This essay by Mary T. Kelly at Salon is ostensibly a critique of NBC’s new show, “The Marriage Ref” (which I must admit, I watched).
But Kelly’s essay is more and I recommend it to anyone interested in relationships. An excerpt:
When it gets right down to it, human beings just aren’t as complicated as we like to make ourselves out to be.
We want to be seen… seen for who we are, darker sides and all. We want to be felt in that way that someone is so connected to us that when we feel pain, they feel it for us, too. They can empathize, and we find relief in knowing that we have an ally. We want to be touched, we crave to be touched, whether it’s in the full blown passions of wild and unrestrained sex or the gentle holding of the hand while watching a movie in a dark theater.
. . .But we are a stubborn group of people, and it is often easier to focus on the silly, the superficial and the insistence that we are right.