Tolerance or Acceptance: Which Does He Deserve?
by Eric Payne
Last week’s post, part two of my piece on sex and marriage (For Better or Worse: Sex & Marriage), generated one particular sentiment that resonated with several commenters. Women as wives deserve intimacy. And why shouldn’t they? That’s one of the tent pole benefits of getting married in the first place.
On the flip, do married men deserve the same? And if we do, how is that accomplished? After all a man is, well…a man. We’re easy prey. We don’t think with our brains. And our emotions…what emotions? Right?
Personally, I beg to differ.
I believe long-term intimacy for men is established through hardcore friendship. What might seem obvious actually isn’t when you consider that this level of friendship is only attained through truly understanding another person. We’d like to believe that love is supposed to make the obvious easy, but sometimes the exact opposite occurs. Understanding comes with a real challenge: it asks us to step outside our personal set of circumstances to see (to the best of their ability) things as that other person does and to accept it without judgment. Keep in mind, that acceptance does not imply agreement.
In today’s life where most of us fight to be right, fight to have the last word and insist all wrong comes from someone other than ourselves, who has the mental capacity to entertain accepting another person for who they are, especially a spouse?
I’m sure several women who have read up to this point are thinking, “Oh, I know he’s not talkin’ about me. I put up with my husband’s mess all the time!” The question this writer is asking isn’t whether or not you are tolerating your husband’s ways, but rather, are you accepting them. Recognizing that his differences — his idiosyncrasies, isms, etc. are probably what attracted you to him in the first place.
By no means am I suggesting that wives and long-term loves entertain, excuse or ignore inappropriate and/or buffoonery if and when it should occur. But if you find yourself increasingly frustrated with who your husband is you might want to ask yourself are you actually accepting him for who he is, or are you simply tolerating him. If you answer is the latter, then here is one last question to consider: How does intimacy (not sex) grow or thrive on any level without acceptance?
Eric Payne lives with his wife and kids just outside of New York City and writes about married life and fatherhood at MakesMeWannaHoller.com. He also writes a fatherhood column at MochaManual.com. He is the author of I See Through Eyes, a book of poetry and short stories. His short fiction has appeared in Spindle Magazine and DiddleDog Magazine.
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