Love is Cleaning Up Shit
Our obsession with "romantic" media, from harlequin novels to rom-coms, has ruined our understanding of how relationships work.
*Author’s Note* Content Warning - There will be discussions of bodily fluids and other pretty gross shit. I will clearly label this part, so you can scroll right past for the rest of the article.
Today is the day after Valentine’s day. The time of year that makes single people wince and couples scramble to get the perfect gift. I’ve personally never been a fan, save the delicious chocolate heart boxes that are on sale the day after, which has been a tradition over the 10 years my partner and I have been together. Usually it’s dinner, or something, but being that everything is fucking expensive, so we just relaxed.
This time of year makes me think of an article I read years ago about how our definitions of love are wrong. It stuck with me for over 10 years. Here is a quote:
Love can be messy and complicated and painful. Lives built together can be sloppy and ugly and unpleasant. The best definition of love we have is finding a friend willing to roll up some sleeves and get to work, by your side, in the shit.
Love isn’t that manic, butterflies-in-stomach, loads of sex every goddamn day from morning til night feeling. Sure, that can be part of it. You should be fulfilled by your partner. But it’s not just that. The ideas we have about love from our media makes it look like love conquers all, but looking at real life, that is far from the case. Not to mention the amount of red flags disguised as charming and quirky. (this is only one, you can find MANY write ups about this).
These things have seeped into the collective consciousness from a young age. As much as I love Beauty and the Beast, in any other context that would written to show that this character is abusive. Yes, he has an impressive amount of shit going on, being cursed to be a monster, but that doesn’t really give him a pass to act the way he does. As someone who has a partner with a temper, (and has one themself), both of us work incredibly hard to not take it out on the other person. Are we perfect? No, there have been some rough days (guess why? It’s orange), but we always seek to solve things without resorting to screaming at one another or name calling. Not to mention the ultimatums, (Eat with me or starve). Yet many, many little girls fell in love with this movie.
Worse still is The Little Mermaid, a movie my mother very much hated. After I had seen it, my mother had a LONG conversation with me about how I should never, ever, give up part of myself for any romantic partner, and how I should absolutely never conform for anyone, or compromise myself to please someone.(Which honestly carried me my whole life). And this is JUST two of the movies children were exposed to. And we can go further back. Snow White and Sleeping Beauty not only have that kissing when the person cannot consent, but also follow that “love at first sight” and “Pre-ordained romance” trope that is just awful. Give me Maleficent any day.
And then as we get older, we get into things like the Twilight series, which, well… I could write a novel about it. So we’ll just skip over that one. Not that it is the only offender. Here is a brief article about the prevalence of these tropes, but you can find many more like them. And, not to make too fine a point, these are marketed to young girls and teens. The media they consume does help shape their worldview (which is why my mother had that conversation with me about the mermaid). These books can just be fiction and escapist fantasy, but if you don’t have the conversations afterward about why this is unhealthy, it will set them up to tolerate intolerable behavior.
It doesn’t change as we get older
If you look at media now that is geared towards adults, from the classics in film and TV to today, you are still fed this bullshit. Here is a small study done about the effects of romantic movies for people between the ages of 17-22. Luckily, a lot of people are against many of these behaviors, but the more subtle manipulations still have a decent approval rating. Here is one of many articles you can find about how awful some of these relationships are.
And you see it played out in real life. How many of you or your friends have had these scenarios play out, but instead of being cute and endearing, they are, at best, manipulative and annoying, or at worst, straight up abusive? I know I have. And part of it is that we are inundated with it from a young age. Again, I am not saying you should feel bad. It’s fiction. But when people try to emulate the relationship of say, whoever the fuck the characters are in 50 Shades of Grey (which started out as a Twilight fanfiction and the author changed the names), things can go really fucking wrong, not to mention that there are some kinks you need to practice first, like knife-play and breath-play. I’m on the edge of that community, but I know enough to know what a healthy BDSM relationship looks like. And it’s not healthy. Think of how much different it would be if people had the same conversation with their kids that my mom did with me. She explained to me why this wasn’t OK, and why she never wanted me to be like that. That I was my own person, and that I controlled my own body. It’s helped me in so many ways. Because all of this shit, isn’t what love is. Love is, literally, cleaning up shit.
If you are squeamish, stop reading here and scroll to the end. Things will get messy.
I’ve talked a bit about my childhood, and how my mom was the primary caregiver to me and my dad. My dad had MS, which, in the 80s, was terminal. If you lived long enough, you wouldn’t want to. From ages 6-9, my father had gone from a wheelchair to being bedridden. For those of you who have never seen end-stage MS, it is ugly. My father had a closed casket funeral, because his body was twisted and gnarled. My mother had to learn how to change and clean a feeding tube, catheterize and change a catheter bag, and also clean a bedpan. Though I do want to point out that a man is far more likely to leave his wife is she becomes sick, that is another issue for another day.
It’s not just in my case. The article I linked from Cracked talks about how one of the ways we show love, for our animals and even children, is cleaning up disgusting fluids on the regular. My husband has absolutely cleaned vomit off the bed for me when I had a little too much. I’ve done the same for them. It’s a part of caring for someone. You take care of them. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows. Those “Happily Ever Afters” don’t exist. Relationships take real work. You need to choose your partner every single day, even if you are so angry at them that you want to scream.
It’s safe now after this point!
My partner and I met long before we dated. Our friendship informed how our relationship would be. It’s one of love, service (Not in the weirdo Christian way, but actually taking the time to do little things for your partner like run a bath when they’re running ragged), intimacy, and joy. We are not perfect. We are human, and we do our best. But we have a healthy, loving relationship where we are each other’s best friend. We can bring up issues without fear, and we can be vulnerable around each other. We are a team, and we try to be better every day. I would say we are soulmates and believe it, but it wasn’t through some mystical bullshit. It was through hard work, dedication, and being able to put ego aside to actually find common ground in disagreements. It’s apologizing for when we make mistakes, and sharing in each others joy and triumphs. Hell, I am writing this on the new laptop that my partner saved up for for months. They calls this little newsletter my real job, and my shitty Aetna job my secret identity. He catches me writing, and has a big stupid grin on his face. Every day they will tell me how proud they are of me. And they know that I have their back in everything. Yes, I consider us soulmates, but that takes work. Love at first sight doesn’t exist.
And as for my mom, after my dad died, she didn’t date until I was 18, and will never remarry. She loved my father deeply. She “knows” in that Catholic way, that he’s watching out for us. She misses him so much, even as she is living her life. I was so lucky to see what real love looks like, something a lot of my peers haven’t been able to.
We need to re-examine what our media is showing us, and teach young girls and women to be empowered, and to look for real, deep, meaningful love. I have my “Happily Ever After”, but it’s not a static thing. It takes work every single day, and I’m perfectly happy with that.