize is that when feelings are intense, as with a
breakup, the conclusions and judgments people make about their partners
and motivations are often heavily distorted and/or inaccurate. Too many people get the twisted
notion that if their feelings are valid, then the judgments they make as a result of those feelings must be valid too. Like assuming they know what the other person's motivations are.
And of course, if you are feeling persecuted and somehow cheated out of what you believe should rightfully be yours, what better way is there to
feed the fires of righteous indignation than to assume the other person had some kind of malicious or harmful motivations?
I really think this is the crux of what fucks so many people up.
The real danger here is that
when people start claiming that their sense of "entitlement" is a
feeling, then they start believing that the entitlement is valid and
reasonable. They believe their own distortions. They see themselves as
victims - often becoming Enraged Victims. The "Enraged Victim" mentality is more invested in being angry and lashing out than
in finding a resolution. Once you fall into the entitlement
trap you are treading on dangerous ground. The step from "I deserve to
be loved by her" is perilously close to "she doesn't deserve to live
without me".
heartlessly,
-Natalie
