The Garden of Eden complex

I was chatting on Facebook with a friend about relationships (I've had yet another disastrous friendship situation emerge recently!) and this segued into talk of my relationship especially and the things that I try to do to maintain stability. My friend commented that something which I mentioned as important to me (fighting fair) is a rare thing to value. Hence further discussion unfurling, and me thinking up this post a propos de rien.

The impression that I've got, with a lot of relationships (heterosexual ones - it may be different for those who are in same-sex and/or polyamorous relationships), and which took a more definite form whilst conversing with this friend of mine, was that many people (perhaps women more so than men, it seems to me, but then perhaps those of you with the 'masculine perspective' can weigh in?) suffer from something which I have conceived of as the 'Garden of Eden complex.'

JUST IN CASE you are uncertain of the Garden of Eden - in the Bible, Adam is the first man created by God, who lives in the Garden of Eden (= Paradise, basically) and then Eve is created to keep him company, but that chick ate the apple from the tree of knowledge 'cos a snake said so, yo, and then Adam and Eve get embarrassed about their nekkidness and ARGUE and get cast out of the GoE (known as the Fall of Man, or just The Fall). This is where the notion of 'original sin' comes from in Christianity - basically all humans post Adam and Eve bear the stain of The Fall in their spiritual DNA or whatever, and so start off with a Godly debt to pay through the Christian way (which I can't comment on authoritatively, but like most religions involves 'good works', charity, praying etc.).

Now, how many of you reading know people who care a lot about how the fighting is done in their relationship, and to whom fights can be a useful and constructive experience? Maybe you just happen to be of the oh-so-enlightenedly modern and liberal Tumblr generation sort, all kinky and pan-sexual and Safe Sane Whatever. Or maybe, like me, this kind of thing has more of the air of the unicorn to you: you've heard tell of it, and maybe even seen a depiction, but is that shit for real? Hell yeah (it certainly is for me), but we already know how smug and self-satisfied I am, :-D so I'm going to explain my idea to you at long last.

My impression (this is of couples in the UK - I'm not really placed to comment much on overseas) is that passive-aggression is unbelievably common, and stereotypes would tell us that this is a favoured tactic of women. Everyone has at some point seen, heard or heard of a scenario where a woman who is obviously annoyed and/or upset replies: 'Fine. I'm FINE' in the most markedly un-fine manner upon being asked by her partner (often depicted as a clueless and/or insensitive male) and continues this with gritted teeth if he persists: 'I said I'm FINE - forget it.' However, my experience is that passive-aggression is pretty common to both genders - I've had it used against me by partners and I'm sure I've used it at times.

To delve back into the stereotypes box, we are constantly told that women are incredibly insecure about their relationships and/or male partners all the time, and constantly in need of reassurance, e.g.: 'Why/how could he do/say/not do/say that?' Stereotypes gain the kind of acceptance that they do because of the tiny little sliver of truth in them. As you smart cookies know already, in a difficult and often frightening world, we bolt on to the reassuring little nugget of truth like iron filings on a magnet and, being inclined to the easy way out, ignore the complexity around it. Yet those readers of mine who know me as a person will know that I'm always looking out for contradictions and things that just don't quite add up (Team Lester Freamon all the way! Wooo!).

You would think that if women, or people generally, were asking themselves questions, that they would  then be all the more critical and introspective on their relationships... but of course, it never works that way in practice. You have to ask the right questions, for one, and who is asking who is absolutely critical. These people are asking themselves; many of them are going to have all this in their head, but do you really think all, or even a respectable amount of it, will come out of their mouths? No, me neither. They are questioning themselves and while in some contexts (e.g. at the start of a relationship, or before the relationship comes to be viewed as such) this is fair enough; generally, all it is... is just you questioning yourself. Creating doubt. Obviously, if you're not with 'the right person' (I don't believe in The One, but I believe in a One) then this is not surprising at all. This little inner questioning voice is valuable; if you're not with 'the right person', it will most likely create doubt around them (and this will probably be verbalised at some point, even if inadvertently), but too few people realise that it is also means creating doubt around yourself. If the questions are coming thick and fast, all the time, regardless of what your partner says/does, then you need to think twice and challenge that voice. Think long and hard about why you are always asking yourself things, whether or not you mention these things to your partner, and if so how often, and how is it verbalised, etc.

The thing is that self-knowledge is painful. Just like ol' A&E up in the GoE becoming ashamed and evicted and so forth as a result of becoming aware, many people will not become self-aware without being made self-conscious first. Hence why people who are 'typically' good-looking and popular are not necessarily lovable or good company - they've never had to work to win others over, or had to think about the nature of social interaction in the way that those who are marginalised do. Many people treat relationships as a way to run from themselves, whether that's in the form of constantly surrounding themselves with other people so they don't have to be by themselves, or continually having the same kinds of relationships with the same kinds of outcomes, or always only choosing certain kinds of relationships... No doubt you may see some overlap between these, as do I.

Here's where we finally get to the meat. The Garden of Eden complex is something that I have noticed through conversations, literature, reading the Life & style section of The Guardian, etc. It was more noticeable to me through stuff where writers (largely women) bemoaned a reversion to 'traditional' gender roles in their relationships after marriage and/or childbirth but as I thought about it, I realised that it is sort of latent in the way that many people behave in relationships. I have to say as well that perhaps it's 'just' a English middle-class thing, but I definitely think that the culture that you're raised in (both in terms of in the country/area where you grew up, and in your family) plays a massive role, and I'm sure that the generation that one belongs to also factors in.

For me, the Garden of Eden complex results from several things, but firstly, an assumption (I think, largely unconscious, due to social conditioning) that the beginning of a relationship is the 'zenith' or Paradise, if you will, where everything is easy and exciting and wonderful. Reading and hearing about the way people talk about this, there is an almost unbearable sense of potential. Passionate sex, no fights, or if there ARE fights, they are immediately balanced with passionate make-up sex... dressing up, formalities, furtiveness, infatuation. Then, as things begin to develop, 'the Fall' occurs. Different people may feel that this happens at different times - some once infatuation fades, some after moving in together/engagement/marriage/childbirth, etc. The picture that many columnists and popular culture paint here is that in time, you will either become bored, dispirited and/or desperate enough to withstand a serious long-term relationship with each other and that with work, you can 'rediscover' each other, but that it is OBVIOUSLY never going to be 'like it was.' We all see the profiles of couples who've been married seemingly forever and who talk adoringly of how they love each other the same as when they first met and nod and say 'Awww', then brush over it with our cynicism and move on.

Now, you may cry: 'But - but - is that not how relationships function, and have done, for much of the world's population?' GENERALLY, yes. However, not all people necessarily experience the infatuation phase the same and not everyone prefers it to what comes afterwards. Hell, what comes afterwards isn't even going to be the same for many people! My problem (and here I can hear those of a polyamorous persuasion possibly gearing up to cheer on the next part of my sentence) is that this model of how a relationship works, when yoked together to gender stereotypes and our cultural influences, can create a terrible and fatalistic attitude in people. I know SO MANY women who have fallen prey to the following equation:

'women shouldn't rock the boat' + 'as a woman, my feelings are less important' + GoE complex = 'I won't tell him how I feel... I'm fine... forget it... it'll be fine' (because at the start of a relationship, it often DOES feel that way - you're both so hopped up on the good-time infatuation hormones). [INTERNAL]

RINSE AND REPEAT

'I won't tell him how I feel... I'm fine... Maybe I'm not fine, but it's HIS JOB to care and MAKE ME FINE.' [INTERNAL]

RINSE AND REPEAT

'YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT ME! YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT I WANT! YOU DON'T CARE! IT'S BECAUSE OF YOU THAT I FEEL LIKE THIS!' etc. [INTERNAL, but by this point, it's quite likely going to end up also becoming VERBAL at some point]

Alternatively:

'women shouldn't rock the boat' + 'directness is unladylike' + GoE complex = 'I won't tell him how I feel... I'm fine... forget it... it'll be fine'.

RINSE AND REPEAT

'I won't tell him how I feel... I'm fine... OK I'm not fine, but it's HIS FAULT! WHY DOES HE DO THINGS TO MAKE ME UPSET AND ANGRY!' [INTERNAL]

 RINSE AND REPEAT

'THIS IS YOUR FAULT! WHY ARE YOU SO _____________?! WHY CAN'T YOU BE _______?!' [almost certainly VERBAL - in my experience, hetero women who are hung up with appearing 'ladylike' etc. are often happy to use gender stereotyping to their advantage, and therefore place a great deal of responsibility on male partners as the 'providers', which also often means making them take the women's share of blame for problems in the relationship].

 Not to stereotype men, or suggest they are all the same, but quite often the male counterparts to these go as follows:

'men don't do/know how to do emotion' + 'I don't want to worry her' + GoE complex = 'I won't tell her how I feel. Forget it. It'll be fine' (again, not wanting to stereotype, but I think quite often with men, this is not as much of an issue early on as it is for women, unless they are 'relationship-minded' - many men are more relaxed about letting things play out, arguably since the biological clock/social marginalisation around aging and attractiveness factors are not the same). [INTERNAL]

RINSE AND REPEAT

'I don't know/dare tell her how I feel... I don't want to worry her. What is she thinking?' [INTERNAL]

RINSE AND REPEAT

'What happened? How come this is over? Where did it all go wrong?' [may be INTERNAL or VERBAL, but I would say, most likely INTERNAL - as in the classic case of the man who loves his wife, but works long hours and comes home to find she's cheated/left him].

Alternatively:

'men don't do/know how to do emotion' + 'I don't want to worry her' + GoE complex = 'I won't tell her how I feel. Forget it. It'll be fine'. [INTERNAL]

RINSE AND REPEAT

'I don't know/dare tell her how I feel... I don't want to worry her.' [INTERNAL]

RINSE AND REPEAT

'WHAT ABOUT ME?! WHY IS EVERYTHING ALWAYS MY FAULT? YOU DON'T KNOW OR CARE ABOUT WHERE I'M COMING FROM!!' [almost certainly VERBAL -the classic thing of snapping after being constantly pushed. I'm not trying to say that men self-censor for 'noble' reasons, whereas women do so out of lack of confidence, or adherence to stereotypes - I'm just illustrating some of the toxic ways in which social & cultural conditioning, hitched to gender stereotyping and the Garden of Eden complex, often creates mindsets in people so that they are effectively 'setting themselves up to fail' in relationships].

So, the Garden of Eden complex is pretty complex. Basically, it's what happens when a certain vision of relationships (which is extremely common) combines with several other factors (gender stereotyping, social & cultural conditioning, unsuitable partners) to create tendencies which are very common:

1) for people to not really think about their relationships beyond the 'Wahey, I pulled!' stage;
2) for people to overstate the importance of lust/the sexual element and the infatuation/dopamine-driven initial phases of a relationship;
3) for people to avoid being honest with themselves about the true state of their relationship and what they need to do next (because it's normal for things to go shitty, isn't it, that's what happens to everyone);
4) for people to become total hypocrites and dishonest whilst fighting, reverting to gender stereotyping themselves and others (see the last two paragraphs of this review of Rachel Cusk's new book, for example). I get the impression that 'confrontation bad' is apparently deeply ingrained in the English national psyche, judging by how frequently it is invoked as a national stereotype. Certainly, my libertarian and another whiteboy I knew have both seemed floored by me at times (being a British Asian Punjaban, I manage to contravene both the expectations around Asian women and English middle-class people. Win!) and so I can kind of understand why so many people completely fail to understand the point of having it out. Some will also have very negative associations around it, perhaps to do with early experiences of violence, or just be raised to think that it is undignified, scandalous, whatever. However, anyone who wants a relationship to work will welcome arguments as akin more to a town hall meeting, where you come along and take the floor to share your gripes with the listening audience. Fighting must not be about reinforcing anyone's sense of themselves as a wronged victim, or 'hot make-up sex' (that may be a side benefit, but it shouldn't be the point). 

IT MUST BE SAID, THOUGH, that again, your partner is a major factor in whether you can fight fair. When you feel absolutely sure somewhere inside that 'you' (=you & them) is something that you are striving for, an end goal that really matters, you can treat your personal irritations as a stepping-stone to hop across to your partner who is, hopefully, waiting to take your hand and walk off towards 'you'. If it's really not a good pairing, the facade of 'you' will splinter quickly into your individual selves and since there is no actual investment in 'you', but only in maintaining the status quo, you will both behave like children, hurl mud, generate a lot of noise and heat and waste lots of time. Any resolutions are incidental. The thing that has struck me about fighting in this way, when it has happened, is how false it felt. Once, I actually managed to stop myself before I got too far with it (I was on the brink of abandoning TL near a Tube station, not long after we'd disembarked there) and said to TL: 'We're going through the motions. Can't you see?' He was slightly bewildered, and that became our making-up - I explained what I meant, in doing so, gave myself time to calm down and we managed to reconcile pretty much completely. When we have this kind of argument (and it is oh SO easy to do, given that we all live in society), I stop and remember that this is someone else's script that has been beamed into my thoughts. I have become Judy and TL is Punch, and all that's missing is a Policeman to make it literally performed farce. It feels fake, it feels unwelcome and drags my attention and focus back to ME ME ME and the performance of a stereotypical orientalized Asian woman while TL becomes a sneering debate-club English toff type. The need to revert to a script kicks in because it's easier than being honest and more fun to be self-centred and self-righteous than have humility and selflessness in recognising that 'you' is important to you both and that you have both repeatedly shown commitment to it. Being a brat is familiar; being an adult, not so much.

To bring this very long post to a close - what do you think of the Garden of Eden complex or other things discussed? Let me know, in the comments etc.!