It hurts to be in love. That's what the great majority of our music told young women in the 60s. So, how are all the Women of a Certain Age doing with that? Have you figured it out yet? Or have you really had a hard time with it because you were in a few relationships that weren't full of drama and real emotional pain, and you ran because you thought it wasn't real love?
A MESSAGE TO WOMEN OF THE SIXTIES
We're free! The songs that we bought into and told us we had to be victims to be in love were WRONG. They were just cheesy chick songs that moaned and bitched about being dumped on. However, the singer always vowed she'd wait for him forever because he was her everything. I especially liked that little Leslie Gore ditty that went something like, "Maybe I know that he's been a'cheatin'; maybe I know that he's been untrue. But what can I do?" And there was "Don't they know it's the end of the world. It ended when you said goodbye." And I'm sorry, Leslie Gore, I'm really not picking on you, but I hate that insufferable song, "It's My party, and I'll cry if I want to." Oh, well, that says something. You're at a party, and you're crying. Right away, you know a guy has done her wrong. But you also know that she's gonna take him back. He goes off with Judy, and she comes back wearing his ring. But lo and behold there's a follow up to that one - "Judy's Turn to Cry." Judy gets hers when Johnny comes back to the girl who is crying at her party because of
this jerk. So, what's the message? Party girl hung in there and cried her eyes out and believed that he really loved her no matter how badly he behaved, and he came back to her. She held on to the message. This really hurts, so it's gotta be true love. I am totally humiliated so it's gotta be true love. That is what happens when you are in love, isn't it?
The message to young women back then was that you have to hurt to be in love. If you're not suffering, it's not real love. If things go smoothly, it's boring. Boring means you're not in love. There has to be suffering if there is passion. Of course what all this is really leading up to is "make up sex." . That's where we're really going with all this suffering. And I don't think I know any women who haven't put themselves through hell for "make-up sex."
I am here to tell you that we were lied to about having to hurt to be in love. That is not the way it should be. If a guy is intentionally hurting you, he is mean spirited, and he is not in love with you. It is that simple. There is just no way to rationalize a man cheating on you and hurting you and looking at you with tears streaming down your face - no way to rationalize and say, "But he really loves me?" In what life did he or does he really love you? It's not in this one. I am afraid I saw this reality very late in life, and it was sad. It was sad because the love of my life hurt me over and over and over, and he cheated on me. He made my life a living hell. He played mind games with my head. He destroyed me over and over and over until I was in a psychiatrist's office when I was 20 years old. That was a bust, too, because the shrink just wanted the nitty gritty dirty details of how we went about sex if I was a virgin. He was highly interested in the details. I might not have been very experienced, but I knew a dirty old man when I saw one, and that ended that. So much for therapy. But I would not walk away from this guy - I was so head over heels, insanely in love with him that I couldn't walk away.
Since I have gotten older I have found that you don't have to be curled up in fetal position suffering that terrible emotional pain to be in love. You can actually enjoy yourself quite freely and not be worried that your man is going to come through the door and break off the relationship. You can have security in a relationship. I think one of the keys to having this security is to find a man who is secure himself and to find a man who is mature enough to handle a real relationship. And it also helps if the man wants a relationship with a woman instead of an opportunity to play mind games. If you see a pattern with a guy - if he chooses unlikely women who have a tendency to be somewhat vulnerable in some way - look out. A guy who is good at these mind games chooses vulnerable women. Strong women won't put up with it, and they know that. This kind of guy doesn't want a strong woman. He may want her to be able to get up and go to work and be able to bring home a pay check, but the kind of strong I am talking about is a respect for yourself and the maturity to recognize mind games and put the guy on the road the instant it begins.
As much as I hate to admit this, I think perhaps I was sadly mistaken about my grand passion from the 60s. I expected way too much of a teenage boy, and I wasn't mature enough to know any better. I built my world around that boy. I didn't care about who I was or would become any more - I was his girlfriend. I totally lost my identity, so that when the entire thing fell apart I was adrift out there in this world not knowing who I was, what I could do - what I was even capable of doing. I had poured everything into a teenage boy who liked to play games. Yes, he said he loved me. Yes, he married me. Our marriage was short-lived as you would expect. Don't get me wrong. I don't think this man is a bad person. I think he was young, and, unfortunately, he found out that he had a "gift" for playing games. After having a son of my own, I realize just how young he was when I had all these unrealistic expectations of him. And I was young. How I wish someone had guided me in a more appropriate direction for my life at that age, but that didn't happen. I got married, and I had a baby boy, and I fear that he was the big loser in that entire situation.
I met my current husband when I was 39 years old. He was barely 33 years old. He had been to college and law school and was getting a career off the ground. I entered his picture at that point in time. We came together as two consenting adults, and we slowly built a relationship. It didn't hurt at all that we had a lot in common. We lost our fathers to heart disease in the same year. We enjoyed the same music, and we loved going to concerts and to the theatre. A few years after we started dating he surprised me with my first trip to New York City and introduced me to Broadway and Andrew Lloyd Webber. My first Broadway show, Aspects of Love, was a show that didn't do nearly as well as most of Webber's musicals, but I loved it. We chose a song from that musical as our first dance song at our wedding reception.
It is not necessary to cry yourself to sleep every night if you are in love. If a man says he loves you, he should not want you to hurt. I remember the instant I knew positively that Michael loved me. One day he looked at me and said, "I hurt when you hurt." That's what love is. And if your guy loves you, he hurts when you hurt so he's not going to be the cause of it if he can help it.
Does love hurt? No, love does not hurt. Does it hurt to lose someone's love whom you love. Yes, it does hurt to lose someone's love. But it's not love that is hurting - it's the loss of that love. If a man is saying he loves you, and you are hurting, something is very wrong, and you should beat a hasty retreat.
Lesley Gore singing "Maybe I Know" - We were taught to be victims. This is just one example of songs that told us we had to "put up with" bad treatment. And I loved this song back in the day. It validated my own experiences and told me that I was not alone, and that putting up with all that nonsense was the right thing to do.
© Faye Combs
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