Pressure Doesn’t Always Make Diamonds

A few weeks ago, my boyfriend picked up a study guide off my desk that I’ve been using to prepare for the licensed clinical social worker exam. He started rattling off bullet points in a section on “stages of life”:

Individuals aged 18-35 are young adults.

Individuals aged 36-64 are..

– “Adults?”, I offered.

“Middle aged adults”, my 33 year old partner smirked. 

I promptly died. 

As an adolescent (ages 10-17), I dreamed of my future life. I would attend college, graduate at 22, marry at 23, and have a house with a couple of kids by 26. I would probably work at the United Nations or something. Obviously! Right? – wrong. 

At 22, my college boyfriend had a psychotic break and left me to pay for an apartment I couldn’t afford on my own.

I worked three nights a week at an Eastern European nightclub on the Lower East Side where I served shots of liquor from a mock ammunition belt until four in the morning and got paid cash under the table. 

At 23, I graduated college after four and a half years. 

At 25, I met a guy with neck tattoos who was always jealous, and spent the next nine years in a cycle of on-and-off “this time is different” with him. 

At 29, I went to grad school. At 31, I lived alone (on purpose) for the first time. At 34, I went on a first date with a nice man and the next day I told everyone who would listen that I planned to marry him. 

At 35 years and 10 months, I am still not married to or living with said man, but we are still together. I do not work at the United Nations and I still can’t really afford my apartment. I have no children. As I approach what the Association of Social Work Boards study guide characterizes as “middle age”, life looks nothing like what I imagined as a teenager. But I wouldn’t have it any other way. 

There have been many times when I’ve had the impulse to try to force myself and others to make that dream life happen. I’ve come to realize, though, that no matter how bad I want it, it just might not happen the way I wanted it to. 

More on that later.. This article is not just a reflection on my own circuitous path to middle age – I have some advice for you too..

If you are trying to make a particular *thing* happen for you in a particular *way* I want you to take a step back for a second.

Take this example: You really wanted to be married by age 30, but your girl isn’t ready. 

Let’s inquire more deeply about that..

Why was it so important for you to be married by 30? Did society tell you that? Did you set that goal your sophomore year of college and can’t bear to “fail”? Have you been with said girl for 12 years and just want to be legally bound before you start spawning? 

Is there unnecessary pressure on you, your partner, or both of you to marry within a certain time frame?

I don’t inherently have a problem with any of the potential answers to these questions, but you do really need to know the answers before you decide what to do. You might even find that what you wanted isn’t really what you need at all. 

Let’s do a quick refresher on boundaries. My favorite definition of boundaries is from therapist, somatics teacher and facilitator, political organizer, and founder of The Embodiment Institute,  Prentis Hemphill:

“Boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously.”

Based on this definition of boundaries, I would ask this person in the example, who wants to be married by 30, to ask themself two questions:

What can I give up without losing myself or compromising my values?

What do I need from my partner in order to stay in this relationship? (a mutually agreed upon timeline for marriage? An agreement to check in on the topic again in six months?) 

Once the person in the example decides what they need in order to stay in the relationship, I would instruct them to take a deep breath and accept that they cannot stay in the relationship if their partner is not able to meet their needs to a reasonable degree. This is where the rubber meets the road. 

This is also where we learn that one person’s “boundary” is another person’s “ultimatum”. Reminder: when you are accused of hurling ultimatums (and you will be), I want you to ignore that and stick to your guns. 

Another major point of contention for couples, of course, is the question of whether or not to have children. 

Since I was like 12, I have really, really wanted to be a mother. And guess what – the jealous guy with neck tattoos was raring to go. When I said, “I want children”, he said, “how many?” 

There was one problem (well, there were a lot of problems). And that problem (among others) was alcohol. There came a point when I finally gave Neck Tattoos an ultimatum (JK, it was a boundary). I said, “Neck Tattoos, I can no longer date you unless you do something about this pesky drinking habit of yours.”

“No”, said Neck Tattoos. 

So I left, and I never turned back. 

So there I was, rapidly approaching middle age, not knowing whether I would ever meet someone to have a family with. I knew that if I had pressed and squeezed and contorted myself into this relationship just because I wanted a whole Partridge Family’s worth of children, it was not going to go well.

As a therapist, I really hate trying to apply the idea of “letting go”. What does that even mean, and how do you do it? But I think it’s sort of like pornography – you know it when you see it.  

But when I realized that perhaps having children was not the most important thing, I was able to focus on what was important, which was finding a partner who loved and respected me and my boundaries. 

The pressure was off, and I did indeed find a partner meeting that new set of qualifications. 

When the pressure is on – on ourselves and our partners – sometimes we miss the forest for the trees.

Take a step back and look at the big picture. When you’re secure in your values and know what your boundaries are, you can’t go wrong.

– Cat, a Therapist With an Advice Column