Why Many Married Women are Frustrated by Oluseye A. Komolafe - HTML preview

SELFISHNESS, SACRIFICE AND MARTYRDOM

Let’s talk about Selfishness, Sacrifice and Martyrdom, another reason many married women are frustrated.

Positive Selfishness

The concept of being selfish tends to be considered negative in our society today, since it is considered an example of being inconsiderate towards others. This, however is not totally true, this type of selfishness would be referred to as Negative Selfishness.

I will define both concepts like this;

As we can see, the key difference is the intention towards other people!

Now let us consider a typical third position – Martyrdom!

Let me sound a note of caution here, By ‘martyrdom’ we are not referring to any kind of religious extremism, but rather martyrdom to an ideal within a relationship (again, this is not restricted to a traditional marriage relationship, - it could be any kind of relationship).

Let’s define Martyrdom and compare it with Positive Selfishness.

Now let us consider the end effects and implications of each of these concepts.

The Martyr acts out of a sense of duty and responsibility to act for the benefit of others, excluding Self. This person will often be deeply miserable, never ensuring personal well-being, stability or happiness. They measure their success in terms of the happiness of others, and not themselves. This creates all sorts of problems and is a totally unhealthy relationship, whether between partners, or towards children.

Let us consider some possible end results of a martyrdom-type relationship:

•                    Sense of being ‘owed’ something for all the sacrifice.

•                    Sense of being ‘let down’ when the other person moves on or grows up.

•                    Sense of guilt for having ‘let themselves go’.

•                    Sense of unfairness and resentment for not having received the same self-sacrificial attitude in return.

•                    Sense of ‘where did my life go’ after a long period of continuing such behaviour.

Classic Scenarios of Martyrdom: Marriage Relationships

In a marriage or long-term relationship, one person worships the other, panders to their every whim, allows themselves to be down-trodden or even abused, and then when they split up wonders where their life has gone.

This is a major cause of frustration for many married women who have been pre-programmed that their happiness and success in life is tied to that of their husbands. Therefore, once they get into any relationship, they suspend or stop all personal plans, goals and ambitions for that of the husband. They start to condition their life to that which they think or assume pleases the man. Under the guise of preparing themselves to be the ‘good wife’ or ‘the virtuous woman’ they sacrifice their self-esteem, self-confidence and even their individuality!

One cannot estimate the degree of frustration many married women go through when their marriage is childless! This is mostly due to the wrong assumption that all issues, complications and challenges associated with being childless, have everything to do with the woman and nothing with the man.

As a result of this erroneous belief system, such women run around for assistance, going to hospitals and taking various kinds of medical tests while the husband is totally uncooperative. In some instances, the man with the support of his family members (who will counsel and advise that the woman to be patient) will go ahead and marry another wife under the guise of wanting to bear a child, leaving the first woman in a state of helplessness and frustration!

...You were born together, and together you shall be for evermore. You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days. Aye, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God. But let there be spaces in your togetherness. And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.

Love one another, but make not a bond of love: let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.

Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.

Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.

                        Kahlil Gibran.... The Prophet

Parent –Children Relationships

Another classic scenario (of which women are still more of the victim) is in parenting.  We see parents sacrificing well beyond any level the children really wanted or desired, and then expecting the children to be eternally grateful!  Later in life when the children have grown up and have moved-on with their lives as adults. They make comments like “I gave up everything for you”, “You could not have wished for a better childhood”, and so on.

Ironically, such behaviour often drives the other person(s) away, since it tends to make the other person feel suffocated, suppressed and obligated. This behaviour is usually accompanied by the false expectations of great gratefulness and thanks. The Martyr forgets that he/she initiated this unhealthy behaviour, and not the hapless recipient! (husband/wife, children or both).

Acting like a martyr is creating the same dynamic of relationship as when the other person is dominating or abusive. The difference is that it is initiated by the Martyr. Unfortunately, many married women are martyrs, only not many of them are conscious of it.

If you are voluntarily self-sacrificing in a relationship, and you know or suspect there is going to be resentment, recrimination or guilt afterwards, then the dynamics have gone wrong. We all make sacrifices for our partners, but these should always be on the grounds that they are necessary, fair and will not be repaid with a guilt-trip afterwards.

It is a basic premise of relationships that, whatever roles and responsibilities are shared in whatever manner, the power balance should be fairly even. Neither party should be made to feel obligated to the other. Let us discuss this further!

The Parent – Child(ren) Martyrdom

We are in a culture where it is expected that parents should by default sacrifice their lives for their children. This is in principle what happen by instinct, as every normal parent wishes and wants a better life for their children and preferably a better life than they lived. Parents will naturally if need be sacrifice even their lives. There are instances and examples of parents who have had to sacrifice their lives for their children.

The love between parents and children is one of the strongest at least from the documented history of man. Many strong and influential men have been turned into weaklings and victims of cheap blackmail because the enemy had threatened them via their children.

We are not concerned about parent-children sacrifice under such extreme circumstances. We are concerned with the everyday martyrdom parents (especially mothers) commit for the children thinking they are bound to do it, or that if they don’t do it they will be labeled ‘BAD Parents/Bad mothers’ or that the children will hate them forever for being so selfish by not putting them (the children) first.

Let’s start from education....

From the actions of many parents, it is observed that many parents (especially mothers) believe their own education stops or ends when or where their children education starts. Not that they do not wish to continue their own education, (some of course don’t), but all practical steps and commitment towards it stops. Such that from their total income, their budget for Continuing Education immediately crashes to zero, while that of the child rise from zero to about seventy percent (70%) of their total income.

In itself, this action may or may not be a bad one, but, when one begins to question and explore the reasons for this action, one will begin to see why such action is nothing but unnecessary martyrdom, which is of no substantial benefit to both the parents and the children.

First, underlying such action is the belief or desire that (our) children are supposed to be a continuation of our lives, that they should be our successes where we as parents have failed, they should be the corrections of our failures, and as 100 percent ours we (parents) should continue our lives through them.

That is, if our own parents (now grand-parents) could not send us to the ‘best schools’ of our time, we should be able to send our own children to the ’best schools’ of their own time, even at the cost of the parent’s own continuing education.

This conclusion also stems from the widely held belief and illusion that the ‘best schools’ for our children are the ‘most expensive’ schools our total income can strenuously accommodate.

This position is also reinforced by the belief that sending our children to these so called ‘best schools’ will give our children a head-start in life. As what and who the children will eventually become in life is a function of the schools they attend, the calibre of friends they make and keep from these schools (who should be children of some prominent/wealthy parents in the society), and the quality of what the teachers in the schools teach the children from the books the parents bought for the children.

Let us explore and question these beliefs and their sources. Is it true that children are 100 percent owned by their parents, and that their lives should be a continuation of the parent’s life? Just a little thinking will let us know these beliefs are not true! No child is simply an extension of the parent, and good parenting recognizes the difference between our images of the child and the real child who emerges. Each child has self-possession, and this grows in the nourishing soil of interpersonal relationships. Every child is a unique individual and has his or her own life to live. They might have come through us (parents), they are really not ours. We are only their custodians for a period of time.

Children have never asked anyone to stop living their lives because of them! As a parent, any area of your life that you have chosen to stop for the sake of your children (be it education, sport, exercise, work, etc), you did of your choice, your children never asked you to stop anything for their sake!

There are many cases where parents have been greatly disappointed because they expected their children’s lives to be a continuation of theirs, and help them fulfill their unfulfilled dreams and aspirations. Some parents have wished and planned that their children will grow up and study a particular course (which the parents as students fail to study) and become their ‘proud sons and daughters’, only to discover that the child or children as the case may be have their own lives to live, and go 180 degrees against the parent’s wish.

Yet, these parents have their own unique unexplored and unexploited talents and potentials, which they have since abandoned under the guise of ‘sacrifice’ for their children.

Again, how true is the belief that the best way to train or give our children the best education is by sending them to the most expensive schools our income can strenuously accommodate? It is unfortunate that many parents are victims of mass or societal programming when it comes to children’s education. The first and most important teacher(s) in a child’s life are the parents, although, whether or not they are the best teachers is subject to argument as this depends on the parent(s) in question.

Permit me to digress a little; aside being a Life Coach, I am also a senior human resource consultant with one of the leading Human Resources Management & Development Consulting firms in the country. I am saying this so the reader will know what I am about to say is not just mere speculation from a layman’s point of view but that of a professional.

In HR Learning and Development for an organization’s workforce, one of the most potent employee development programmes in terms of acquiring the skills and techniques required for their jobs is through what is known as ‘On-the Job-Training’ programmes. This could be packaged as a mentorship programme or better still as an internship programme for a soon-to-be professional or an employee.

The common factor to these programmes is that the inexperienced individual learns from the experienced person, in real life cases and scenarios, what the job requires – in terms of skills, knowledge and attitudes - using real problems that demand real solutions. The period of internship varies depending on the organization; it could range from three months to one or two years. As mentioned earlier, this is one of the most potent methods of employee training and development.         

However, this is not rocket science - break-through knowledge or discovery, as it is the way most animals (mammals especially) train and bring up their offspring and prepare them for life challenges and survival in a very risky and dangerous wild life, where the rule is ‘Jungle justice’ and ‘Survival of the Fittest’.  Only that the modern human has relegated and given the responsibility of training his/her children to some teachers in some so called ‘best schools’.

We know in home economics, that there is a science to cooking – where every menu or meal has its recipe with specific and detailed measurements of all the ingredients that could or will be used in preparing the meal including the quantity of salt - measured to scale. In reality however, very few homes have measuring scales in their kitchen, and doubt that wives actually use the measuring scale to measure the quantity of salt they use relative to other ingredients when they are cooking our everyday meals. This is because over time, they have learnt the art of cooking and now know by instinct the required quantity of salt for the meals they prepare without consulting the measuring scale. This brings to fore the difference between the Science of things and the Art of things. In home economics as taught in schools they teach the science of cooking and meal preparation but in our various homes we see and eat everyday from the art of cooking and meal preparation.

Now let’s bring this home; in all forms of Mentor - Protégé, Internship or Apprenticeship programmes, the protégés and interns are learning from their mentors the arts of their chosen trades, vocation or profession.

So it is in the Parent – Child(ren) relationship. Parents should take 100 percent responsibility for teaching their children the art of living: the children are the parent’s interns in life. While the science of living could be thought in schools and read in books. It is by learning from an adult that a child can functionally learn the art of living, which (in the author’s opinion) is more important.

Permit me to once again use my HR professional experience as a reference.  One of the services my firm renders to various clients include Executive search and Recruitment Services. Before we embark on any of such assignments, we take time to get or develop (in cases where such is not readily available) the Job Descriptions, detailing the various roles and functions the person that will occupy a position will perform. After this, we will begin to explore with the client what the Person Specification for the position should be, that is, we ask what qualifications should the ideal person have? What skills should the person have, including the number of years of experience in similar jobs and role and specifically from which industry? And so on.

From our experience however, when clients (by clients I mean employers) are asked what the person specification for their various positions are, some attributes have been constant for virtually all job positions from entry level jobs to senior management level jobs, from different set of clients across industries and sectors of the economy, from multinationals to medium and even what could be termed one-man-small-scale industries, enterprise and ventures.

The emphases have been less on the academic qualifications and more on the attributes like:

The Person...

•                    “Must be smart and intelligent,

•                    “Must have an entrepreneurship spirit,

•