I want you to fight for me – A Broken Record

I’ve heard this said before, when you want to know how much a person loves you observe the things they do for you. When you want to know how badly they want to be with you, threaten to leave or and see how hard they fight for you. Why would you insert drama, chaos, and hurt to try and find out how badly a person doesn’t want to see you leave? I promise you, if you do this, that drama and chaos will turn into resentment, and the relationship will definitely end, the only difference is the time and the increased pain.

Now look at this picture on the right, why do you need to make her believe this? What’s the point in starting a negative argument? What good will come of it? It’s like saying that murdering someone is the start of a wonderful time. This picture is trying to convey that a negative thing is actually something positive. If you believe that you might as well also believe that killing millions of people is a good thing. If you think my example is exaggerated, you’ll notice I’m still following the negative-> positive argument.

I’m not being sexist here, you will find some men that do this as well, but from observed statistics you’ll hear this from women more. Now sometimes women start these arguments just to try and force the man into further commitment so that they can stay. But why? Why doesn’t the woman value herself and improve herself so that men beg her to marry them? How you ask? What if the woman was a dream to be with? What if she gave her man space to be himself, wasn’t clingy, wasn’t possessive, wasn’t jealous, helped him love himself more, didn’t have expectations, didn’t start arguments, or take out her emotional mood swings on the man? What if she tried to understand the man instead of trying to get him to conform to her ideals of the “perfect man” from Cosmo’s magazine? Then imagine if the man did the same as well. Now wouldn’t that be a perfect relationship?

Here’s some examples of common sentences which leads to the “fighting for me” romanticism:

“I’m going to leave,”

“Give me a reason why I should stay.”

“You’ll have to fight to keep me,”???

One person will start an argument that leads to almost ending a relationship all for the purpose of making the other “fight” for them. Their goal is to see how bad the other person wants to be with them, so they’ll “fight”. But why? So imagine this scenario between two fictitious characters if you will:

Mary: “I’m sick of all this, I’m getting so tired of this, why should I stay with you? Maybe I should leave you?”

Poor Schmuck: “Mary, no please, don’t leave! I can’t live without you, I’ll do anything.”

Well, this example was just showing Mary’s goal and what she wanted to hear. It seems that people need to know how much the other person wants to be with them. But I ask why? If you have to fight to keep something, it’s not worth it. If it’s meant to be you shouldn’t have to fight for it. It’s simple, if someone starts an argument with me just to see “how badly I wanted them to stay,” why on earth would I want to remain in that relationship?

I don’t know why, but if I wanted to leave and then the other person started begging me to stay I would lose so much respect for them. If someone wants to leave you why would you beg them to stay? Where is your sense of self-pride? Why would you want someone that keeps wanting to leave you? When this happens you get resentful that you’re just focusing on keeping that person but not really being honest with yourself and doing what you want. If you’re not being honest with yourself you can’t be honest with anyone else, it all starts with the self and is shared outwards.

Let’s talk about a famous song by Tracy Chapman, Give Me One Reason. In it she sings, give me one reason to stay and I’ll turn back around. Wait, why does she need to hear one reason from the man? Why can’t she come up with her own reason to stay? Do you base your life decisions on something that someone else has said or do you base it on your own conclusions? If you want to stay in a relationship then you should have a few good reasons, it doesn’t make sense that someone else provides the reasons, for if it’s provided by someone else how can it truly apply to you? Another man’s reasons are not my reasons. 

Why do we fight the current? Why don’t we just flow with it? You can fight a river current all you want, but eventually you will get tired and be dragged with the flow. You can’t ever change the inevitable, only delay it. The things that are meant to be in life need no pain or grief. If you say happiness requires a prerequisite of pain, suffering, and unhappiness I would tell you to shove that deal up where the sun don’t shine. Pain precedes more pain, happiness should precede being happier!

For my final conclusion, if people out there still ask questions like; “but aren’t the best things worth fighting for?” or “I think she/he and I have a good thing going but they can’t see it, so how is it wrong to try to convince them?” Well first thing to know is that we are programmed to think that we should never give up on thing/someone/relationships no matter what the other person wants. But if you don’t allow the other person individuality how is that love? That’s not love or respect, it’s devaluing the other person from making their own choice because you have already decided what it should be.