This may come as a surprise to some of you, but I'm a quarter Korean. Yeah, I know. It's not a huge deal. I mean heck, I don't even look like it. Still, I have learned a huge amount about how Koreans interact in their relationships without even knowing it.
In Korea, it is not normal for people in a relationship with a significant other to hang out with anyone else of the opposite gender. My mom said that it was even uncomfortable for her and her mother to receive compliments from men. I didn't realize it, but that's very much how I had assumed all relationships would be. You find your person and you stick with them and avoid drama in every way possible.
My mother lived that to a very tall "T". My dad, on the other hand, just wasn't that way. That is, he is very friendly and outgoing with whoever it is that wants to talk with him.
My parents had incredibly different rules for how their romantic relationship should be handled, and they didn't really communicate about it at first. My mom, didn't know how to live with someone who she thought might be eyeing everyone and anyone simply because he smiled and said hi to everyone that walked down the street. She only thought that because she didn't think about her relationships the way that my dad did. My dad turned out to be a great guy who simply wanted everyone to know that there was someone in the world who cared about them.
Let's be honest though. They both had very good reasons for doing what they were doing. My mom avoided so much drama that exists in the world today and my dad has never doubted her loyalty, while my dad has helped many people come to know what love and kindness are.
My mom was not accustomed to that way of living though, and it took her a good time and a lot of communication to trust that my dad's heart was in the right place.
They talked about it all though, and that's more than taken care of. It even turns out that there are many benefactors to the communication that they developed. While it may not be perfect, they certainly understand each other a lot better.
Why am I talking about this though?
I think that a lot of what we expect out of our relationships has loads to do with how we saw our father/mother figures handle their relationships.
I recently learned that, while I express a whole heck of a lot of the social qualities my dad does, I've naturally been inclined to expect the attitude that my mother took as the attitude of my significant other. So, what happened when someone that I loved didn't act the way my mom does? What happened when she would hang out with, or talk to, people of the opposite gender? My brain would do a little dance, fall over, and not be able to get up. I became the controlling person that I have tried to avoid becoming since deciding that I wanted to be romantically involved with this person. I suddenly asked myself "Why would she do this? Why would she do that?" and then answered those questions with the worst possible answer I could think of.
It wasn't my intention to mistrust or freak out. I was just experiencing something totally outside of what I thought a relationship should be. It wasn't her fault either. I didn't know why I felt this way until recently. I don't really consider it to be unfair though, because everyone has the opportunity to seek after what they want, including a beautiful and healthy relationship.
I'm not saying that I want a woman who couldn't give an unsightly piece of fecal matter about anyone but me, but rather that I want someone who loves me unconditionally and wants to communicate with me about what she's done, doing, and going to do because she understands the way I see the world and knows that is one of the most loving things she could do for me, and I want to get better at doing those same things, because life and love just aren't fun when there isn't enough communication.
Dallin Hughes
No comments:
Post a Comment